Pikmin 4: The Maws of Sand
I was playing Pikmin 4 these last few weeks and I had almost forgotten how much time passed between Pikmin 4 and Pikmin 3. I had played Pikmin 3 once near release and twice recently with my best friend on the Switch (also near release).
I counted the years.
Pikmin 3 was sometime around 2013 so- a Decade? That can’t be right- the one thing I remember about Pikmin 3 was 9 excruciating years of wondering when the sequel (then slated for the Wii) to Pikmin 2 (my prized possession) would release.
9 years. Nearly as long as a timeframe I could reasonably and seamlessly remember. Hell, I less seamlessly remember the time between Pikmin 1 and 2 (2.5–3ish years, although I would not secure beyond a rental copy until the 6th grade) AND the time between selecting Luigi’s Mansion’s “Watch a Pikmin(TM) Movie” and playing Pikmin. I watched that trailer for months when Luigi’s mansion was the only thing I owned for the GameCube; I wondered what such a weird, ugly, and quiet game actually could be. I thought on all this, and realized that 10 years had passed between Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4, released when I was Today Years old.
These stupid, beautiful, and meticulous games span my entire life. Pikmin 4 is literally a culmination of it- and having picked it to the bone, it sure does feel that way.
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SECTION 1 of 5
The Impact Site
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When I was originally drafting this piece, the previous sentence was to express “Pikmin 4 is the real sequel to Pikmin 2.” I still feel this way- Pikmin 3 is such a mixed bag that deserves unpacking to contrast with Pikmin 4. Someday (not today) I will etch the greatness of the first games in granite, but Pikmin 4 contrasts Pikmin 3 intentionally enough that we must examine these differences. In other words, Pikmin 3 is going to get shafted today. Let’s make this quick, and not speak too ill of the departed.
The first two Pikmin games sit together in a nice package, and when millions of families lined up around bestbuys on the night of November 18th (like me) it became a rush of “when can we get ___ on the Wii.” The Wii’s large library is it’s legacy today. From the present, the flow of time is certain. From the past, time looms as an incoherent wall to scale. The distance between 2007 and 2009 may seem so factual that the interval between becomes fictional, but *I* on the other hand clearly remember the excitement when the *Weather Channel* Functionality finally came online.
When was Pikmin coming? Miyamoto said it was complete. Nearly done!
Of course, we have all these filthy (fine) people who DIDN’T buy a GameCube, and my copy of Pikmin 2 was already a collectors item on the day I was gifted it. If you’re going to release a Pikmin 3, you have two ways to welcome new players:
Release the games on your fancy new system, to get folks used to the new controls you plan on using
Focus the design of your game to help newer players.
I would frame this as a “pick one” but they went for both. I do not think it was for the best. Let’s break it down:
(some) People hated Pikmin’s clunky, analog controlled cursor. It’s a miracle how well it works, even if it kind of doesn’t for a lot of people. The wii remote allowed folks to twin stick it: move with the nunchuck, aim with the ‘mote. I never picked up these versions- if you did, you probably only got the first one. The Second wouldn’t release until 2012 (6 years after the launch of the wii) in North America due to the Vlassic™ Stork having very tough lawyers to work with.
(legally I must clarify that is a joke)
This wouldn’t be a problem, as Pikmin 3 wouldn’t release until 2013. On the Wii U.
The original controls of Pikmin 3 are so clunky that no, I will not write about them. Instead, imagine playing with a full controller you had to point at the screen with an Ipad(™) on your lap that was extremely mandatory. They had to patch in better controls later; I only point this out to illustrate how much the Wii ports ended up describing a game that never manifested.
PikWIIn 2’s late release was also irrelevant- The Third game’s approach to “focusing the design” was to proclaim that Pikmin 2 wasn’t really good, but also Pikmin 2 TOTTALLY fixed things that needed to be fixed in Pikmin 1. I only understand this conclusion in context of the sacks of lawyer cash required to ensure a Duracell™ battery stars in your game.
Axe grinding aside, the first two games are so diametrically opposed they form two halves of an odd sort of whole. Pikmin 2 answers the of howls of freaks who “want more still” after wrapping up Pikmin, and delivers in a satisfying way. It does this by simplifying complexities and increasing quantity- its the wider, shallow, (and louder) lake to the first games deepest well. And I like shallow lakes! Its Summer fun!
Pikmin 3, in throwing away 2’s bombastic scope but keeping its abstractions builds a shallow well.
Pikmin 3 understands the first game is about plotting and efficiency to succeed, so it forces you to automate captains by zooming out, going god mode and seeing every detail on the map. It understands Pikmin 2’s weirder, tougher scenarios so it invents clunky, multi-phase traditional boss fights to gate progression.
Pikmin 3 understands the strategy controlling 2 captains offered, so it throws in a third captain that can *also* be auto-piloted. It understands the WaterWraith was the best idea Pikmin 2 had, so a less lethal lampoon of the encounter is the climax of the game.
Pikmin 3 understands the first game’s timer was cool but stressful, so treasures collected extend the time limit and allowed a reset to any previous day (yes, we all think this idea is in fact cool and good, you can put the gun down). It understood Pikmin 2’s flexibility with optional challenges so hoards of treasures dot the main path to trivialize the doomsday clock, but a treasure in a linear hallway behind an exhaustive 8 minute puzzle will ask the freaks in the room to please form a line.
It’s also the kind of game to introduce Wing Pikmin, Pikmin on literally a different plane over *all* water, only to introduce blue Pikmin AFTER gifting an entire squad of Wing Pikmin. Wing Pikmin that, if simply pointed at a treasure in a linear hallway (behind an exhaustive 8 minute puzzle will dunk on the heads of the all the freaks (me, by the way) forming a line) will fly to grab the treasure in 5 seconds.
Pikmin 3 cooked for 9 years to figure out how to speak to two very different games. It’s a charming little adventure game where you throw some guys at some fruits, and I thought it was real funny some of those guys were adorable, unsettling rocks.
Speaking of unsettling rocks, Pikmin 3 ends on the teaser “is this meteorite that keeps hitting people maybe sentient?” which wasn’t really supposed to be teaser (I’ll give you a hint, there are Pikmin who are literally just rocks!!!) and then vanished. Well, from my life anyways. A year later I would meet my best friend, and then 9 more years would pass by in an instant.
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Section 2 of 5
Forrest of Hope
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The first two Pikmin games sit together in a nice package, and when millions of families lined up around BestBuys on the night of March 2nd (Not me, I was busy failing college at the time) it became a rush of “when can we get ___ on the Switch.” It’s easy to look at the Switch digital catalogue and remember its walmart containment bin’s worth of games, but I remember mostly playing major releases and Astro Bears.
When was Pikmin coming? Miyamoto said it was complete. Nearly done!
Of course, we have all these filthy (fine) people who DIDN’T buy a Wii U, and my copy of Pikmin 3 was already a colectors item on the day I decided not to purchase it physically. If you’re going to release a Pikmin 4, you have two options about how to welcome new players:
1. Release the games on your fancy new system, to get folks used to the new controls you plan on using
2. Focus the design of your game to help newer players.
I would frame this as a “pick one” but they went for both. This time, they nailed it.
Perhaps you read what was an admittedly mean section about Pikmin 3’s cowardice and thought I must have wrote that on a stressful day (I did). I did like Pikmin 3! And still do! I really do think its this nice Adventure approach to a Pikmin game was an interesting attempt to make the series approachable- a very real criticism of The first 2 games. I think it took this approach by feeling like there was more to cut than keep about Pikmin, and as someone who loves the first game to death I can’t agree.
In following Pikmin 1’s conventions, the series bought into sever limitations- when Pikmin were slow, innefective, easily destractable, and hard to coordinate, Allowing 100 Pikmin seemed like fair game. When Pikmin 2 made your plant guys smarter, it made the world chaotically (read: not always fun for folks) more violent to match, while disallowing propagation of the newer, better types of Pikmin. Pikmin 3 “solved” this by allowing the player to steamroll with a full squad but giving bosses armor to not instantly die to a perfectly coordinated squad of 100.
In addition, Pikmin 1 was balanced around having 3 types that (not perfectly tbh) complimented each other in unison. The sequels added more Pikmin types because, well, a sequel is usually a matter of “where can I put more.” Pikmin 1’s generalist classes ended up either lagging behind or redesigned into more specific, lock-and-key types. You have the classic designers dilemma- balance something too low? A player never uses it. Balance something too high? The player uses ONLY it. While Pikmin 2 made the new Pikmin a very strict (which has issues its own)and limited resource, Pikmin 3 saw fit to make guys who couldn’t get squished (the only remaining insta-kill) do more damage when thrown AND guys who literally could fly over (most all) hazards AND allow you to farm them. I don’t blame Pikmin 3 in particular here, it recognized its own problems given how it trashed Pikmin 2’s additions to prevent (very real) crowding of design.
And then the timer- we all can agree the Pikmin 3 “rolling timer” was a nice idea. In practice struggling players were stressed (or worse- had their time wasted to simply re-do another day) while anyone who had played a Pikmin game before felt the timer disappear (except for one excellently timed sequence). Pikmin 1’s timer accomplished its own goals, but it suffers from the “being far too stressful” problem that turns a great many of great people (like my mom! She’s great!) off from playing. Also, 30 days as an approachable time limit -well, limited the scope of the game. Make the limit 60 or larger and you have a number too nebulous.
I feel like Pikmin 3 really thought through the “too many types” and “how about that hard timer?” and fought through the sand to not be swallowed by the weight of itself.
When Pikmin 3 deluxe released, it tried to sell itself on containing new, challenging content with a focus on efficiency. These were nicely dressed up mission modes, but would be a mission statement of sorts. It also featured co-op, something that Pikmin 4 would NOT feature. Splitting up the captains so you only had to manage one AI captain felt a WHOLE lot more charming to use.
Co-op meant 2 people on the couch were going to have to split 100 Pikmin right down the middle. Turns out- when the Pikmin are maybe a bit too good, having a small amount means you value every decision you make about what each exact quantity of Pikmin is doing.
HM!
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Section 3 of 5:
The Forrest Navel
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The Forrest Navel is the 3rd level of the original Pikmin- it’s where the game slams the cards down and tells you what who it is. I’m always shocked its perfection as a stage is not discussed loudly and in depth, if not to celebrate Pikmin’s vision realized, then to at least summon some great and terrible wisdom about map design. Some day, I will hope to put my thoughts into words about the Navel. Today is not that day.
Pikmin 4, a game I will (finally) talk about pulls a neater trick- uniting 2 different approaches to expanding on a game designed to be small. I’ve written at length about ghosts of horticulture’s past so I could list the things Pikmin 4’s solutions to all the thoughts you just got done reading:
No more Time Limit
Dandori? Is that what our game always was about?
Forcing Players to work with smaller squad sizes
More meaningful things to find in the world
Customizing your experience- because you can’t buy all the toys
Restricting quantity of types
Getting Blue Pikmin at the right time
Better integration of “superfluous” content into the game
There are like 5 different games here if you look at it
This list is focused on the question “how do you make a BIGGER Pikmin that isn’t hateful or monotonous?”
Also, this is it by the way- Spoilers from here on out. We got a lot of walls to break and brides to make.
No More Time Limit
Pikmin 3 tried. I liked that idea! That one time where Louie jacks your reserve and you have to get enough fruit THAT DAY or you for real GAME OVER is a fun change of pace, especially since you discover and have to propagate blue Pikmin to advance the plot. Once you cleared a few juices (which the games mandatory bosses dump a few days worth) its purpose is to demonstrate that the Wii U lags a LOT when doing fluid simulations.
Pikmin 2 didn’t try. While I’m not sure why that game has days at all, it did understand you can’t enforce a limitation that *isn’t* fictional and make a game of its size. Its what I do admire about 3- it tried. We learned the result, so I’m glad they designed a game without it.
Free from the maw of time, they could instead make a big game as wide as the sun. Wait, why have the days at all?
Dandori? Is that what our game was always about?
The most recent developer interviews outlined the design process for the original game- they designed the rule set around the simple act of makin little guys do little things and gettin more little guys to do more little things. They found it fun to give you a challenge with a hard fail state (30 days to game over) and force you to do better.
What’s interesting is what they identify as the primary motivator- misery. They made those Pikmin (really creepy) bugs that die adorably and pitifully. They’re your little guys and they do little things, and if you have them do it wrong they all form a 100 Pikmin pancake. They made you love your dumb children and threatened to burn them (and you) alive if you don’t play the game with some thought and consideration.
I do like being threatened in this manner with consent but I know my mom doesn’t! And I’m not sure its what I enjoy about Pikmin either. The time limit stared you in the face and dared you to best it, but the results screen at the end of the game dared you to do it better- less days, less deaths, and more Pikmin.
It was never being held hostage that made me love you, it was your leader-board. It was the little efficiency puzzle each stage gave- how many guys do I send here? If I attack these guys with everyone its safer, but I *could* be building a bridge! Have I grown enough guys for the long haul?
Oh wait (I’m sure the designers said) I guess there are ways that don’t involve mortality or waiting until the game is over to get you thinking about that efficiency puzzle. First thing to do:
Forcing Players to work with smaller squad sizes
If you have 100 guys, and put 10 on a treasure to send back home as you venture forward, you pretty much don’t even think about it. You’re going to be good no matter who you send home! You’d have to send home like 4 or 5 treasures to possibly run down to 50 or less guys in your squad! What could the game possibly throw at you to actually make you fearful?
When you have 60 guys, 2 treasures can put you below 40 Pikmin, which is just enough to allow a Bulborb to take a bite before it dies. So much of Pikmin 4 is about forward momentum, death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts style puzzle solving that I found myself rolling around with squads of 20, looking for one more thing to bring home or build or clear or whatever before I naturally started looping back around to pick my guys back up. It’s a maddening cycle of explore, exterminate, exploit, expand (the squad), and regroup to do it all again with a topped off party. Even if the dog does some of it (we’ll get to the dog!) you’re still such an active part of *when* you shift gears moment-to-moment.
The game is bold enough to start you off with a squad size of 20, and slowly crank it up to 60 for the most casual player, 80 for a thorough one, and 100 for checklist lover by the time the main campaign is over. So when does the game decide to upgrade your squad? Actually that’s on you
More meaningful things to find in the world.
Pikmin 2 had some treasures give you abilities as a reward for clearing harder caves. Pikmin 3 had a much better idea of treasures extending the doomsday clock. While 2 is the game about getting rich, Pikmin 4 is the only game where I feel like I’m finding *stuff.*
The Squad Size is increased by finding Flarlic, awkwardly named bulbs who boost your squad capacity by 10. They’re hidden in caves as well as the overworld, and there are more flarlic than you need for a full squad, so players will boost their cap at different times.
You don’t have to pick up any Flarlic you see- it has my brain spinning: how far can I get without getting any Flarlic?
The Onions are actually the same way- there are more Blue or Yellow onions than you need, and any one of them could be your first. It’s a lot of redundancy but it means different players can encounter Pikmin types in different places (more on that later.)
Treasures are here, and are a part of the progression quest in the campaign. They aren’t all of it, but enough of it so you’ll grab stuff now so you don’t have to grab it later.
Pikmin 2’s upgrade treasures are gone, replaced by shop items bought by sparklium. Instead of Pikmin 3’s puzzle piles (you threw Pikmin at a red pile to build a red bridge, or a terracotta pile to build a pot), you have piles of *sparkle stuff* that can be spent to make any bridge, ramp, puzzle solver what-have you! Coincidentally, you have to spend the same material in the shop. Wait- Shopping?
Customizing your experience- because you can’t buy all the toys
The science shop holds all sorts of game-breaking, occasionally gating upgrades. A headlamp to make caves not so evil and dark, a fireproof suit, extra defense, as well as protection for your dog. It also has consumable items novice players will enjoy- bombs (of both smart and dumb variety), items that stun, freeze or distract, and what functions as extra lives or health boosts.
When I was going through the game, I thought “yeah I’m gonna have to hold off on buying stuff because so much of this would make the whole game too easy.” I did just that, but as the game *really* gets cookin’ I started to spend my amassed fortune and come up short. The game plays its economy so tight that if you buy a lot of items, you might lock some of the last upgrades (OR some of the shortcuts in the world) in the shop behind grinding. None of them are necessary, but you just can’t take home ALL of the Bionicles.
(the blue one was my favorite)
The dog works the same way. You might hold off on upgrading my sweet little boy, but you find you end up making purposeful choices that impact how you play.
Okay yes, I am praising this game for having 2 upgrade trees, a thing games figured out for several decades. Pikmin never had it! And it is legitimately the reason my best friend picked up Pikmin. We ended up buying different things! Pikmin is all about small decisions, so its nice to see large ones reflect how a campaign turns out. Before, the biggest choice you could make was “how much of each guy do I pick out today” and honestly, unless you were high skill level player you were splitting your squad out even-stevens. Pikmin 4 is more honest about this in having an “auto pick” button that chooses how much of each Pikmin and which types you want to use on this map. Wait what?
Restricting quantity of types
Because the wait for Pikmin 3 was so long, a common GameFAQs thread was “design Pikmin 3.” Most ideas (as all ideas are) were fan-fiction, but one survived the sands and stuck with me past the cutoff of all my memories hitching a ride until heat death. I’m going to retell this post to you, because the original thread has since been deleted:
New Pikmin types:
-Orange/wing Pikmin: They have wings and can circumvent obstacles, but are weaker.
-Black/Claw Pikmin: They don’t fight better, but their claws make it so they don’t get shaken off. They can also climb up walls that other Pikmin cannot.
But wait, isn’t 7 too many? Don’t worry, each Level has a unique set of circumstances that bans 2 types of Pikmin from being used!
I thought about this thread literally 13 times while playing through Pikmin 4, a game that tells you “no really, you can’t have more than 3 types of guys out, unless its in a cave which at best you’re probably having 4.”
I included the bit about the Claw Pikmin because they show the kid knew they didn’t have to balance a Pikmin against all the other types if you could just limit who you could have in the first place. They were also this interesting solution to players who didn’t enjoy the soft turn based structure of Pikmin combat, where you try and whistle your guys off an animal *before* they shake off your guys. It makes me think of the Ice Pikmin, guys who are reccomended on all but one map who simplify combat at the cost of Pikmin counts or points (you don’t get a corpse for freezing a foe). These guys also freeze the water and aren’t bugged by the cold- you have to keep the ice Pikmin in the lake to keep it frozen, and with the squad size being low, any medium size of water requires a majority of your party being these guys. They’re also abysmal at attacking, so I mostly used them as worker-bees.
You could also just stop using them after the first map- you don’t need them! You can use them to get blues on the first map and then (mostly) ignore them altogether. In fact, that might be good as giving up ice means you could use any number of the other overpowered Pikmin:
-Purples, who can move a treasure by themselves and demolish health bars in seconds when thrown
-White Pikmin who are faster than your dog is capable of going
-Rock Pikmin who when used with Oatchi can delete all enemies from the game and are much more common than purples
-Pink(wing) who are super rare until literally the last map of the game but still can just straight up ignore the map as they peacefully take resources home in a straight line.
Sure, the game is willing to solve the question “what guys do I need to not have a bad time,” but it’s not going to give you the smart solution. Fire beasts are the only enemies who can’t be touched by other Pikmin types (probably by your dog though with an upgrade), so hazards like electricity are begging to be skipped. Poor yellow Pikmin- you can’t ever be independently useful.
You don’t need every type of guy, so it’s truly a choice to use any of your guys. It has my head spinning- could I beat the campaign without even *seeing* a blue Pikmin?
Getting Blue Pikmin at the right time
It’s worth exploring this topic- Blue Pikmin are essentially the most naked of all Pikmin. They are literally featureless in silhouette and their resistance is entirely passive. Water is a natural barrier that you can pass through, but your other guys cannot. This ability is the *only* real ability they possess since your entire squad no longer walks off a bridge into the lake for fun (blues are excellent lifeguards). They are your stock guys, and are recommended for half of the stages in the game.
If you wait to reveal this essential but simple type until the end, you conjure up notions of “finally.” Pikmin 4 understands that it’s immediately fun to get you using blues to build convenient paths for other Pikmin to navigate, rather than promising you a good time 8 hours later.
What’s smart about Blue Pikmin is that they reveal the games best balancing tool: not giving you onions. For the main campaign, you will discover all 3 basic onion types before the end of the second stage, with only an Ice onion hidden away in the final level of the campaign. Those overpowered guys I listed in the last section? You can find them in caves in small numbers, and every time one of them dies you die in real life. They do have a single onion to find, but they’re all locked behind the post-game (with Pinks smartly the last one you find, and purple/white hidden behind really evil challenges).
No game has really balanced the Pikmin types. Plenty are quick to point out Pikmin 4’s inability to even them all out, but that’s all moot because the weaker ones are (for most of the game) the only ones you can grow, which is boon of their own.
Even if you follow the games suggestions, you will still end up playing with novel setups in the game. Let’s talk about that.
Better integration of “superfluous” content into the game
“You’re really hard on Pikmin 3, it’s really good in challenge mode! They even have the have the Pikmin 2 types in there!”
It turns out, I am a big baby and I do think booting into weird little minimaps one after the other from the title screen feels superfluous. Multiplayer? Against a CPU? For fun? How could a computer compete against me, certifiably not a child?
Did you get into DK64’s weird combat shooter mode because you *really* wanted to? Were you actually mainstays in Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal’s online multiplayer? You cant lie to me, or I’ll cry.
As a designer, why doom your mode as an “extra?” Is narrative coherency the end-all-be-all of whether your game is *real* or not? Has narrative coherency ever stopped you before? The flowers have NUMBERS on them! They don’t even necessarily match how many guys you get from them!
For an entire decade you wrote fractions upside down!!!!!!!!!
In Pikmin 4, sometimes a cave is actually a nice mission mode style level where you are prescribed guys and a small scenario with a time limit. As long as you get a bronze, you get rewarded with a guy who gets you a dog point, and if paired with a night mission may net you a dog point (or more). You are also required to do these competitive challenges to advance the story. You can also get medals on these, and the last 2 are Satanic.
You could never get me to turn on multiplayer mode on Star Fox: Assault against a computer (and NO, not because they don’t have any) and I was a very lonely child! It turns out if you make the CPU a “bad guy” and make it so I can play it without having to go back to the main menu, I’m super down for it!
Turns out I’m just really ignorant! I’m probably not the only one, so good on Pikmin 4 for getting babies like me to have fun in a way that breaks up the pace of the main game!
And not once did I have to pilot a stupid car!
There are like 5 different games here if you look at it.
Yes, you have the main game, Mission mode, and the Multiplayer. You also have a sort of second campaign that climaxes with boss rush- a really intense one at that.
In the lead up to Pikmin 4’s release, there was a 3 part dev interview which revealed a couple interesting things:
A. Miyamoto was knowingly lying when he so famously said that Pikmin 4 was “in development! Nearly done!”
B. The devs were aware that people more or less saw Pikmin 1 and 2 as a dichotomy that fans would sort themselves into.
Some liked the simplicity of reaching organizational zen, others liked the more relaxed, brutal bloody fist fight. They curiously do not mention 3 being a part of this conversation. They were confident that 4 would go beyond “appeasing both” but instead unite everyone. Pikmin 4’s main campaign takes Pikmin 3’s approach to melding the dichotomy to heart, but instead it brings Pikmin’s accidental Dandori philosophy, swaps out the stick for the carrot, and lays out Pikmin 2’s flexible, longer structure for delivering content.
I’ve put off spoiling this for as long as I can, but we have to talk about the Olimar Campaign.
When you beat the main campaign, you unlock a new mode- play as Olimar in remixed versions of the first 4 stages with a tighter time limit, no caves, and only the basic 3 Pikmin types. Your goal? Get 30 placed parts in only 15 days, spread across the 4 stages.
Wow! That sure sounds like they cheated by just putting literally Pikmin 1 AND 2 into one game! You even have to beat this mode in order to unlock the maddening challenges that gate the purple and white onions. If you had abstained from using any tech because you thought the game would simply fail to challenge you, bust out your billfold and give me all your money because there is an old dude at the bottom of a well who’s going to kick your ass if you dare to try and get the white Pikmin onion, let alone the purple one.
There’s just literally. So much here. They crammed all this game into this game! There’s a tower defense mode that’s also completely new I haven’t talked about! I cant believe I was able to touch on the entire structure of the game in this section- let’s get some space to breathe…
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Part 4 of 5
The Distant Spring
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We have seen the game, and conquered its structure at its most rigid. Where do we go from here? I suppose we take a look at the stones we’ve yet to turn over, enjoy the small pleasures left, the challenges within, and reflect on what we have forgotten or ignored.
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Pikmin 4 *includes so much content for the freaks. Oddly, the transition from “paced game for everyone” to “good evil game you want to consume” seems to happen BEFORE the main campaign closes, rather than after. From the one play-through I’ve seen of someone near and dear to me, I anticipate this might just be the folly of “when do you end your game?” creeping into my brain again.
The modern answer to “when do you end your game?” is sometimes never- Pikmin 4 does not do this, but instead gives you 3 different endings, none of which play when you complete the game. In fact, the game unlocks a button to play the ending (and see the results screen- no standardized leader-board) whenever you feel like you’re done. I can’t imagine this feels good to anyone, especially since the ending it plays is one you already saw. It’s not a new compromise, but its a uniquely a straightforward one.
That’s why I’m not talking about the games ending during the Final Trial, despite the fun (tacky) structure of this review. It’s simply a nice movie the game plays for you.
……
Some people are under the impression this is a reboot- there’s a few verb tenses to indicate that, but the structure of Piklopedia entries and rest of the narrative seem to indicate its a sequel. Hell, the really funny twist that Louie is *around* is a relic of the Wii U edition of Pikmin 3’s ending- don’t get the best one, and Alph will offhandedly mention that WHOOPS they forgot Louie!
Pikmin 3 deluxe retcons this, but given that it does so in DLC (and 4 has a throwaway vague excuse for why Louie would be there) I want to believe the Switch port deletes mention of leaving Louie behind to make the 4th act twist be an actual surprise.
…
I’ve written this section after my second edit of this article, and upon some fact checking I stumbled across diary log that confirms this game is a reboot- it imagines Pikmin 2 as a bad dream. I don’t thinks this all makes sense? I write in the next section about something that doesn’t add up with being a reboot, and it’s clear that the game (and its world) is explicitly building off the worlds of 3 previous, linearly ordered games. None of it makes much sense and it’s buried in diary entry in the Ipad, so I’m seeing fit to ignore it like I think most players will.
I mostly have fun with it, so I promise I’m not doing the weirdo cinemsins things. I promise.
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Perhaps I have sounded harsh on Pikmin 3, but understand: Pikmin 4 harbors more resentment than I ever did. I liked the 3 Koapites! We like Louie because he’s deranged and has definitely eaten a Pikmin and we like the President because he has a car horn and we like Olimar because he’s Red, but the Koapites really did play off each other nicely!
That was a joke about Olimar by the way- he’s interesting in that he’s a package man who gets shipwrecked and immediately starts documenting things as an amateur biologist- he’s awfully forlorn and is very sympathetic despite the dire or idiotic situations he finds himself in. I like having him around! I like that the thing he’s actually bad at (in the text) is doing his Job!
In Pikmin 4 you do meet a pink, blue, and green Koapite in your journey, and 2 of them are even relatives of the Pikmin 3 protagonists! This is really weird! Why isn’t it them. It was totally them, right? Was it because of a narrative reason? If it was a reboot, they could have just been there! Even if it isn’t, its just so weird! Did they have them in the game and decide last minute not to include them?
Whats that? The Models have been ripped and the actors have the names of the Pikmin 3 captains? Oh.
……
The Glow Pikmin are interesting because they are a much more brutal way of including Bulbmin. Bulbmin were a weird Pikmin type in the second game that spawned if you had lost Pikmin in (some) caves, and would be impervious to all elemental hazards. They were a “get out of jail free” card for struggling players- but not one that was invincible- and they couldn’t leave whatever cave you found them in.
Glow Pikmin are exactly the same (better in fact) but you have to earn them through the night missions.
Night missions are mandatory to a point, but only to the point of playing thee boring baby content and quitting. I did exactly this, and only had an excellent time with the tower defense mode when I was cleaning up the last of the percentage points. There was even one hell of a surprise I’ll go into later!
The better you do at these missions (the more glow Pikmin you have left over) the more glow seeds you get- Bulbmin that fit in your pocket and can be whipped out when you need them.
The final cave is so hard that I blew through all 78 of my reserves to be able to get through the cave in one go.
The night missions are worth playing, and I would like if they add more missions to all maps, and I would love if they are as hard as the final 2 missions.
…….
Pikmin 2 *is* a cruel game- it’s the kind of game that sends a tank fish who shoots bombs and wanders aimlessly until it finds you. When I finished both original games when I was a child and proceeded to wait about 6 years for Pikmin 3, things like the Waterwraith left a spicy taste in my mouth. Pikmin 3 does NOT tread down this difficult curve, and so I went into Pikmin 4 not expecting to relive said terror.
Sure, I saw that they put the funny spider with a gun. You can get a speed upgrade that allows you to outrun it! Did they have it in them to do the Waterwraith? Even if they do, they’re going to make it something much more cinematic right?
Actually, they put the original submerged castle in Pikmin 4. Actually it’s kind of harder? You go in with less guys, you don’t get guaranteed Bulbmin throughout it so you have maybe your dog cover you on the hazards IF you got the right upgrades. Sure, you do have your dog, and Snitchbugs *HAVE* been deleted from the game, but there’s also so many more time-wasters. Even the maps I already knew how to clear I found myself being short on time, having to gather my guys and really think my way out of that level.
Surely though, they’re not bringing *that* guy back right?
My favorite thing to do is tell first time players of Pikmin 1 that if you can get to the Distant Spring before day 15, find the giant egg, punch it a few times but DON’T BREAK IT- do something else and at the end of the day you will receive a golden pearl that nets you 100 Pikmin. I’ve already given this advice once, and I’m not lying! I’m simply omitting that doing this summons the Smokey Progg, an enemy that stalks your onions to kill Pikmin that you summon instantly *before* they hit the ground.
Surely though, they’re not
And definitely not two of
…….
We never got to the dog.
Like the upgrades, I figured the dog would “ruin” the game’s decision making. Yes, I’ll admit it: I was having lame thoughts BEFORE a game came out. If you just have a GUY who can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, why would you need 100 little guys who only do some things? If he’s on the cover of the box, aren’t they going to make you play with him all the damn time? You’re letting me upgrade him so he can just take a whole treasure by himself?
Isn’t all this TOO powerful?
You know, you only get one dog. Isn’t that sad?
That guy can do anything and everything, but only one anything or everything at a time. Want to jump up some hills for a shortcut? Better have your dog around! Want to swim across water with your entire squad safe? Hope that pup ain’t working! Do you want to have an easier time keeping your group moving around an enemy? Sure hope you didn’t send the good boy to gather all the idle Pikmin to you (which he’s safer than the device who does so).
He’s a broader part of the puzzle, and one of the few tools in the game that you get exactly *one* of.
…….
There actually *has* been a retcon in the Pikmin series I had never realized until now- I only noticed it as some Matpat types asked some real weird questions about the “lore” of the game.
Pikmin 2 re-uses 4 of the 5 maps from the first game, but edits them for a novel experience: the forest of hope has its tree’s blossom, and you land in the what was once the lagoon, now landscaped by clearly (giant) human hands for a garden. On another map, you land where the emperor Bulblax once stood, now covered by a discarded street sign. The area was changed, and it was by clearly human hands. Olimar states (as a winking joke to the player) that tectonic activity is volatile for the planet to change this drastically.
It was always clear to me, and I imagine many others, that the Pikmin games are just happening in our world, on our planet, because who’s really looking at ants? It’s cute! I’m sure the Prince of the Cosmos is off camera making a mess of things too! I certainly did not read an Adventure Time twist before or after Adventure time would premiere (3 years prior to Pikmin 3) and conclude (5 years (!) prior to Pikmin 4)!
As it turns out, I was a stupid baby child when I played through Pikmin: When you pick Olimar’s Geiger counter it lets out the most wretched of ear piercing noises.
I always assumed Geiger counters sounded like that- I now realize that a functioning Geiger ominously ticks around basic amounts of radiation. Olimar’s working just fine, and it’s worth noting Pikmin 1 has a distinct lack of active evidence for people being around.
They changed this clearly, so yes, it is really weird that you’re asking why there isn’t dust on all the furniture in level 4 since they left for their vacation 4000 years ago in your incorrect brain. To be fair, I haven’t read through all the logs.
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Section 5 of 5:
The Final Trial
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Enemies in Pikmin 4 don’t spawn as aggressively as they do in the first 2 games. If you didn’t actively cull enemies, they would spawn slowly in clumps and eventually overwhelm the map. In addition, any corpses you left behind would disappear, assume to be picked for scraps. In Pikmin 4, things not gathered will return after 3 days of being moved, but I’m not sure if enemies re-spawn when collected, and corpses will stick around at least until the next day for you to finish collecting them. I don’t mind this change- you still have to make your way back and maybe waste a day if you don’t manage to finish your tasks before sundown. It does imbue a different vibe however…
The Pikmin games have always had nice, personal narratives that drive it’s story, but it also featured a grander story of the ecology. Anyone who has read the Piklopedia will know that Olimar (the amateur biologist (botanist?) he is) notes the simultaneous fragility and endurance of the Pikmin species- when he returns, they avoid dying out entirely and have kept to themselves in defensive alcoves. Mutations underground are present, but are adapted for the heightened violence they are born into.
Really think this through from his perspective for a second- when Olimar discovers the Onion, he notes that it was dormant, almost as if it was waiting for someone like him to awaken it. The food chain in Pikmin is mostly defined and minimal- sure you have some strange creatures, but everything is a creature that ultimately eats bugs. The most dangerous guy happens to be a really large bug eater. You tame the planet singlehandedly, leave, and the Pikmin immediately start fending for themselves during *night*, despite losing any non-nocturnal advantage they had.
In Pikmin 2 the earth cracks open and evolution immediately gets *weird.* While everything was once evolved to deal with dumb little ants, it’s clear they needed to evolve further and mother nature proceeded to bring her A-game to the table. Olimar Speculates that literally two different races of spiders take up literal and figurative arms to defend themselves against… something. It sure is weird how their are Candypop buds that produce extremely dangerous pikmin underground now, huh? 3 different species pick up literal arms and *still* Pikmin found a way to thrive- Olimar coming back was enough to tip the scales back and doom every gun toting species the planet tried to throw at it.
Also in Pikmin 2, Olimar notes some interesting biological discoveries:
There seems to be some relation to Pikmin to CandyPop buds, and perhaps Onions?
Bulbmin seem to show evidence for a novel sort of “parasitic” Pikmin
The Mamutas have some sort of relationship to Pikmin, almost reverent.
We already knew Pikmin existed in the first game before you touch down- the onions and Candypop buds are now direct evidence that at some point Pikmin had thrived enough to be able to evolve into grander structures (Pikmin 4 would spell this out explicitly). Given that every enemy you fight in the first game attacks Pikmin on site above all else, it’s clear that the ecosystem evolved to meet the challenge of culling the Pikmin. Your presence turned the tides, and caused an equal reaction from both the Pikmin and their ecosystem.
Pikmin 3 shows a reduction in other creatures in the environment, as well as their level of violence. The Pikmin, however, have kept evolving- Rock Pikmin further demonstrate the parasitic Pikmin at work, able to give form to inert matter. Wing Pikmin literally soar above all hazards. Pikmin art secretly adorns the walls, and Olimar’s logs show him using a completely separate squad (and therefore probably separate onions) than the Koapites- Charlie finds a freestanding crowd of yellow pikmin within seconds of landing! Some creatures spec into gigantism to try and compete, but once again your efforts as a player guarantee these traits as evolutionary dead ends.
Also, what was that weird ending stinger about the meteor crash “being no accident?” What did you mean by that, Pikmin 3?
In Pikmin 4, your dog finds itself turning into a Pikmin via proximity to your little plant guys for the entire game. When Olimar fails to leave the planet, the Pikmin send him into the onion to turn him into a pikperson, someone who mainly obsesses about the most efficient ways to command the Pikmin. When you save him, his notes reveal a disturbing theory- that the Pikmin are ultimately looking for a leader to command them who doesn’t leave. He’s not wrong either- as you tragically leave Olimar’s beloved dog behind, she (without hesitation) begins commanding the Pikmin to follow her orders, and wanders off into the night. When Olimar found this dog, she had been sleeping by herself all day.
There is also a funny detail in that *50* people wind up crashing into the planet. It’s clear the the first time Olimar shipwrecked was an accident, and he would avoid said accident from repeating in the sequel. Many have joked about the Kessler syndrome being the cause for so many crash landings in Pikmin 4, but Pikmin 3 had that strange twist about the meteor having some will- could there be a reason for all of these stranded folks?
In Pikmin 4, the Pikmin are thriving beyond what we’ve ever seen: they’re hanging out freely in caves, there are literally dozens of Onions (now confirmed to be the final evolution of Pikmin) across the maps, and they continue to be able to infect inert objects as temperamental as *ice* and infect literally any living creature standing too close to them. Onions are space faring vessels, and they have been infecting rocks for awhile. Is it too much to say that a meteor could have a will of its own?
Is it too much to say that the Pikmin, a species who has come to depend on higher intelligence commanding their culture to victory, are hungry for leaders?
There was always this implicit sense of dread that Olimar was kicking a hornets nest when he discovered the Onion- he opened the box and the earth has not been able to put the genie back in the bottle. What seemed like helpful (if not a little unsettling) guys were actually some ancient terror, some bygone plague of old; once kept in check by the environment only to be revived and commandeered by *you*.
As I gathered the last treasure in Pikmin 4, I had plenty of more time in my day so I decided to try and clear out any last resources or obstacles I might have had on the map. I ran out of that too, and found myself at an overlook- the map had been picked clean. I had seen this happen 5 times over, and the 6th time would be the last. I no longer had anything to do before writing this review, so I talked to the guy who replays the ending so I could see my results screen. I left the planet knowing that where I had set foot, nothing had remained and left my children to grieve the empty sand who could not swallow them.
I realized I had forgotten how much time had passed since Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4, and I counted the years. I had remembered that Pikmin 3 took 9 years to come out, and I had let 10 years slip through the sandbox.
Thank you for reading.
