I’ve never been able to get over how messed up Pikmin is. You crash-land on an alien planet and within minutes have enslaved a race of adorable little creatures to murder the local wildlife, pillage resources, and even throw themselves into the inevitable jaws of death if it ensures the survival of the Hocotatians. Olimar is a monster.
There’s a morbid charm to exploring a new world that imitates Earth, shrunk down to the size of an ant as we’re free to explore overcrowded back gardens and luscious beaches in search of treasures and trinkets. Pikmin 4 keeps that fantasy untouched, albeit introducing multiple quality of life changes that turn this lackadaisical strategy adventure into something far less frustrating and more approachable than ever before.
Everything about Pikmin 4 feels like it wants to smooth over the cracks to make playing it so much easier. You can now rewind time to preserve your multicoloured soldiers if a puzzle or combat encounter goes awry, a mechanic I refused to use because my boys knew what they signed up for. Like the tragedy of Klendathu in Starship Troopers, sometimes a few thousand Pikmin must bite the dust if it means stamping out the insect threat for good. It also requires you to reload a save through the menu instead of instantly rewinding time through pressing a button, removing the appeal of a feature in a game that isn’t especially punishing regardless.
Aside from taking control of a custom character this time around as a fledgling member of the Rescue Corp, Pikmin 4 is largely similar to the games that preceded it. You command hordes of different coloured Pikmin each with their own abilities. Red are the standard units who are immune to fire, while Yellow can be thrown further, dig faster, and also conduct electricity. Blue can traverse bodies of water without drowning, while Rock and Glow Pikmin are exactly what their names suggest.
The campaign introduces additions to the formula at a steady pace, so you’re always having to think up new solutions for puzzles or ensure your party is always outfitted with a nice mixture of the googly-eyed little scrimblos. There’s now a button that automatically fills your arsenal with an even number of Pikmin suited to each level, although I did find myself in situations where this recommendation wasn’t entirely accurate. It saves time though, and removes a large amount of the tedious admin that held back previous games.
Oatchi the dog is the biggest game changer this time around. His presence shakes up the pace of each level beautifully. This commendable canine is not only a mount that handily increases your traveling speed, but he’s also able to carry all of your Pikmin, break certain objects, and swim across water. This transforms the pace of Pikmin 4, and morphs levels that were once passive playgrounds into emergent realms of possibilities. I found myself traversing familiar environments after gaining new abilities to uncover new secrets, or was no longer afraid to take on deadly enemies because I knew I had Oatchi backing me up. Everything is faster, and thus there’s a deep temptation within me to explore levels over and over to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Your general goal is to collect insect corpses and foreign treasures that can be melted down into Sparklium - a fuel which can repair your busted spaceship and chart a course towards Olimar. On the way, you’ll find crew members to fill out a hub world marked by new features and challenges I haven’t stumbled across yet, but present a more comprehensive mode of progression that goes beyond gathering fruit and completing levels like in Pikmin 3. You’re making a more noticeable mark on the world, and some of the funny little characters you’ll befriend grow on you with their exaggerated features and goofy voices.
Underground levels turn Pikmin 4 into a subterranean dungeon crawler. Each new floor presents with it distinct combat encounters and puzzles alongside new treasures waiting to be taken home. I’ve no idea how deep these portions of the game go, since the hand-on preview only allowed us to enter a handful of tunnels spread across each biome. This is a creative evolution of the Pikmin formula though, and offers multiple ways for our Pikmin to be used thanks to fast-paced battles with wild animals and puzzles that, while never particularly difficult, still feel satisfying to solve and offer plentiful rewards.
There’s also Dondori Battles, which are basically the Pikmin 4 equivalent of a free-for-all deathmatch. You’ll be pitted against an opponent as you both race to collect enemies and objects spread across bespoke environments in exchange for points. Whoever accrues a higher score before the timer runs out is victorious. Such bouts are chaotic fun, turning the usually relaxed nature of normal levels into a competitive gauntlet of joy and frustration. It remains to be seen how complicated these battles will become, but like most of Pikmin 4, Nintendo has introduced a creative twist on a gameplay formula which over the years has grown stale. It’s the Pikmin you know and love, but refocused for a new generation.
Time will tell whether Pikmin 4 can continue to impress with new features and innovations, or if it will fall into a predictably saccharine rhythm with new stages and characters until we eventually rescue Olimar. Either way, it's great to have this series back after such a long absence, and to see it evolve while keeping its core appeal perfectly intact. I'll never tire of carrying giant corpses back to my mothership in exchange for cool treasures, all while those performing such tasks are oblivious to their own monstrosity.