Pikmin 4 Review – Well-Cultivated Charm

The wait for Pikmin 4 to finally sprout has been long and somewhat agonizing. Shigeru Miyamoto himself said Pikmin 4 was “very close to completion” all the way back in 2015, and that was essentially the last we heard of the project for a very long time. Fans were left to wonder if the series had been permanently sidelined as year after year passed. Thankfully, Pikmin 4 finally popped back up last year and will be marching our way later this week.

More Pikmin is almost always a good thing, but there are some understandable questions about this entry. Has Nintendo nurtured the series’ most robust entry yet? Or has Pikmin 4 gone to seed in its near-decade-long journey to release? Grab your gardening gloves; it’s time to dig in.

Like most Nintendo franchises, Pikmin 4 sticks to a familiar setup, albeit with a few extra layers of complication this time around. Hapless face of the franchise Olimar has crash landed on yet another planet and, unfortunately, the entire “Rescue Corps” team sent to retrieve him has crashed as well. You take on the role of a single remaining Rescue Corps. member who has to find and retrieve Olimar, the rest of your team, and several other castaways marooned on the planet. In a fun addition, the player can customize this new protagonist using a simple Mii-like editor.

The fundamentals of Pikmin haven’t changed much in two decades since the series debuted on the GameCube. Players lead around a small army of Pikmin, which you can throw at the game’s various bug-like enemies or objects you want to salvage. The Pikmin pick up the corpses of fallen baddies and other items and carry them back to your field base, where they’re processed by your “Onion” into seeds that sprout more Pikmin. The different colors of Pikmin have their own unique abilities. Red are fire resistant and aggressive, Yellow are electrified and lightweight, the new Ice Pikmin can freeze enemies and bodies of water, and so on. Your goal is to build up your Pikmin army so you can reach and retrieve treasures (real-life objects ranging from cantaloupes to GBA units) which you can process into spaceship fuel.

The big core addition this time around is Oatchi, an adorable space dog with the chubbiest, most pinchable cheeks on this side of the Orion Nebula. You can ride on Oatchi’s back, at which point all your Pikmin will also latch onto his rump, or alternatively, you can set the pup to work attacking enemies or carrying items. There’s a bit of strategic balance to using Oatchi – riding him makes combat more manageable, but it’s more efficient to hop off and assign him tasks when not under a major threat. Oatchi also offers new ways to explore the environment as he can smash certain obstacles, hop up small ledges, and swim.

Oatchi’s new traversal abilities allow Nintendo to add a new layer of complexity and interconnectedness to Pikmin 4’s levels. Pikmin 3 already drew away from the series’ strategic roots, opting to focus more on adventure and exploration, and Pikmin 4 pushes even further into that territory. Stages are big, wide, and open, with less of a focus on narrow tunnels and passageways. There are a handful of the series’ standard garden-themed stages, but Pikmin 4 also serves up some more unique playgrounds, including one set on a sandy beach and another inside a suburban house (that could really use an exterminator). Level design is less imposing than in the past, with maps offering plenty of secrets and treasures but a lower density of enemies. Add the fact that Nintendo has dropped any sort of overall time limit for finishing the game, and Pikmin 4 can feel downright laid back at times.

This safari-like feel is bolstered by impressive visuals. While it’s clear Pikmin 4 is built on a beefed-up version of Pikmin 3’s engine, with some enemies and assets being directly re-used, its worlds are more detailed, lighting is better, and draw distance and shadows are unusually high-quality for the Switch. Even better, unlike a lot of recent ambitious Switch titles, inconsistent performance isn’t an issue, even with lots of action on screen. This may be Nintendo’s most technically-impressive game to date.

While exploring Pikmin 4’s overworld is generally a breeze, other parts of the game present a stiffer challenge. Caves, last seen in Pikmin 2, make their return, with each level playing host to several of the underground dungeon-like areas. The daily time limit can essentially be ignored in caves, but you also can’t sprout new Pikmin while exploring them. The design of these caves tends to be tighter and more puzzle-like, with a greater concentration of enemies providing the pushback longtime Pikmin fans may crave. Diving into their dank depths is essential, as the caves are where you’ll first meet new types of Pikmin and many of the game’s castaways, and you’ll need to travel through them to reach certain parts of the overworld.

And if caves don’t provide enough murky, shadowy adventures, Pikmin 4 also adds all-new nighttime missions. These are essentially castle defense challenges, with players having to fend off waves of red-eyed monsters in order to protect a mound that produces Glow Sap. Said sap is used to produce medicine to cure castaways with a strange affliction that causes their bodies to sprout leaves, and is key to advancing the main campaign at certain points. Your only allies in these missions are Oatchi and the new Glow Pikmin, which are spawned by collecting special crystals and only last for the mission. It would be nice if Pikmin 4 allowed you to explore freely at nighttime, but these new missions are a decent challenge and just the right level of stress.

Another addition to Pikmin 4 are Dandori Battles, which are essentially the multiplayer missions from Pikmin 3 plucked out and placed in the main single-player campaign. In Dandori battles, you’re transported to standalone arenas where you battle one-on-one with various opponents. Collect more items and points within the time limit and you win. These are fun enough and require more actual strategy than any other part of the game, but feel slightly out of place in the single-player campaign.

Pikmin 4 even adds new stuff between your expeditions, as at the end of every day you’ll return to your base camp. Once you rescue a castaway, they’ll return to your camp, and some will offer sidequests or set up shops and services that allow you to buy upgrades and consumable items, train Oatchi, and more. Visiting your base is a nice breather between missions and there’s an undeniably charm when your gang of rescued castaways see you off in the mornings and welcome you back in the evening.

Pikmin 4 has a lot of new layers, to the point it can feel somewhat overwhelming at first. The game begins with an almost stifling amount of talk and tutorializing. That said, after a few hours, you should find your groove. And that’s where my experience with Pikmin 4 stayed for most of my playtime – in a nice, chill groove. I can’t exactly complain about that, but the game didn’t quite grab me the way previous entries in the series did, particularly Pikmin 3, which I consider one of Nintendo’s unsung masterpieces. While Pikmin 4 adds a lot, some things are missing or are not done as well as in the past – the main campaign feels a bit patched together, the grand level-capping multi-stage boss fights from Pikmin 3 are mostly gone, and the full campaign co-op from Pikmin 3 Deluxe sadly doesn’t return (a simple helper mode where Player 2 chucks pebbles at enemies is all you get).

Thankfully, Pikmin 4 starts to coalesce better in its final hours. Without giving too much away, rescuing Olimar isn’t the end of the main campaign, and the game’s final stretch features more intricate level design and deeper, more difficult caves. Heck, the game even serves up at least one truly top-tier boss fight. There’s even a little treat for those looking for a more old-school Pikmin challenge. Also, you can’t deny Pikmin 4’s charm. The animations of the individual Pikmin remain a marvel, and Oatchi is one of the most lovingly-crafted characters Nintendo has ever created. Pikmin 4 may not be the exquisitely-crafted gem Pikmin 3 was, but it’s a great game in its own right.

And the game delivers on the quantity front too. The full campaign will take you around 20 hours and cleaning up everything should take 30 hours or more. Multiplayer Dandori Battles don’t have the depth of Pikmin 3’s multiplayer, but they ought to add a few extra hours to the overall package. There’s certainly plenty to enjoy here if you let the game grow on you.

This review was based on a copy of Pikmin 4 provided by publisher Nintendo.  

Pikmin 4

Pikmin 4 adds or reintroduces a lot to the series’ formula, including caves, nighttime missions, and an adorable doggy sidekick, to the point the game starts to feel a bit busy and unfocused. Fortunately, like a well-managed Pikmin squad, the game comes together in charming, effective fashion by the end. While the franchise may have bloomed slightly brighter in the past, Pikmin 4 will still provide a bountiful harvest of fun for longtime fans.

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