I was so excited for Pikmin 4 when it was announced because I really enjoyed the previous Pikmin games. When it was finally here, I dove in right away because I could not wait to explore and have all my little plant friends with me again. Pikmin 4 differs from the previous games in the fact that Olimar is not the main character. There is a brief introduction with Olimar explaining what happened with his ship and giving a glimpse into Pikmin 2 and 3. This time around, you can create your character who is a rookie of the Rescue Corps team arriving to rescue Olimar. Unfortunately, their ship crashes and it's up to the newbie to find and rescue the rest of the team and any castaways. The character creation isn't bad. There are some nice options with hair color and you can choose the suit colors for your team. Naturally, I went with my favorite color of purple.
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| Creating my character. |
You're not alone in your search for survivors. You have a cute rescue pup with you named Oatchi as you work with the Pikmin to explore, build, and fight your way through this alien world. You also have to find treasures that fuel the ship which is where the world map comes in handy and gadgets like a treasure tracker that sound an alarm when treasure is near. The map shows treasures as a star icon which is really helpful as well as where various points of interests are.
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| checking out the map. |
Having Oatchi helping you out is a delight. He's very cute and he makes friends with all the Pikmin. I could just whistle and the Pikmin would hop on Oatchi to hitch a ride which was quite convenient for getting around obstacles like small bodies of water since not all of the Pikmin can swim. One big difference from the previous Pikmin games is there's no time limit for the number of rescue days. I love this change because it allowed me to take my time exploring while fulfilling objectives and getting every area to one hundred percent. Sometimes I would mess up or a mistake would happen and my poor Pikmin would be lost. This was no longer an issue with the rewind time feature. Until the end of the current day, you can rewind time to correct a mistake or try a different strategy so Pikmin aren't lost. It's a smart choice to add this especially for players new to the world of Pikmin so there's not a lot of frustration and they can continue enjoying the story.
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| The Pikmin hitch a ride on Oatchi. |
There are many things you can grab to help you on your journey if you have collected enough raw materials to get them crafted from the engineer. Bomb rocks and mines helped me a lot. Having Oatchi to help out was perfect because he would help with the Pikmin and rescues. Oatchi has a lot of useful abilities as well that allow him to fight alongside you. Once he has enough Pup Drive you can make his skills even more powerful with training so it's worth your while.
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| Training Oatchi. |
Raw materials are vital in Pikmin 4 because they're needed for so many things like having the Pikmin build bridges or making a valve to turn off sprinklers. Oatchi can help with this too as you unlock more of his skills. His rush ability was very useful for taking out monsters and a strategic way to not lose Pikmin to them. Once his rush ability was fully maxed out, Oatchi was a powerhouse and it was really satisifying to take monsters out quickly.
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| Working together to build a bridge. |
There are sub levels that are basically caves that have a certain number of floors with a boss that is saved for the last floor. In these you find more treasures to be used for fuel as well as people in need of rescue. It's also another way to introduce two new types of Pikmin and one of the types the glow Pikmin became a favorite of mine. Besides the main story, there are also what is known as Dandori battles and challenges. Dandori is described as the ability to organize tasks strategically and work effectively to execute plans. There are twelve Dandori challenges in the game and they are timed. The whole trick is to work effectively with the Pikmin to gather items quickly and efficiently to score the highest amount of points possible before time ran out. While I understand that it's meant to be challenging, Dandori was my least favorite thing in the game. It got really tedious after a while and at times frustrating as the Dandori battles got progressively harder. I will say one nice thing about it is if I felt too aggravated by it, I could choose get help and the battle would be done for me so I could try it again later in my own time back at base camp.
Night expeditions felt a bit like Dandori with the timer, but at least I had help from Oatchi and the glow Pikmin. These are set up in different areas you've explored in order to get something called glow sap. This is kind of like a protect your fort situation as you defend a structure called a Luminkoll which is where the glow sap comes from. This was an interesting way to see the area at night. You can have the glow Pikmin grab what look like star candies and put it in the Luminkoll which makes more glow Pikmin. They help you and Oatchi protect it from the monsters that try to come and destroy it. In some of the missions there are two Luminknolls and you can work as a team with Oatchi having him protect one while you and the glow Pikmin protect the other. These get progressively harder too as you go and you can select get help just like with the Dandori battles. I found these less frustrating because it's easy to replace the glow Pikmin quickly and run out the clock. You get a nice reward of glow seeds which allows you to have glow Pikmin with you in the sublevel caves which comes in handy with boss battles.
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| Preparing for a night expedition with glow Pikmin. |
Finding all the different treasures was a hoot because the different names that were given to every day items put a smile on my face. For example a rubber ducky was dubbed a Dapper Rubber Cutie. The descriptions in the treasure catalog of each item was also great because there was so much whimsy and creativity in each one. I made it my goal to find every single treasure and fill up that catalog and I was thrilled when I actually did it because it meant I had completed every single treasure set.
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| Ah, the treasure catalog! |
There are side missions in the game too of course. Some of the castaways will have requests ranging from blooming Pikmin to discovering a certain number of creatures. You get rewarded with raw materials which is helpful for all the building you have to do in the game. I took my time with the story and exploring everywhere I wanted. I enjoyed all of it especially just taking in the scenic views with Oatchi and the Pikmin. There is post game content and it's really well done. It gave more exciting things and added more fun to an already brilliant game. There is co-op too, but I tend to prefer playing on my own. However, I did try it out and it's disappointing to say the least because it limits things so much for the second player and feels like maybe they should have just left it out altogether. The main campaign of Pikmin 4 is where it truly shines and I loved every minute of it because it was simply wonderful fun.
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| Time for everyone to go home! |
*Pikmin 4 is available to play on the Nintendo Switch
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