[Review] Pikmin 4: A fantastic return for one of Nintendo’s most charming series

While everyone else desperately yearned for Tears of the Kingdom, I had a different game on my mind: Pikmin 4. I could not contain my excitement upon hearing the news, not having been this hyped for a new game since Horizon: Forbidden West. Guess I have a thing for atypical “world after the end-of-the-world” stories. 

Pikmin, however, has been a favorite of mine since middle school. I was obsessed with these adorable creatures and Pikmin 2 was (and still is) one of my all-time favorite games. I bought a Wii U mainly because of Pikmin 3 and I even went out of my way to purchase Hey! Pikmin for the Nintendo 3DS. Still, I never thought I would see a Pikmin 4 come to fruition, thinking it was destined to be a trilogy with only spin-offs to be made from there. 

I’m so glad I was wrong.

Rescuing the Rescuers: The Story

Once again it seems our favorite Hocotate captain, Olimar, has found himself stranded on PNF-404, also known as the Distant Planet. However, this is not his story — not entirely, anyway. Olimar sends out a distress signal to the depths of space, hoping that someone, somewhere will hear his call for help before it is too late. 

Luckily for him, the Rescue Corps has received his distress signal. Unluckily for him (and the team members of the Corps), the Rescue Corps’ ship had also crash landed on this mysterious planet. Now you, being the newest and only member of the Rescue Corps left, have to find your teammates, Captain Olimar, and the many, many others who have somehow found themselves lost in this massive world. 

However, you’re not the only one looking for these castaways. A mysterious Leafling has appeared and is taking these stranded citizens and turning them into Leaflings as well! The only way to retrieve these poor souls is to engage in a Dandori Battle so you can bring them back to camp to have your doctor create a cure for this bizarre condition — once you find the doctor, that is.

This time around, Pikmin 4 seems to be aware of how often previous captains have crash landed and went all in on this idea and pushed it to the max, and now it’s up to you and your rescue pup, Oatchi, to save them all! And by you, I do mean you. Pikmin 4 introduces the popular practice of now having a self-made avatar so you can create your Pik-sona and adventure across PNF-404!

Survival Crash Course: The Gameplay

The gameplay is most like Pikmin 3, keeping a vast majority of the new controls and features, but retains the basics from all the games before it. You can throw Pikmin as always and call them back with your whistle, and even lock on them as introduced in Pikmin 3. However, upon my playthrough, it seemed a few things were missing.

Having Pikmin charge at my enemies is one of my favorite tactics and it especially comes in handy when breaking down big walls, but it was nowhere to be found when I first started up my game. Even after the initial tutorial ended, I still couldn’t seem to use this standard command. However, once I rescued a certain member of the Rescue Corps, I was able to regain this feature by exchanging raw material, a new bartering and crafting tool introduced in this game.

As well as money, the aforementioned raw material also serves a similar purpose to the tiles in Pikmin 3 that were used to create bridges, walls, and other platforms to allow your party to progress. It is found frequently, so it will be rare that you find yourself running out of this material, and should this happen you will easily be able to find more. The same goes for gold nuggets, which along with treasure, contain Sparklium, the source of energy your ship needs to get moving again. 

Going back to the items, many are classics brought back from games past, such as bomb rocks. However, now you get to use these items as the captain instead of having your Pikmin risk their lives trying to get these rocks where they need to go. Then there are new items as well, such as the survey drone to get a sky overview of the world you’re exploring or, my favorite, the Idler’s Alert, where you can call any idle Pikmin to your location without having to look for them.

In Pikmin 3, I thought that simply calling all of your Pikmin back to the base in one fell swoop made the game too easy, and I still stand by that. However, there are a few differences to the way the Idler’s Alert is implemented in this game that I feel are an improvement from Idler’s Alert in the last game. I’ll state my case.

For one thing, there is only one captain this time around. There is no need to switch with other captains waiting at the base in order to bring your Pikmin back when you need them out on the field. The second and most important thing is that the Idler’s Alert, among other tools, has to be earned. This game balances out these helpful tools by making you work to earn these features to make the game easier, because trust me, this game does not spoon feed you everything from the start. Granted, Pikmin games in the past would not allow you to get certain items without reaching milestones or defeating specific enemies, but this game is a whole different ballpark. 

In the previous games, you were allowed to have 100 Pikmin of any type out on the field with you at all times. It’s not quite like that this time around. This time, you can only start by taking out 20 Pikmin at a time. That’s not a lot at all. However, in addition to finding Onions of all the Pikmin colors, you can also collect Flarlic. Collecting these silly-named items will grant you the ability to take out 10 more Pikmin on the surface permanently. However, the one thing that will not change is the number of types you can take out at once (with the exception of being inside a cave), so pick and choose your troops wisely!

The Recruits: New Additions to the Game

There are many new additions to this game to spice up the gameplay we all know and love. I’ve already mentioned quite a few in the previous section, but let’s shine some more under the spotlight.

The first is the new Pikmin types. Just like in the previous two games, two more Pikmin species are discovered in this game: Ice and Glow Pikmin. 

The Ice Pikmin are pretty self-explanatory. Just like Rock Pikmin, Ice Pikmin are chunky little fellas who have an elemental ability. Now with Ice Pikmin at your disposal, you can both withstand low temperatures as well as harness the power of the cold and freeze your opponents and even your surroundings! Your enemies will not always freeze, but it happens a good majority of the time and is indicated by a meter around their health bar. Now I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking it too: that makes things way too easy, doesn’t it? It sure does help, I’ll give you that, however, what you’ll find this game is really good at doing is balancing things out.

While freezing your foes will make it much easier to defeat them, it comes at a price. Instead of having the body of the dispatched creature to use as nutrients and propagate more Pikmin with, they shatter, leaving only a pile of nectar behind. While this nectar is useful as your Pikmin will lose their flowers getting knocked over, blown away, or spooked, it’s still not the same as getting a whole mass of Pikmin sprouts after taking on a big bad.

The next Pikmin type is Glow Pikmin. These spooky little guys are not your average Pikmin, appearing more ghost-like with little tails as they float above the surface or materialize into place. These Pikmin can do it all. They can still get squished or eaten, but have resistance to every element and are tough as nails. The catch? They only come out at night. How do you play with them, you might ask, as the nighttime is when you go into the atmosphere to escape all the ravaging critters. Not anymore. Welcome to the night shift.

Finally, after three installments of the series, we are allowed to stay on the Distant Planet’s surface at night when the wild creatures are at their most dangerous. However, this is necessary if we want to create the cure for the Leaflings we rescue. The Glow Pikmins’ sap is a key ingredient to this cure, so it’s time for you to brave the night and defend the Lumiknoll that they reside in, or else no sap for you! With only Glow Pikmin by your side, you must amass an army before the rampaging creatures reach and destroy this structure. It is definitely tense with the ominous music and how your foes’ eyes glow red with fury, but man, once you survive your first night, what a rush!

Once you complete your quest and head back to the base, your team doctor, Yonny, will create the medicine you need to cure these Leaflings. In fact, every member of your team has an important role to play. Collin is your guide, Russ creates gadgets and items, Yonny cures Leaflings, Dingo provides missions, and Bernard pilots the ship. Even certain castaways will give you little side quests in which you can get extra raw materials for completing. A great bulk of these are optional, but if there is one thing I would not skip out on is training with Captain Shepherd to improve Oatchi’s skills.

Oatchi is a rescue pup-like creature who takes a liking to you upon finding him stranded on PNF-404. While Captain Shepherd is supposed to be the only one he listens to, he knows deep in his heart that we’re the main character and joins us in our quest. 

Now at first, I was skeptical of Oatchi’s addition. He seemed rather overpowered in the trailers. Pikmin could climb on his back and travel over any terrain, he attacked almost anything that stood in his way, and he was strong enough to tug out treasures that would have taken many Pikmin to even budge. However, as mentioned before, this game is surprisingly amazing at keeping everything well-balanced. You have to earn most of Oatchi’s abilities by training him and rescuing castaways. There are also some things Oatchi just can’t do like your captain or Pikmin can, such as fitting through iron bars or climbing up rocky walls. 

Besides that, Oatchi serves as both a captain and a Pikmin in terms of gameplay. Instead of adding another captain as the previous games did, new captain mechanics are implemented with Oatchi in an all-new creative hybrid style. It’s so much better than having four controllable captains like I initially thought would happen. You will be using your captain throughout the majority of the run, but there are some places where only Oatchi can reach. Better still, if you encounter enemies or puzzles Oatchi can command Pikmin in the same way. He is a really great (and really fluffy) addition to the team!

Though it wasn’t through Oatchi, I did find something that I thought tipped the scales a little much in terms of making the game a lot easier, that being the “rewind time” mechanic. Like many other of Nintendo’s games featuring permadeath, like Fire Emblem, this feature has now been added to Pikmin as well. This tool is for if you lose Pikmin and you’d like a redo instead of rebuilding your army of little leaf men from the ground up again. It could certainly be handy for new players still learning the ropes or little kids who may be having a hard time, and it is optional so returning players like myself don’t necessarily have to use it. That’s right: if I accidentally blow up my Pikmin I live with the guilt of my actions throughout the rest of the game. Kids these days are so spoiled.

Lastly, there are Dandori battles. While they are oh-so similar to the multiplayer modes in previous Pikmin titles, they are admittedly more fun this time around than I expected. You will need to defeat your Leafling opponents to rescue them in a battle of wit and skill by collecting as much treasure as possible before the time limit. Sometimes you will have the opportunity to beat your opponent by the clock while other times the mysterious red Leafling will challenge you to see who can earn more points instead. They do become more difficult as the game progresses, but they are a fun break from the usual grind whenever you find these in-game events.

The Good, the Bad, and the Pikmin: Personal Likes and Dislikes

There are facts, and then there are opinions. Now is the time for those opinions. What are my thoughts as a veteran Pikmin player? Let’s start with the negative so we can get those few pesky grievances out of the way and focus more on the positive.

When people started playing the demo I heard a lot of talk about “there’s so much dialogue,” “they talk too much,” and other things along those lines. I figured this was simply in regards to the tutorial. But now that I’ve played the game, I discovered that those pointless view-blinding dialogue blurbs from Pikmin 3 have unfortunately returned in this game. I don’t need an alert to tell me Oatchi returned from performing every single task I assign him, I can see him myself (he’s kind of hard to miss.) I don’t need the game to weep for me every time a Pikmin dies, or remind me how poorly I’m doing when I accidentally blow up half my team with a mine because I didn’t know how to use it properly yet. “Yikes, that’s a lot of Pikmin!” Yeah, I know. Thanks for rubbing it in. 

While I admit that’s more of a minor annoyance, I despise the fact that I can only use three Pikmin types at once on the surface, which is where a good amount of the game is spent. We finally have a game with every single Pikmin type in existence. What do you mean I can’t use them all at once? Frustrating! And it’s very evident that certain ones get more love than others in the amount of times you’ll need them.

Granted, this decision was likely made to push strategic thinking and planning skills. After all, that is the very premise of Dandori. But it might have also been a technical limitation given that we now have nine Pikmin types plus Oatchi. Still, I miss the days where if I wanted to take a bundle of each color to prepare for any situation that came my way I didn’t have to travel all the way back to my base to swap colors. To be fair, you can at least have the ability to move your base location in this game which I suppose is some sort of happy medium. 

Finally, this criticism is going to sound really shallow and nitpicky considering this is the first Pikmin game to have said feature available, but I’m going to say it. The avatar customization is so lacking! There’s a good range of skin tones which is nice to see, but there are so few choices in every other department in design. There are only about six hairstyles that are incredibly gender-neutral, which limits things even further. It’s better than the latest Pokémon avatar creators but not by much. What makes it worse is that all the Castaways were designed with limited options, so most of them wind up looking almost identical. 

Whew! Alright, I got those petty grievances out of the way. Now let’s dive into the good stuff.

Overall, I love this game. It really feels like a Pikmin game and it doesn’t pull any punches. Everything seemed so easy in the beginning. I wondered, has Pikmin always been this effortless? Did I simply get better at it from when I was a kid? Those thoughts vanished, however, once I began exploring the final area. The difficulty is just as I remember it, bringing a fun challenge as you get so close to the sweet taste of victory. Yes, I’ve gotten a lot better at this game as the years went by, but it’s nice to know there are still some new surprises to keep me on my toes.

It’s wonderful how there are more puzzles in this game to solve than any Pikmin game prior, and there’s so much to explore! The best part: it’s a longer entry in the series. I am more than 25 in-game days into the venture and I’m still not done exploring every area to its fullest extent. If you recall, the first Pikmin adventure lasted 30 in-game days long and it set the standard for an average Pikmin game’s length. I feel like this longer timeframe is the perfect length, even though in reality, it’s only been a few days of actual play-through! I can easily see myself coming back to this game time and time again in the future.

What’s more, I’m so happy that they brought back the exploration of caves. There was a small extent of it in Pikmin 3, but nothing like this. There are levels upon levels of exploring the undergrounds, searching for treasures, and taking on great bosses at the end. Some of these caves are even direct successors of Pikmin 2. I screamed in inexplicable joy and terror when I entered the Engulfed Castle level in Serene Springs. If you’ve played Pikmin 2, I’m sure you know exactly which cave this is emulating by the title alone. It even had the same music! Engulfed Castle has all the best parts of the dungeon while creating new, unique puzzles to solve along the way. Some of them even have really fun themes with memorable bosses at the end waiting with a unique challenge. While I think Pikmin 3 peaked with a lot of their memorable boss battles, I can still say I thoroughly enjoyed fighting a giant rave spider that hypnotizes Pikmin to dance. 

The underground areas aren’t the only places to explore. This new take on the Distant Planet is huge in comparison to worlds prior. Is it Breath of the Wild big? Absolutely not, but it’s not meant to be, either. I honestly feel a lot more satisfied exploring these areas than half of the empty fields of Hyrule. There is so much attention to detail that went into how these worlds were created.

While Pikmin is a heavily nature-based game, it features a world where humans once roamed. There have always been hints of that in the series, but this time it’s expanded upon. One of the final worlds is inside an actual house! (And no, that’s not a spoiler, mind you, it’s directly shown in the prologue of the game.) It’s so cool to see how these new lifeforms are adapting to our old technology and tools, and perhaps Pikmin 4 has opened up some more room to explore this concept with games in the future!

Final Thoughts

This game is good. Like, stupendous good. Do I have my gripes with it? Yes, of course. Still, it’s clear that so much love was put into this game. The sheer amount of elements brought back from previous games shows that Nintendo really does listen to the fans about what they want in this brilliant series. Mr. Miyamoto brought in so many new elements and a good majority of them hit home runs. It is both more of the same and a unique experience all at once. 

The story is simple but enjoyable, something more akin to a Mario game. You know what’s going to happen, but it’s a fun ride along with a cute cast of characters to interact with. There’s no need to start at game number one to learn all the lore since Captain Olimar’s logs will give you all the information you need along your way. Pikmin has traditionally been more about the gameplay, which is excellent, but reaching the end goal with your captain and crew is always a satisfying part of the journey.

I think this game is great for newcomers, having a nice tutorial to ease you into things and the first two levels of the game being rather light for new explorers just getting the hang of things. You can even have a friend join you in multiplayer mode! Perhaps for a younger child, the later levels might get a bit overwhelming. Even for adults, if you’re stressed, this might not be the game for you to play to calm your nerves. Many people see Pikmin as a cute and comfy game but don’t realize just how many of your cute little buddies will get eaten, explode, get stepped on, frozen, shocked, and drown— and this is just the tip of the iceberg of the ways your Pikmin can die. 

But that’s not to say this game doesn’t have its relaxing, serene moments. Sometimes scenery watching alone is gratifying. This game looks gorgeous and the design of everything is so well thought out. It’s challenging, but not impossible, and for collect-a-thon gamers, it’s a paradise. There’s so much in this world to find and add to your treasure trove, and Oatchi is here to help when you need a little assistance.

The world of Pikmin is one that has entranced me for years to come. It’s about exploring our planet from a new perspective, managing time and tasks as every little detail matters, and earning a sense of accomplishment once you help your little friends achieve their big goals. Now I ask you, my fellow rescue corps trainees, will you join me in this adventure?

Score: 9.0/10