Pikmin 4 (Switch)

Up until Pikmin 4, the Pikmin series has always focused on the idea of astronauts crashing down on a beautiful but hostile world where they must rely on plant-based lifeforms called Pikmin to perform tasks and fight back against the dangerous wildlife. Pikmin 4 does still open with a stranded space traveler like the others, but the Pikmin aren’t the only thing helping them this time around. Plenty of other people end up on the same planet and contribute in their own ways while a small alien dog called Oatchi proves to be almost as helpful as an army of Pikmin on their own. This entry doesn’t focus as much on isolation and survival as the other Pikmin games, but it does still emphasize the collective power of many small characters working together to overcome a dangerous situation.

 

Pikmin 4 seems to be a reboot of the series’s continuity, beginning with Captain Olimar crash landing on a planet he should be familiar with by now. Instead, while he is the first to realize the usefulness of the local Pikmin population, he still needs help getting off-planet, sending a distress signal out into the stars and attracting far more attention than he anticipated. Space travelers from all over all come to check out the uncharted planet for a myriad of reasons but all of them end up crash landing as well, even the actual rescue team meeting a similar fate. The character you’ll be playing as though is a rookie in the Rescue Corps who at first stayed behind, your customizable character now the only hope to find the castaways and work towards getting everyone off planet. All of these astronauts actually find themselves on a world that looks a lot like our own, right down to having park benches and full suburban households, but these space travelers are actually no more than an inch tall, making even something simple like a playing card look massive by comparison. Many objects on this world also contain a residue called Sparklium that can power the spaceships of the Rescue Corps though, so beyond the actual rescue mission, it becomes important to find special treasures in the world to fuel the eventual departure.

 

While Pikmin 4’s world looks a lot like Earth after humans have inexplicably disappeared, the wildlife is quite different from our own. A wide range of strange yet often adorable and imaginative creatures inhabit the areas you’ll explore. Large Bulborbs try to sweep you up into their mouth that makes up over half their body, Burrowing Snagrets mix a snake body with a bird’s head for an unexpected creature that bursts out of the soil, and the Horned Cannon Beetle is able to fire rolling rocks towards you to try and flatten you. There can be a sense of wonder and mild fear when exploring as suddenly you see some strange new creature whose attack methods and vulnerabilities are unknown to you, something like the Grubchucker looking like a crab but its tall stilt legs and odd lips atop its head leaving you wondering what it might do when you have no choice but to approach it for your mission. There is a wide range of wildlife out to get you, from creatures that breath fire and ice to ones that are shrouded in poison spores, and you certainly couldn’t do much against them with your astronaut’s pathetic little punches. Here is where the Pikmin become important to survival, the little plant people eager to follow you and listen to your commands. Not only can you form a small army of them capable of difficult tasks like carrying large objects, building bridges, and breaking down barriers, but they can be flung at hostile creatures to start wearing those enemies down.

Each Pikmin has its perks and downsides though. A Blue Pikmin is able to swim through water while Yellow Pikmin can be thrown much higher than others to reach places you can’t otherwise access. Some smaller but meaningful differentiation exists like Red Pikmin being stronger than most while the Winged Pikmin are weaker to make up for their greater flexibility in carrying objects, and certain types even have outright unique functions like the newly added Ice Pikmin being able to freeze enemies that you can then shatter for a quicker fight. While Pikmin 4 does usually limit you to having only three types of Pikmin active at a time, it is easy to swap between them so you’re not doing something self-defeating like throwing your companions into a poison cloud when only the White Pikmin can survive it. There is usually a brief pause between throwing all members of one type or all the ones required for a task to indicate that you might not need to throw more, and if you do end up with Pikmin who aren’t immune to something like fire or electricity hit by that damage type, you still can save them if you’re quick enough by using your whistle that is normally meant for calling the Pikmin back to you. Pikmin use feels clean and convenient and even in a fight with a more dangerous or mobile monster you can usually manage your group fairly well without many losses, but Pikmin 4 does expect you to have some casualties along the way. Pikmin can be grown to replenish their numbers, but regardless of the size of your plant army, you’ll always have one companion on your side to help out: Oatchi.

 

Oatchi is a Rescue Pup, the little alien animal always willing to help you out and behaving like a Pikmin in a few key ways. He can carry objects and fight enemies, although he starts off about as strong as a singular Pikmin. With even small objects often needing three Pikmin to carry it back to your ship for further use, he doesn’t sound the most useful, but Oatchi has many other functions as well. When traveling, you can hop on Oatchi, all your other Pikmin also hitching a ride so you can do things like jump up ledges or even cross water that would normally kill anything but a Blue Pikmin. Oatchi can sniff out treasures and castaways as well, but one of his most useful abilities is the rush. Oatchi will charge in the direction you point him, this not only heavily damaging barriers or other obstructions, but it can be incredibly useful in battle. Not only does the initial slam do damage, but all the Pikmin will leap off Oatchi and attack afterwards. It’s not uncommon that your battle strategy for many monsters will be slamming Oatchi into them, letting the Pikmin attack for a bit, then calling them back to repeat the tactic. Initially this does run into some expected issues. Oatchi can’t charge into something on fire or electrified, but this can actually be fixed. As you find more stranded astronauts, you get credit to buy upgrades for Oatchi. Over time, you can make him impervious to elemental attacks, as strong as 100 Pikmin, and even add a brief stun effect to his charge to make the rush strategy more effective. Pikmin 4 does still include some enemies completely immune to even a fully upgraded Oatchi, the Sunsquish for example looking like a fried egg where its “whites” block you from charging into the vulnerable “yolk”, but things do still feel like they start centralizing around Oatchi’s usefulness a bit much.

 

During most play though, having the useful Rescue Pup is going to be a convenience that helps you get your work done faster. You only have so much time in an in-game day to do your work, meaning you’ll need to divide up your time spent growing Pikmin, carrying treasures, fighting monsters, and building helpful structures or tearing them down. There are caves you can dive down into where you don’t have to worry about time, these spaces often more about specific challenges in often cramped spaces where you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to get new Pikmin if you lose some, although a friendly Rewind feature lets you go back to checkpoints if you do end up suffering a loss that feels too devastating. The caves feel more about figuring out tasks and overcoming danger while out in the lush environments aboveground it’s more about time management, but technically you can always just come back the next day to finish work so it’s more about how efficient you wish to be. There is a nice mix of environments too, there being some nice green garden spaces but also a sandy beach environment where the tide actually recedes to open up exploration opportunities. Oddly enough the credits roll before the story is really finished and there are about as many new environments to explore after the “ending” as there were before it, Pikmin 4 more robust than it might initially seem. The castaways you find will give you side missions that can earn materials for new upgrades, the player able to get new gear and items to help them out so you can even participate in a battle a bit by throwing bombs or sending out a sudden shock. The treasures and creatures you find are catalogued in amusing ways too as the astronauts struggle to understand items from our regular life on Earth that are divorced of their context or they’ll have an odd perspective on them like Dalmo finding the deadly beasts more adorable than fearsome.

Working to complete the side missions gives you extra considerations while out exploring and collecting, the game using the term “dandori” to describe the careful planning to get all your work done efficiently and without getting overwhelmed. In usual play it does remain manageable because of the limited pressure and all goals being indefinite rather than having strict time limits. Dandori challenges change that though and can provide some of Pikmin 4’s most exhilarating challenges. There are two main types of dandori play, the Dandori Challenge giving you a set time limit to grab every treasure and defeat every creature in an area so you can collect their bodies. Even with a fully upgraded Oatchi, you can still feel the tightening of the game’s leniency as you need to delegate tasks properly to complete things in time, and Oatchi’s abilities actually can lead to you needing to make judgment calls on when to deploy him since you’ll be left without him for a bit if he’s off carrying some heavy item. Figuring out the lay of these challenges feels like the culmination of the often more relaxed work out in the world, but there are also the Dandori Battles where two players compete in their Pikmin management skills. With both fights in the main story and the option to play it in multiplayer, dandori duels provide the same space and resources to both sides, but your ability to build up your Pikmin army, find the valuable treasures, and sabotage the opponent will be what determines the victor with a bit of randomization like occasional high value targets or special items doled out for shake ups.

 

The dandori challenges are definitely where Pikmin 4’s most difficult strategic tests arise, but there is also a more involved tactical battle type that puts Pikmin 4 closer to the real-time strategy games it is sometimes compared to. Usually, you’ll leave an area at night because the wildlife on this game’s planet becomes more active and dangerous after the sun goes down. However, a resource called Glow Sap is only available at night, so the player has to start undertaking dangerous night expeditions even though none of their Pikmin will follow them into battle. Instead, the player must rely on Glow Pikmin, these ghostly variants coming out of glowing mounds you need to protect until the end of the night. The aggressive wildlife will come towards these little bases, so you need to build up their ranks and fight back quickly to manage a defense, there being much more real-time pressure than usual since during the day you usually are the one picking a fight by approaching. Glow Pikmin are more convenient than regular Pikmin in many ways, resisting many damage types like fire, floating over to you when they’re born so you can build up your reserves quickly, and they can even join together into a ball of energy for a huge attack. Night battles are like Dandori Battles in that you need to be adaptive and make good battle plans on the fly, although unsurprisingly Oatchi is still a star here. Oatchi can actually work as a second commander, meaning you can split your attention on two fronts, and while normally you’d need to actually split up the Pikmin between you, Glow Pikmin instantly flit over to the commander you’re in control of so you can handle the more dangerous nights where more mounds are under attack. While night expeditions definitely have their own set of skills being cultivated in regards to responsiveness, they do still feel like a nice evolution of the game’s task management play, the game having you break up standard exploration with cave dives, dandori action, and night expedition so that you won’t become complacent with any efficiency strategies.

THE VERDICT: Pikmin 4’s inventive and gorgeous world is a host to many interesting tests of your group and time management, the lower pressure exploration helping to build you up for the move involved caves, the stronger strategic considerations of dandori challenges, and the real time tests that are night expeditions. Oatchi feels like he is sometimes too helpful despite his growth into such a useful companion being the result of your efforts, but the Pikmin themselves still receive constant use as you solve puzzles, fight strange creatures, and work out how to best manage your time and resources. It feels quite easy to get sucked into the rhythm of plunging back in to do more productive work thanks to a good mix of conveniences and limitations, even the quest for 100% completion feeling like it can whizz by thanks to the range of fulfilling work that keeps you engrossed for the whole adventure.

 

And so, I give Pikmin 4 for Nintendo Switch…

A GREAT rating. As adorable and appreciated as Oatchi ends up being, the helpful little dog does perhaps restrict the potential of Pikmin 4’s “dandori”. In a Dandori Challenge he is a useful assistant that the design is usually built around to some degree, the timer properly accounting for the fact he can speed up battles and carry huge objects on his own. In other areas like standard exploration though, it can feel like he’s taking away from some of the potential found in unique monster designs. There’s a moth-like boss monster called the Snowfake Fluttertail that I almost forgot existed because the fight went so fast thanks to Oatchi’s rush lessening some of the need for strategy in approaching it, and while not every enemy needs to be some involved conflict where proper Pikmin use is required to win the day, it does feel like perhaps Oatchi shouldn’t have been given immunities so easily so you would have to more often think about specific battles. Pikmin 4 does still have enough monsters with more teeth to them that you won’t rush to win once Oatchi has grown, but the fact Oatchi can be upgraded also taps into making your activities actually rewarding in Pikmin 4. You’re not just working to hit the long-term goal of gathering Sparklium, you’re seeing your own abilities grow in ways beyond just cultivating more Pikmin. The Pikmin themselves still do a good amount of work when you get into more advanced tasks too, and having such a spread of activities almost seems like it was meant to guarantee that you can’t become complacent. Glow Pikmin, Ice Pikmin, Rock Pikmin, they all have unique applications too, and the initially simple considerations for their value eventually evolve into quick and important choices when there isn’t time to spare. Pikmin 4 is rich in content and artistry, and if making things broadly more convenient so they can more easily hook you in lead to some strategic depth being lost in other departments, it might have ultimately been the right choice to make such a wondrous world you’re eager to plunge back into and get to work in.

 

Pikmin 4 does feel like the best of the Pikmin games even if others might beat it out in specific departments. The wide range of activities, the large spread of creatures and Pikmin you use against them, and even Oatchi despite the simplification that he can entail all push this game to an enjoyable and fascinating design. The world of Pikmin feels lush and teeming with work to be done, full completion tantalizing because it feels achievable while still having areas like the dandori challenges to make sure that completing it all feels like a satisfying test of your Pikmin handling.