The game opens with Captain Olimar's ship getting hit by a meteor and crashing to a planet similar to Earth. When he arrives, his ship is in pieces...so begins the search for his scattered parts on this new found place. To help him in his search, he discovers Pikmin, tiny colored creatures which have different abilities to aid with tasks such as moving boxes, breaking down walls, defeating enemies, building bridges, and carrying objects. To completely finish the game, you must gather all 30 parts, but you can still finish the game by obtaining all of the 25 REQUIRED parts (not as good of an ending). The UNREQUIRED parts are the Space Float, Nova Blaster, Massage Machine, UV Lamp, or Secret Safe (get after defeating final boss, Emperor Bulbax in the final area, Final Trial).
The gameplay is pretty creative and tests the player's strategy. Since each of the colors have a specific use, the key figuring out when to use which colored Pikmin to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. The Pikmin come in the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. Each color has a specialty: Red-Immune to fire (blue and yellow are not), Blue-Immune to water (red and yellow will drown), Yellow-Can be thrown higher (red and blue thrown at average height) and can pick up bombs (red and blue cannot).
For instance, to defeat the big, sleeping lady bug, you have two options... 1. Take out a bunch of Pikmin (red is recommended because they are the best fighters) and throw them on its back from behind until it dies. If you attack from the front, the enemy will eat the Pikmin. Call any Pikmin back who stray to its eating zone with the B button. Attacking the legs will slow the lady bug down but won't do much damage to its life. 2. Take a couple yellow Pikmin out and have them pick up bombs. Carry them to the lady bug and throw a bomb-carrying Pikmin near the vicinity of the enemy. The yellow one will throw the bomb, damaging the enemy. It will awaken. Throw another one (or two in later stages) with a bomb as well to finish it off. Since the lady bug moves fairly fast once it awakens, try to lure the enemy towards the bomb by having Captain Olimar run towards the bomb. Just make sure not to get too close to the explosion, because then it would damage Captain Olimar and kill the remaining Pikmin. After the lady bug dies, use the C stick to have the Pikmin surround the dead body to carry it. A fraction will appear. The numerator is how many Pikmin are currently attempting to carrying the body, while the denominator is the number needed to actually lift the body. Make sure that you have at least the number of Pikmin showing in the denominator. They will take it back to the Onion. It takes 10 to lift the big lady bug.
Pikmin is lot of fun, especially when you are playing with people, because you can bounce different strategies and ideas off of each other.
The negative parts of Pikmin is that you can only have 100 Pikmin on the field at once, which includes the ones that Olimar hasn't pulled out of the ground yet. The musical score is nothing to get excited about either...pretty boring stuff. It sounds like they were trying to imitate a spaceship once in awhile, which is fitting but won't get any of the players dancing. Besides a few electronic, repetitious sound effects, Pikmin doesn't offer much musically.
Also, the Pikmin get "disobedient" sometimes and do things that you don't want them to do. Like break off and start hitting a flower when you just want them to follow you or bump into an enemy while carrying a part when they clearly had room to go around. This can make the game frustrating but the strategy, fun factor, and creativity make up for them overall. The graphics are sharp, vivid, and colorful, as expected from the Gamecube. It does a good job at showing the size contrasts. Captain Olimar is supposed to be the height of a quarter, so twigs, flowers, and insects are big in the game, even though they are small to real life humans. The bright hues make the game eye-appealing, such as the nectar, fire, and pearls in the oyster.
The final battle against Emperor Bulbax can be a doozy. Even if you have a lot of Pikmin, time can run out of the day if you don't act quickly. It's challenging but definitely beatable with a few tries, once you get the hang of the right process.
And I know this isn't a tips site, but just a quick hint...I found that using yellow Pikmin to defeat the Beady Long Legs in the Forest Navel worked much more effectively because you can throw them higher.
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