Welp...it’s been exactly one year today, when I first joined Epinions. It was a rocky start, and many of my reviews have been deleted that were outside the games genre. I thought my one year at Epinions should be celebrated by me reviewing an excellent game. Thanks to Everybody for helping me from the start, especially ChromeKiller, Xeno3998, and Guile176; for helping me to be a better writer on games.
Shigeru Miyamoto has always been known to give out surprises on a Nintendo Console. And it’s no surprise that he wouldn’t surprise us with a new game(I said surprise a lot just now). I’m not really sure what the past games were that started a new franchise, oh wait yea I do; Pokemon. But besides that, I’m not sure what other surprises he’s sprung out.
Now in the early stage of the Game Cube’s life, Shiggy brings us Pikmin. Sounds a lot like Pokemon, eh? Well it’s not. Pokemon is pronounced po-kay-mon, and Pikmin is pronounced pick-men, plus they’re both totally different games. On a side note, has anyone noticed how some people can’t pronounce Pokemon right? Like you know, the parents or kids who would despise it would say, “Oh, Pokeman are SOO cool...NOT!” They would say, Po-ke-MAN. How can someone get an “O” confused with an “A”? I don’t know, but that always bugged the crap out of me. Anyways, now for Pikmin.
Plot/Story
You are Captain Olimar, a guy from space who was hit by a comet and crashed into a strange planet which is inhabited by little creatures called Pikmin. Olimar’s life-support will only last another 30 days until it gives out and kills him, so you have to find the thirty parts of his ship that got knocked off during the crash.
What are Pikmin?
Pikmin, the stars of Shiggy’s new start of a franchise, are little onion like plants that sprout first a leaf, then a bud, and then blooms into a flower. When a Pikmin is in its leaf stage, they’re slower and weaker, the bud stages are average, and once they turn into a flower, they’re strongest and fastest.
The Pikmin are who is going to help Olimar find the parts to his ship so he can get home safely. At the start of the game, you’ll only have a few Pikmin. But thanks to the in-game tutorial, you’ll be growing and leading thousands of Pikmin to your 30 ship parts and then home.
Will you help me?
The Pikmin take kindly to Olimar, and don’t disobey to his orders. The Pikmin can perform certain tasks where otherwise Olimar couldn’t go. When you get a big group of Pikmin together, you can have them tackle an alien or whatever, and even throw some at a wall and they’ll start wacking at the wall.
Blue, Red, Yellow, and White, They’re All Precious In His Sight
The Pikmin come in different colors, and each color has a certain ability. The red Pikmin are the first ones you’ll encounter, and are the strongest Pikmin and the only Pikmin immune to fire. The Yellow Pikmin are the second kind you encounter, and are a little weaker than the red Pikmin, but can be thrown higher and can also carry bombs. Blue Pikmin, the last kind you’ll encounter, are the only Pikmin that can walk through 2ft water and not drown like little pansies.
We Must Combine our Power
What is probably the real reason the game is what it is, is that you can control up to 100 Pikmin on screen at one time, and can give them different tasks to complete. Like for instance, you can mix the colored Pikmin to your likings and create a killer group that can go through the water, break down a stone wall, or just plain surround an enemy and beat the crap out of him.
Since Pikmin is an action/strategy based game, the use of Pikmin is essential to finding your ship parts. Most of the puzzles depend on the use of different Pikmin to solve. Can’t figure out where to go? Take the Blue Pikmin and search any water in the area to find any place you’ve not been to yet.
Are you Scared?
The Pikmin will be the only source of offense you have. There are many obstacles in each area like giant lady bugs that will try and eat the Pikmin, and water where all but Blue Pikmin will drown, and other bugs. You can gather a group of Pikmin to throw at a bug and they’ll automatically start attacking. The more Pikmin, the faster you win.
Although you’ll most likely lose Pikmin when you go into a big battle, you can always grow more Pikmin. There are round tablets that have a number on them, which is the number of Pikmin needed to carry it back to the pods. Depending on which Pikmin drags the tablet in, it’ll either be sucked up by the Blue, Red, or Yellow pod and sprout Red, Blue, or Yellow Pikmin. Once they’re rooted in the ground, you can pick them, or wait and let them fully blossom.
A Time Limit? Hmm...This sounds familiar
I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but there is a time limit like there was in Majora’s Mask. Only you have 30 days to fix your ship, not three. Each day in Pikmin(from what I calculated) was about 15-20 minutes in real time. So that’s maybe between 4 and 5 hours for the hardcore gamers, 7 to 8 for the average gamers, and maybe 10 to 12 for the occasional gamer.
The time limit really stresses you on getting all 30 ship parts before the 30 days are up. Some people may not like this and will get frustrated. Even though the time limit does make the game go by really fast, the time limit is a good idea because it adds strategy to the game. You can save time by putting certain Pikmin on different tasks. You could have the Blue ones work on a bridge in the water, while the red ones bring in tablets to grow more Pikmin, and the yellow Pikmin can grab bombs and blow up the stone walls.
Having a strategy while searching the five areas for your ship parts, will help you acquire more of your ship parts faster. But be careful when it comes sundown. You need to beam your Pikmin that you’re using back into the Pikmin pods, because if any more are left when you take off, will be eaten by the animals that come out at night to feed on the Pikmin. It’s kind of sad seeing a lone Pikmin being eaten or smashed by one of the animals. Pikmin who are still rooted in the ground will be ok, and will still be there when you come back to the area.
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Graphics
Pikmin runs on the Game Cube very smooth and I have yet to see slowdown, even when commanding the max 100 Pikmin on the ground added with a barrage of bugs. That’s pretty good, because as much moving and head whacking there is, slowdown would really affect Game Play because people would be annoyed.
Each Pikmin is pretty simple, but there colors are bright Red, bright Blue, and bright Yellow, no colors that you can’t distinct the difference in this game. When the Pikmin are full of energy there leaf, bud, flower; whatever, will glow and there colors will be brighter. When a Pikmin is tired, they’re sort of a duller color I guess.
The environments are colored brightly with greens and nice blue water, while one of the areas has the dark atmosphere and has an eerie glow and feel to it. When you walk through a bunch of flowers, they’ll shake like you’re really walking through them.
Even though the Pikmin have a kind of cartoony look and “looks” like it’s for kids, I’d like to see some fan boy of X-box or PS2 solve some of the puzzles in Pikmin, and most of the time it‘s not even puzzles, just some hard challenges that take thinking to get across. A lot of them aren’t that easy, and require thinking. I think the graphics for Pikmin perfectly suite the type of game it is. Also, the environments aren’t hard on the eyes and most are colorful enough not to be hard on the eyes.
Control
Before buying this game, I wasn’t sure how easy the controls would be, but once I started playing they became second nature. To uproot a Pikmin from the ground, you press “A” button, and when there’s multiple Pikmin of the same color, then you can keep pressing “A” and Olimar will pick all the Pikmin.
Controlling the Pikmin is easy as pie, using the “B” button to call the Pikmin, and if you keep holding “B”, a circle radius will go out and call all the Pikmin within it. To sort the Pikmin by their color or just have them “stand-by” then press “X” and they’ll sort by cool and go into a kind of “stand-by” mode. When you’re in control of a group of Pikmin, you can throw them at something using the “A” button.
The camera set-up includes the “L”,”R”, and “Z” button. The “L” button is used to rotate the camera behind Olimar, and if you press and hold, the camera will stay behind him.
The “R” button is used as a zooming control. There are three zooms; close, medium(this is the one I used most often), and far away. The close zoom was too hard to see what’s around you, and limited your view. The middle zoom was the best for me, and the farthest was too hard to see.
The “Z” button is used for an over head view and I used it to see any place that I still need to go.
Sound
There’s no killer music here, but the sound effects are nice enough. As little Olimar walks along any surface, his foot steps change whatever the surface is. Like if you’re walking through water, you’ll hear watery foot steps, on grass you’ll hear his foot steps, but they’re kind of padded.
Olimar’s whistle is loud and high pitched and it should be that way so the Pikmin can hear him. The Pikmin don’t make any sounds or anything, but when you send one or a group to attack something, you’ll hear the thumps of their stems beating on whatever you sent them to do.
When a yellow or red Pikmin steps in water; they’re make screeching sounds to let you know that they’re drowning. Then they’ll drown followed by a little ghost that floats up letting you know the death of a Pikmin.
A faint tune is played as a background music, and varies between environments. Usually the music’s a sweet and jolly tune, but in some places it gets a little slower and deeper.
Overall
Pikmin is a great game to get because of the strategy with the Pikmin needed in order to repair your ship. I think anyone would like it and definitely anyone who’s a fan of Shigeru Miyamoto. And for all you people saying that this game is just for kids...I’d like to see you pass some of the challenges without trouble that you are think are meant for kids.
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