'Pikmin 3': A Challenging Strategy Game That's Too Darn Cute

What's This?

By Chelsea Stark2013-07-31 17:01:06 UTC

Pikmin (n.) — a sentient plant creature of minuscule proportions, with a single flower bud growing from the top of its bulb-shaped head. Pikmin come in a variety of colors, and can lift and carry objects several times their size. Fiercely loyal, they can be rounded up and herded simply with the blow of a whistle. Habitat: recently spotted boarding the Wii U for Pikmin 3.

Twelve years ago, Nintendo Gamecube owners were treated to a whimsical strategy game called Pikmin, straight from the deviously creative mind of Shigeru Miyamoto. Its cuddly, colorful exterior belied a game that challenged players. Three years later, it was followed with Pikmin 2 — equally cute with a new set of moves. The series was highly acclaimed, but hasn't appeared on a game console for nine years.

See also: Nintendo's Wii U: First Impressions

Now the pikmin have trotted onto the Wii U, bringing the hopes of a flagging next-generation console on their backs. Now it's not only a question if Pikmin 3 will be a great game, but if it can get people to buy a new game console.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, or like me, haven't touched it in nearly a decade, Pikmin 3 needs some backstory. In the first game, you play Captain Olimar, a space explorer who crashes on a strange planet. Your ship is in ruins, but luckily you've met these mysterious, pint-sized critters eager to help you in any way they can. The surprisingly resilient pikmin can dig through walls, carry things several times their size and take down giant enemies with their sheer numbers. You'll move around the world followed by up to 100 of them, their onion-shaped heads with flower tops bobbing as you run.

Become a Pikmin Master

In Pikmin 3, you take the roles of three brand new explorers — Charlie, Alph and Brittany — as they travel far from their home planet in search of a new food supply for their starving race. They coincidentally find food on the same uninhabited planet once visited by Captain Olimar. The game begins as your ship is thrown around entering the atmosphere, and your crew is scattered across the globe. Your first goal is to reunite them, while also collecting fruit that can be used to keep the crew alive.

The gameplay is structured into approximately 15-minute days, where between sunrise and sunset you utilize pikmin to explore the sometimes harsh world and gather supplies. At the end of each day, you must all make it back to your spaceship to get you and the pikmin safely off the planet's surface, which becomes too hostile to survive at night. Unlike the previous games, which had a hard 30-day stop in which you could complete your tasks, Pikmin 3 gives easier restrictions. Your survival is indefinite as long as you have juice to drink for sustenance at the end of the day, which comes form the fruit you collect on the planet. While this isn't as challenging as previous games, it isn't training wheels either. Just like any strategy game, it requires planning, resource management and excellent pikmin rapport.

Your first job as Pikmin Wrangler is to toss them at obstacles, enemies or things you want them to carry. This is done by pointing with a target controlled by the same analog stick tied to movement, which actually made it tricky to sometimes hit your mark. I found sometimes I lacked precision to be able to toss pikmin onto the sweet spot of a monster to take it down.

Once pikmin are tossed out, you'll need to call them back into your control with a whistle. Again the target area had to be placed over pikmin to call them back to your influence, so it was easy to sometimes miss a pikmin if it had wandered off, or, more likely, you lost track of it during a heated battle with a more challenging enemy. Why is this terrible? Because losing pikmin is the most stressful thing in the game due to how Nintendo has managed to personify the creatures. When a pikmin dies, it wails, and a still-somehow-adorable ghost flies into the air. When you don't round up all your pikmin by the end of the day, a gut-wrenching cut scene shows the pikmin chasing your ship, then being eaten by horrible monsters. If this doesn't bug you, then maybe this game isn't for you, because it's clearly trying to prey on your cute-loving weaknesses.

Despite these niggles, moving your pikmin troops is easy enough. You unlock multiple colors, each with its own unique skill set. The fierce rock pikmin have impossibly large bodies able to smash down walls and obstacles, while the yellow pikmin can conduct and withstand electricity, and so on. Unlocking each along your journey encourages players to solve puzzles in a different way, and also travel back to older areas to solve puzzles once inaccessible.

New Game, New Tricks

Much of Pikmin 3's puzzles not only involve utilizing different types of pikmin, but also using your team members independently. With three functioning player characters in your squad, you can separate your group to perform different tasks. You can use one character to toss another into an inaccessible area, or split them up to perform tasks that take a bit of time.

The best way to facilitate this separation is, surprisingly, the Wii U GamePad screen. While the screen only seems to be a map display at first glance, you can use it to pause the game and survey the world much more closely. You can also use it to set characters on autopilot and send them to a certain destination, all while keeping focus on the most important task at hand.

The minimap is almost necessary, because the worlds in Pikmin 3 feel much more spacious. There might be one main area, but there are plenty of offshoots with new treasure to find and puzzles to solve, and getting an aerial view of that is crucial when you're on a time crunch. With days as short as they are, it's often hard to let yourself wander aimlessly without worrying about all the daylight you're losing.

Shiny, Happy Pikmin

Of course, it's been two console generations since we've seen any pikmin marching about. If you have fond memories of how lush and beautiful the game looked back then, take a look at some clips on YouTube to reacquaint yourself with how dated those graphics look now. Then turn on Pikmin 3 and prepare to be amazed. Sure, it took Nintendo a long time to get to high-definition games, but at least it didn't waste any time since arrival. Nintendo clearly knows how to squeeze every bit of visual juice from its own hardware to create a game world worthy of a nature magazine centerfold.

The flair doesn't stop at the game world. Each character has a unique visual style that pops, from the game's three playable heroes to their pikmin entourage. Each pikmin subspecies is unique, and all their details make them characters you care about and want to keep safe.

The enemies you encounter are just as well-constructed. Despite the fact that I was fighting a giant slug, I still spent time to admire the detail in the texture of its slimy skin. Each creature is imaginative and unlike anything seen in other games, which suits it perfectly to the concept of pikmin.

On the whole, Pikmin 3 is a challenging strategy game with a charming exterior. The small touches in gameplay are why people will always love Nintendo, and its cuteness should not discourage serious gamers from picking it up.

The Lowdown

The Good

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  Adorable graphics and characters mixed with lush environments that are amazing.

  
  


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  Gameplay is challenging, and encourages exploration while never really taking the pressure off.

  
  


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  Actually utilizes the Wii U GamePad well.

  
  

The Bad

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  The controls leave something to be desired, especially when trying to aim and fire pikmin.

  
  


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  The story mode was a little too short.

  
  

Images: Nintendo

Topics: Entertainment, reviews, Gaming, Nintendo, pikmin, Wii U