Pikmin

"Why hello you cute, little, adorable, cuddly Pikmin! Now, what exactly are you? Plant, animal, or Pokemon?"

OPENING STATEMENT
Whenever the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda gets and idea for a new game, the video game presses are buzzing. Yes, Shigeru was at it again, and this time, the news was heard, that it involved plants and gardening in his backyard. The first thought that came to my mind when reading the press release for this was “And what is he on?” But that attitude of total cluelessness and creativity led me to purchase his foray into flora while I was snapping up Super Smash Brothers Melee. And let’s just say that Shigeru should dig through the worms in the ground a bit more often.

GAMEPLAY--10
Pikmin may not be the most visually impressive game to be released in a while, or an audio masterpiece. But there is absolutely no way you cannot be impressed by the gameplay. Nintendo’s resident game god made the idea simple, but the execution complex. You have three types of Pikmin. You must use these three species, being careful of their strengths and weaknesses, to retrieve all of the parts of your ship.

And the Pikmin types play a big role in this adventure. Red Pikmin are invulnerable to fire. Yellow Pikmin can carry and throw the all important Bomb Rocks in addition to being able to jump the highest. And Blue Pikmin are the only Pikmin capable of entering the water. If I were you, I would consider Red Pikmin to be the most basic an expendable of the bunch, because the invulnerability to fire only helps them as soldiers, hence them being the most basic of the three types.

Yes, there is fighting. You did not expect this to be a simple maze game, did you? And, better yet, these battles require some strategy. Should you use the Bomb Rocks and risk an explosive disaster, or would it be safer to just send in a group of one hundred of your flowery friends? There will be casualties either way, but it is entirely up to you how you would like to go about limiting them. Rarely does any good sized enemy fall without the sad occurrence of without one of those Scream-mask-like ghosts floating up into the sky.

And Nintendo filled Pikmin with plenty of puzzles to challenge your mind to go with the strategy in organizing and utilizing your Pikmin. This may not be a game of mazes, but that does not mean that you will not have to navigate a few, taking down fierce enemies, crossing treacherous rivers, and destroying high walls along the way. Even with all of its cartoonish tendencies, Pikmin has sort of an epic feel to it, and this is entirely because of the strategy required and the puzzle found within.

GRAPHICS--8
The graphics may have their issues, but it is certainly not the fault of the textures. The amazingly varied textures add one of the only elements of realism to a rather cartoonish game. I have never before seen wood in a video game that a beaver would like to run up and chomp on. In Pikmin, I could almost envision one running across the screen, because the grain in the wood is more realistic than those fake wood floors, Pergo or whatever.

The shading and shadows in Pikmin are perhaps a bit too realistic. At times, when there was a pool of water near a steep cliff, the shadows were too dark for me to even notice that the water was even present, until my Pikmin started dying in droves. My television set is rather old, so even with the brightness maxed out, I could not see the pools of liquid all that easily.

The expressions of the Pikmin are absolutely priceless. When they first pop up out of the ground, you will see a little “Wow! I am here! What’s going on?” type of look. If they get attacked in battle, you can see the pain and anger enter their faces. And when a Red Pikmin or a Blue Pikmin gets accidentally blown to smithereens by a bomb rock, the way they glare at you before dying will make you feel more guilty than you ever thought possible. (Of course Captain Olimar writing about the expressions just before they get blown to bits in his journal does not help your emotional state a lot either.)

Nintendo made the environments realistic for the most part, but they kept them just cartoonish enough to fit in with the Captain and the Pikmin. Captain Olimar basically looks like Ziggy (of the newspaper comics fame) in a space suit. If you do not know what Ziggy looks like, just think of a really short bald guy, with pinkish skin and a nose that covers up half of his face. And the Pikmin look like tiny, multicolored versions of the Blue Man Group, with leaves, buds, or flowers popping up out of their head.

MUSIC--5
SOUND--8
The music in Pikmin is really nothing special. You will basically forget that it is even there, because it does not really add to the atmosphere of the game at all. Putting in your favorite CD would be much more enjoyable to listen to. The songs are not really bad, as they are quite average, but what they are is unnecessary.

The sound effects are much better, and as a direct result of that, do a much better job adding to the atmosphere of this inventive little Pikmin. They make little “Heave ho!” noises while carrying objects. (Please not that they do not actually say heave ho, but that is merely what I envisioned them saying.) They make other little noises at times to convey emotions as well. Captain Olimar really should have had a voice in the little cutscenes, and in the scientific reports and what not, but the text scrolling noise that has replaced him is surprisingly well done. All in all, a solid job in the sound effects by Nintendo and their magnificent game developers.

CONTROL--8
Nintendo’s games rarely have problems controlling, and Pikmin is no exception. Since this game is a real-time strategy game on a home console, a breed of games that is notoriously difficult to control, that makes the feat even more impressive. The game holds your hand for the first day, so you can learn everything that you need to, and the list of button functions can come up with the press of ‘Y.’ I think that the biggest difference between controlling Pikmin and controlling other real-time strategy games on consoles, is the fact that Pikmin is actually designed solely for a home console, rather than being a port of a popular game on the computer.

FUN--9
Hell, Pikmin is fun just because you are doing something you so rarely do in video games these days: Play something interesting, innovative, and new, not the cookie cutter action game crap that we have come to expect and tolerate these days. I mean, who would ever think we would end up with a real-time strategy game centered around plants!

Somehow commanding these strange little creatures is compelling. It is not like the story did a lot for this either. The story in Pikmin consists of Captain Olimar’s space ship crashing, and he needing to retrieve the pieces with in thirty days, or else he will run out of oxygen. Do not expect any twist along the way either. Pikmin is all about the quest to get the parts, not the reason you are seeking them out.

CHALLENGE--MEDIUM
Some of the parts in Pikmin are really, really easy to get. Other parts require so much thinking and strategy to get that you may just skip them, since only eighteen of the thirty missing parts are needed to beat Pikmin once and for all. If you actually want to get all thirty pieces, then you will have some trouble completing Pikmin, because once you get to about twenty-five pieces, the remaining five pieces will require an amazing amount of strategy, quick thinking, and puzzle solving to unlock.

REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM
Most likely you will not get all thirty pieces the first time through Pikmin. I know I did not. However, I then played through the game again, trying to get thirty pieces. I still did not, but I got a little bit closer. And you, like me, will keep wanting to try until you get to every last piece. There may not be any special modes, but the aura of actually completely maxing out a game will keep you coming back at least a few times.

PROS
*Some of the most beautiful textures ever found in a video game.
*Creativity abounds in Pikmin.
*Innovative gameplay helps make an already engaging quest better.

CONS
*Olimar has sort of a superiority complex to compensate for his lack of height.
*The music is sort of corny and very unnecessary.
*No way to skip cinema scenes, even when playing in a second file.

CLOSING STATEMENT
I hereby do decree that the Red, Blue, and Yellow Pikmin should be made into Pokemon, numbers 252, 253, and 254. They would fit in nicely with Pokemon like Oddish and Bellsprout. And giving lesser Pokemon their own game would make Nintendo more apt to give Squirtle and Charmander their own games, like they so richly deserve. Rage Against the Machine should write a song about that!

OVERALL--8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/02, Updated 01/02/02