Nintendo’s cult real-time strategy series arrives after a decade-long absence Pikmin is back with a fourth entry. Coming to the Nintendo Switch on July 21, reviews by Pikmin 4 are popping up – and most of them are excited as the game currently has an 87 score on the aggregators metacritical And open critic thanks in part to the biped Canine Companion Oatchi. So, like the famous Captain Olimar himself, we’ve set out to read a few reviews from the critics to give you an idea of what to expect once you pick up the game.
The more you play, the more you notice the philosophy that runs through the game. Some sandboxes require a certain amount of Ice Pikmin to cross a lake. However, you may need an answer to another puzzle on the other side. In select dungeons, you may need to dig up multiple walls to advance while also choosing how many Pikmin to send off to complete the task on time. It’s all seamlessly integrated into the game, and when it all comes together and you start making better decisions, the positive feedback loop hits the spot.
With brilliant results, Pikmin 4 acts as both the perfect introduction to this world and an extremely well-researched sequel for longtime fans who have waited a decade for Nintendo to create the next chapter. A good example of this is Oatchi, the game’s new canine co-protagonist, who I was initially quite ambivalent about. As does everyone who has played Pikmin 4As you’ll learn in the demo, the game starts off with the smoothest build-ups to fit the usual demands of the series, splitting your time and resources between different Pikmin types and different human leaders (now including space dogs). The division of labor is a central part of the series, which has evolved and increased over time Pikmin 2
from the solo protagonist predecessor. But it went in too far Pikmin 3where controlling the three protagonists via the Wii U’s GamePad tablet took an awkward turn towards RTS territory.
However, the star of the show is Oatchi. He doesn’t look much like a dog, but he acts like one, excitedly greeting you each morning on your daily adventure, defending you from danger and helping your Pikmin carry items he can’t handle on his own. In a game about managing a large group of helpful creatures, Oatchi is your awesome deputy manager who does all the heavy lifting. However, its greatest strength is being able to carry you and all your Pikmin with the push of a button. As interesting as it’s always been to cage up dozens of Pikmin and throw them at your problems, it always causes pesky problems when they fall off bridges or get stuck in corners. Gathering all of your Pikmin on Oatchi’s back eliminates that problem and makes everything a lot easier to manage so you can focus on having fun.
Oatchi also has some moves. First, he offers a jump, which allows you to traverse the maps much more easily, and a sprint, which headbutts opponents and catapults all Pikmin straight at an enemy for instant damage. He can also swim and safely carry your hydrophobic Pikmin-types across bodies of water. All of these abilities can also be upgraded, making Oatchi stronger and unlocking new abilities as you progress. Oatchi is a valuable new tool and works well with the new Ice Pikmin. They are, as the name probably suggests, capable of freezing bodies of water but also enemies, giving you a fantastic window of opportunity to damage others while they can’t damage you. It’s a wonder for the big eaters who like to make a quick snack out of their Pikmin. It’s a good combo, especially since the game has evolved alongside your own arsenal.
In case you absolutely can’t avoid losing Pikmin, there’s now a new Time Rewind feature. Previous Pikmin games offered a makeover at the end of the day, but Pikmin 4 expands on the concept with regular saves. You can’t save manually over the course of a day and it’s easy to see that would be too exploitable, but the autosaves typically happen every 2-5 minutes so you never lose too much progress. For those who are very protective of their Pikmin, it’s a great handy feature to be able to simply rewind a few minutes and try an encounter again if you’ve run into problems in the meantime.
It took me about 20 hours to complete the story, but in the classic Pikmin tradition, that’s less of an actual ending than a signal that more is to come. While I can’t go into the details, I have to say that Pikmin 4’s post-credits content is perhaps the best the Pikmin franchise has ever delivered. In fact, the greatest folly of Pikmin 4 is that it saves the best of its new tricks until you’ve completed the first ending of the campaign and seen the credits, because I would have loved to have dived straight into all of these creative locations and learned about their bizarre inhabitants and unlocked his homage to previous Pikmin games.
More problematic perhaps, and our main personal gripe with the game, is that it never feels like it really dives into providing situations where all the upgrades, gadgets, gimmicks, and abilities you unlock become complete essential for your survival. In fact, during our playtest, we hardly ever reached for our sprays or bombs, and in fact didn’t take advantage of many of the unlockable distractions and attacks on offer. If you simply need to keep every single Pikmin alive, you’ll likely experiment more and get a pretty good balance has For the most part, the game teetered between accessibility and challenge, but we can’t help but feel that it might have delved further into situations where your entire inventory had to be explored to overcome the obstacles in your path.
It’s all so incredibly absorbing that every time I had a little time I would run straight to my Switch. Since the Pikmin 4The time span for exploration is measured in days (which takes around 15 minutes in the real world), it’s perfect for playing in short bursts. The game gives you the time you need while letting you respect the urgency of your mission. I played through the story in a leisurely two dozen hours, but there’s a lot more content after the credits roll.
Yet despite these frustrations, the world of Pikmin 4 is so full of cuteness and style that I couldn’t be unhappy for long. Every bark from Oatchi as he ran towards me, every time a Pikmin chattered happily while sipping nectar from an egg, made me smile every time. In the basic gameplay premise of gathering, as well as in the little details that make that premise even more compelling, Pikmin 4 looks at life on earth from an optimistic perspective. What if advanced alien explorers found joy and benefit in what we have here – not our finest technologies, but the little things we forget in the course of an ordinary day? I was attracted to collect all the treasure Pikmin 4 Not just because I wanted to fill out one of my many checklists, but because I wanted to see the game’s reinterpretations of human objects, a catalog full of jokes but also deep appreciation. And this way Pikmin 4 achieves perhaps the best that a medium can achieve – it makes the real world seem more wondrous than before.
Pikmin 4 is a clever and content-packed advancement of one of Nintendo’s most underrated franchises, but longtime fans may be put off by how long it takes for the lavish campaign to get off the ground.
There seem to be some issues with the game, particularly related to the way some mechanics only become necessary late in the game or after you’ve beaten it. It’s one of those games where the game doesn’t open until the credits roll. However, if you can overlook the lull in the first dozen or so hours and enjoy new features like the Oatchi companion and slightly exciting boss encounters, Pikmin 4 presents what many describe as a relaxed, accessible entry into the long-running real-time strategy series.
