5/5 ★ – Poefred's review of Pikmin.

I'd like to start this review trying to ease people who may be overwhelmed by Pikmin into what it's like, as it's one of Nintendo's most Niche franchises. However the game is very easy to understand despite being very out there original concept. It's very clear what pikmin you need for every situation, and the game never demands perfection or even a lot of multitasking. The room is there for experienced players to really get a LOT out of the mechanics, but if you even get a single ship piece a day, you'll get the best ending. 30 days 30 ship pieces. And it's still lenient as not every single piece is required to survive in the end. Coupled with an early upgrade that shows where every ship piece is on the map, there's not really a lot of room for being lost or confused as the timer counts down. If Nintendo's good at one thing, it's making intuitive games just about anyone can pick up and play. Beyond that, the world building and character writing is an almost subtle, background detail...Yet it's such a major appeal of the series as well. Olimar is one of the most interesting Nintendo protagonists, as he writes about everything you the player are experiencing sometimes right as it happens, and always in his journal entries at night. He's very likeable and you really feel sympathetic towards him wanting to get home to his family. And it's always cool to see his scientific analysis of the world and how it works, given all the fascinating wildlife. Though this first entry is heavier on the mysterious feeling of the world. Pikmin 2 doubles down on the writing and world building a lot. I consistently love games that stick to a strict timer to run the entire game off of. I find it forces you to engage with a game on its own terms in a very natural and immersvie way. And Pikmin is absolutely no different, in that it's an S tier game. If the timer puts you off, well I'd still recommend trying it out trying not to be too stressed out by it. Because like I said earlier no individual thing the game asks you to do is really demanding or complicated. BUT if you can't get past it, but are intrigued by the gameplay still, give Pikmin 2 a look. Getting ahead of myself a bit, but Pikmin 2 swaps the 30 day time limit multi-tasking type gameplay for a more traditional dungeon crawler. The day timer is still there but it's not a threat to you beyond leaving pikmin behind during the night, and it's not there at all during the dungeons that most of the game takes place in. BUT, I'll leave more detail in my review of the 2nd game. If you want to try the first game out, the question is whether you should go for the gamecube original, or wii version. I'll give a more detailed explanation in a review for specifically the Wii release. But, both work great, and I think most people will have a more intuitive, easy time with the pointer controls with the wii. It just makes a lot of sense for this game. On top of adding some quality of life improvements the original game didn't have. However as someone who grew up with the Wii version first, I actually really liked going back to the gamecube controls. I find the limitations of only being able to aim directly in front of olimar added a lot of tension and depth to the experience. Relative to simply being able to launch pikmin wherever you're pointing the wii remote with precision, regardless of Olimar's position, kind of negating some of the challenge. But honestly you can't go wrong either way, both have their own appeal and I love playing both versions. If I had to pick one to recommend to a newcomer though it would have to be the wii version. Generally I do prefer the gamecube controls these days but I'm a Resident Evil 4/Metroid Prime *I prefer to stand there holding the aim button to aim instead of playing the wii versions* kinda guy so I realize my taste in this kind of thing is niche. From pushing yourself to do better, to challenge runs, to casual playthroughs, Pikmin will never not be fun. The risk reward nature of trying to get as much done in a day as possible is very addictive. And the small arcade elements in high scores both serve as a good recap of how your run is going/how it went, and a drive to get better and do another one. And the music and overall game-feel from visual effects and sound effects are on point as was standard for classic Nintendo. Some may find this first entry a tad unpolished, in that Pikmin don't always follow you perfectly or start doing things you may not necessarily want them to do. But I think this makes them more alive and realistic. It's never enough to be an actual issue. You're commanding an army of 100 plant people you just plucked out of the ground, some of the chaos involved in controlling them, and getting really good at doing so, is kind of part of the appeal to me. (Again don't be worried, it's really just stuff like some pikmin getting distracted by some rocks as you pass them and they start smacking them looking for honey, making you have to whistle them back to your squad) I think more games could do with a bit less over-polished squeaky clean perfection that a lot of newer games go for, especially on Nintendo's end. There's perfection in imperfection.