Review: Pikmin (NGC)

Oxygen. Wonderful stuff. Without it we'd all be a bit stumped. There would be no internal combustion engine so we'd all have to walk everywhere. Water would taste a bit funny and literally give a bad case of wind before making us float of into the stratosphere. And of course we'd all suffocate anyway. So luckily for all of us, there's quite a bit of it around these parts. At least last time I looked.

Consider, however, Captain Olimar. Intrepid pint-sized pilot of the Dolphin, a nifty little  intergalactic vessel (bearing an uncanny resemblance to the rocket out of 80’s Kid's TV Show 'Button Moon'), Olimar is returning to his homeworld after an exploratory jaunt around the local star system. Unfortunately someone put a great big asteroid in his flight path. Next thing he knows he's marooned on a strange alien planet and his ship has been scattered into thirty pieces from the resulting crash.

At first this planet seems hospitable enough. The oxygen-rich atmosphere supports a teeming array of weird alien lifeforms. But as it turns out oxygen is highly toxic to our hero. One breath of this strange world's atmosphere will kill him, and his life support systems only have enough power to keep him alive for 30 days. Better hurry up, find those missing ship parts and rebuild the Dolphin pretty sharpish then..

Luckily this planet seems to be home to one other semi-intelligent life form. They are the Pikmin. Olimar stumbles into them on his first day, or rather plucks one out of the ground like a carrot. Like you do. Pikmin are small, gregarious and inquisitive creatures that once 'picked' follow Captain Olimar around in a curious manner. They live in flying 'Onions', sprout in the earth from seeds, and form large gangs of up to 100 to fight pitch battles against their assorted natural predators and enemies such as the Spotty Bulborb, the rampant Yellow Wollywog, and the highly tempermental Puffy Blowhog. (No, I'm not making any of this up..) Pikmin, as it transpires, are highly versatile. They can cut down flowers and harvest the pollen they contain to reproduce more Pikmin. They can use their strength of numbers to pick up and transfer objects in an ant-like fashion across the terrain. For instance vanquished foes can be taken back to their Onions and used as food to reproduce. They can be picked up and thrown to high ledges and areas that Olimar himself can't reach. They can be instructed to build bridges, break down barriers and blow up enemies, walls (and often accidentally each other) with bombs. And if there's enough of them and you can get them, without drowning, burning or getting eaten to death , to the right locations, they can even carry lost ship parts back for you..

If all of this sounds refreshingly different from your average console release you'd be right. Gaming demi-god Shigero Miyamoto and his team have taken inspiration from a variety of sources such as the old ‘Lemmings’ series and ‘god-games’ like Lionhead’s Black & White, mixed them with puzzle and real time strategy game elements and fused them together to create a hugely enjoyable and original gameplay experience, and one of the most fascinating console games I've played in a long time. Olimars quest to re-assemble his ship, with the help of the Pikmin, takes the player through some stunning environments, along the way encountering cryptic puzzles, undertaking real-time task-planning, combat and strategy while at the same time nurturing, evolving and making new discoveries about the cute little Pikmin and their abilities.

Played out in 'real-time' over the previously mentioned 30 'day' period (each of the 'days' equates roughly to about 15 minutes game time) speed and planning are of the essence, as, not only are you battling the 30 day limit but at the end of each game 'day' Olimar and the Pikmin must take off from the planet surface to avoid various night hunting predators, and any Pikmin left behind in the open are lost. The emphasis is on multi-tasking seperate small groups of Pikmin to various tasks such as carrying, fighting and food gathering in tandem with the players exploration of the map and finding and retrieving each of the 30 ship parts within this imposed time limit. For instance, one ship part may require a wall to be knocked through and a bridge to be built to reach it, so while instructing small sub-groups to carry out these time-consuming tasks why not take excess Pikmin into battle against a boss which may harbour another ship part to speed up collection the next day? Initially you are confined to searching just one area of the map, the 'Impact Site', but as you start to find more parts for your ship you'll find your range extends and new areas open up for you to search, each with up to ten of the missing ship parts scattered around them. You can revisit any of these areas opened as many times as you wish, even after all the ship parts there have been found. However, some of the parts are more essential than others. It's up to you to find out which ones..

The implementation of the control system is masterful, with the emphasis being on ease of use and fluid issuing of commands. As you start to gain more and more Pikmin, up to a limit of 100 onscreen, this cleverness and simplicity of using of the controller to manage your 'troops’ becomes apparent. The analogue stick guides Olimar and his persuing Pikmin army. The A button grabs and throws Pikmin, useful for getting them across water or fire hazards, to inaccesible high platforms or at the 'hit points' of enemies. If no Pikmin are at hand it can also be used to punch, useful when fighting. B 'calls' Pikmin to your side, X dismisses them into regiments of different colour. The C-stick rallies your Pikmin at speed in any direction it is pressed, useful for guiding attacks and instructing them to pick up and carry objects. Y brings up a handy map, which can be used to locate Ship Parts (once you have found the right piece of equipment, near the start of the game). The shoulder buttons are used for camera views: zooming, rotating and angle of elevation (above or side view). It all becomes natural, even second nature very quickly, which is doubly impressive in what is effectively a real time strategy game, traditionally notoriously hard to program for console control layouts. Take it from me, in a relatively short time you'll be commanding your Pikmin masses like a pro.

Much of the enjoyment and satisfaction comes from discovering how to manage your Pikmin against the various hazards and obstacles in their environment as you learn and discover, like Olimar himself, the intricacies of this alien world, and because of this I'll try not to give too much away in this review. There's nothing quite like making such discoveries as how to reproduce and evolve Pikmin more efficiently yourself, as well as other factors such as the strengths and weaknesses of the three Pikmin sub-species (Red, Yellow and Blue). The fact that I didnt even read the manual at all probably added much to my enjoyment in making these discoveries myself, and I'd probably recommend this unless you get REALLY stuck. After all Olimar doesn't have the benefit of a manual.. why should you?! (Hint: the Pikmin colours are a big clue).

One of the most impressive features of the game for me was the fact that each of the levels are all like miniature alien 'ecosystems' with various creatures, some dangerous, some less so, all going about their business. There are about two dozen creature types in all and their modelling and animation are terrific. Each of the more threatening creatures you meet have to be tackled in a different manner, and each can pose a different type of threat on your Pikmin troops. Some pose a physical threat, for example the two varieties of Blowhogs, surreal trumpet-nosed critters, can emit potentially lethal fire or scatter your tiny troops with a large expulsion of air. Other creatures persue, devour or stomp your Pikmin into the ground. You'll need to observe their behaviour patterns, and experiment to find their vulnerabilities in order to defeat them without inflicting irrecoverable Pikmin 'casualties'.. especially some of the tougher boss creatures. Working out how is a significant factor in the appeal of the game. (Minimimising casualties is paramount because as you progress through the game you start not wanting to waste the narrowing days breeding replacement troops instead of cracking on with the quest for ship parts).

Most combat requires good strategic planning, with techniques such as flanking larger creatures and rear attacks being most effective. It's also surprisingly enjoyable, especially the feeling of sending a vast squad of 100 tiny Pikmin fighters into a mass-scrap with a huge hulking monster boss a hundred times their size! You'll watch in awe and amusement as they split into groups attacking the creatures feet and trying to hold it down, while others grab onto it's back and sides and bash away with their noggins.. all while you try and manouvre and rally more Pikmin into a good attack position for the second wave. The sound effects to these fights deserve a special mention for their hilarity, with the Pikmins' tiny shrill voices echoing and clattering away as they fling themselves selflessly into the jaws of death. 

Overall I'm very impressed with Pikmin indeed. The strangest, most obscure looking title on Game Cube has become, after playing through, in my eyes one of the best, if not THE best of all the launch era titles. It's very original and it's huge fun. It's very playable and addictive, and there's something strangely fascinating about watching those little Pikmin go about their tasks, in a similar way to watching leaf-cutter ants mill up and down a twig at the Natural History Museum. Pikmin takes Real Time Strategy to somewhere it's never been on a console, and probably never been on any format. Miyamoto has invented and created a believable little miniature alien world for us to explore, through the medium of Olimar and the Pikmin, and it rocks!

Rating: 9 / 10

Words by Mike Bevan