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Pikmin Review for GameCube
Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 @ 12:56:05 am E.S.TAsteroids…Onions…Puzzles… Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there. Who was I talking to? Oh, just myself, as I often do these days. Ever since the ‘incident,’ anyway. Oh! Please excuse my manners; I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Captain Olimar, cheery and ingenuitive (though I don’t like to brag) space captain from the planet Hocotate. Here on Hocotate, I’ve got a bubbly son and an adorable wife, not to mention a booming business and a respectable yet modest home. My story, you ask? I do suppose you’d want to hear it, everyone else does. Well, here goes:
On my once yearly vacation through the cosmos, I had nothing on my mind but kicking back and relaxing for a few weeks, but fate’s mind obviously had contrary plans. About halfway to my vacationing spot, a fiery comet crashed full-on with my spaceship. I lost all control of my vessel, hit my head, and fell unconscious. When I woke up, I was unconscious. And though I was unharmed (for some undeterminable reason), I couldn’t say the same for my spaceship. It was demolished, to the extent that it was missing thirty of its most crucial parts. There was no way I was getting home in it unless I found the missing parts and reassembled it. And me with only thirty days worth—which is much more than I needed, I realized—of oxygen. At the time, my life was on the line and dread filled every inch of my body, but somehow the disaster turned into an adventure of sorts. A very enjoyable, if slightly flawed, adventure.
After stumbling across the either strangely instinctive or telepathic critters I call Pikmin (who, for some reason, live in odd structures similar to onions on Hocotate), finding all my ship’s parts was a breeze. Almost all of them could be found be found very easily, and weirdly enough, it seemed they were being guarded by specifically placed, yet quite ineffective puzzles. Freaky. Accordingly, my adventure lasted a relatively short time – 8 hours. My adventure's length (or lack, thereof) is amplified by the fact that there was virtually nothing to do after I'd collected all my ship's parts, which I only needed a fraction of anyway. I only needed to find twenty-five of my thirty missing parts to get home; some of them, like the ‘space float’ are merely cosmetic. I can’t even swim.
In that time, I bred and commanded the easily submitting Pikmin, which proved to be very fun. One of the critters would get off task every once in a while, but for the most part the Pikmin—named after the PikPik brand carrots they resemble—were thoroughly enjoyable to control. Getting them to do tasks, like finding ‘bomb rocks’ (explosive rock-like spheres that helped me destroy path-obstructing stones walls) and constructing bridges was also effortless. All I had to do was throw a Pikmin in the general area of the task I wanted completed and it would do the rest on its own.
The Pikmin, without question, are strange creatures. They come in three varieties: red, yellow, and blue. Red Pikmin served as my personal bodyguards throughout the hunt for my mechanisms, and I later found they were impervious to fire. Yellow Pikmin were the smallest and the lightest of the three; I could throw them much higher and farther than the others. This attribute, coupled with their ability to handle the aforementioned ‘bomb rocks’ made them valuable assets to my cause. The blue Pikmin’s lone ability may have been the most important. As their bluish color and gills might suggest, they’re able to travel beneath the surface of water formations, like the planet’s multiple lakes, whereas such events cause the other varieties of Pikmin to perish.
Their fashion of reproducing is also alien to me. When a pellet (which can be acquired from either slain enemies or harvested plants) was brought to one of the Pikmin’s above mentioned ‘onions,’ the structure literally sucked the pellet from the ground below and spewed out undeveloped, seed-like Pikmin, which were planted in the ground. When they ripened, I pulled them from a ground and they joined the ranks of my organic army. Strangely, the pellets were marked with numbers, which corresponded to the number of Pikmin that it would take to carry it to the onion. Again, freaky.
In the duration of my adventure, my Pikmin and I encountered a number of planet’s more hostile creatures. Some were big, like one red, spotted beast that would kill my Pikmin by both stomping on them and gobbling them up in his gargantuan mouth. Others, like the small, mischievous green insects with wings, attacked from the sky, depending on the element of surprise to diminish my Pikmin. Killing each creature required a different set of tactics; throwing a Pikmin at the red, spotted monster would surely land one of my beloved soldiers in its mouth, while throwing one at the green insects would allow the Pikmin to climb onto the assailant’s back and slowly kill it. Executing these creatures was, dare I say it, fun, and figuring out how to take them down was even more enjoyable. Even more entertaining than that was bonking the enemies with my head, which seemed to do considerable damage to both them and myself. I hope I didn’t rupture a vein.
The creatures, however, were mostly nocturnal. When the strange planet’s sun went down, the monsters—so to speak—came alive. And they were hungry. It came to a point where I had to stop everything I was doing, including searching for my ship’s parts, when nightfall came. It came pretty soon, too. Even though I had no watch, I predict that each day on that isolated planet would last about fifteen minutes here on Hocotate; the rest was of the day was obscured by night. This aspect of the planet was fairly annoying. True, it did add some desperation—to an already desperate situation, mind you—to retrieving my ship’s parts, but the days just didn’t last long enough to do everything I wanted to.
The difference between this planet and all the others I’ve visited in my space travels is profound. From the minute I stepped from my crumpled spaceship and onto the planet’s surface, I viewed true originality through the blurred glass of my helmet. Whatever supreme being had created this planet really had an eye for originality. It was refreshing, how different everything was from the normal world, though I really could do without some things, i.e. a giant mushroom that break dances on his head when injured.
I’m glad my eyes weren’t harmed when I crashed down onto that strange planet, for the landscape was colorful, bright, and all-around pleasant to look at. All the colors of Hocotate’s spectrum lit up the remote world; the palette was absolutely gorgeous. In particular, though, the planet’s lighting was great. Day melded into night effortlessly and beautifully, while the sunlight glancing off still waters’ glassy surfaces and illuminating otherwise dark and shadowy areas looked magnificent. Sometimes when going around corners, I ‘lost sight of myself,’ and ended up getting my Pikmin and myself in some serious trouble, but other than that the planet was a treat for my oxygen-deprived eyes.
It sounded great, too. Every creature, in particular the Pikmin, issued unique and entertaining sounds, and everything on the planet sounded as realistic as it would on Hocotate. Music played continuously while I was on the planet, though I’m not sure from where. It was very soothing and even, at times, invigorating; on more than one occasion, I found myself humming the tunes out loud.
The crisis turned adventure was definitely exciting, fun, and different than anything I’d ever seen. And though the trip was easy and a little too short, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back someday – though on my own terms. Heck, maybe some day I will. Review By: Stealth52 - 733 Reads
Pikmin Review Scores for GC :
| Gameplay |
| 9.5 |
| Graphics |
| 9.5 |
| Sound |
| 10 |
| Replay |
| 4 |
| Overall |
| 8.5 |
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