Pikmin is the first of Nintendo’s cute but rather dramatic strategy adventure series, as much as I do love the Pikmin series, I have only really introduced myself to the games over the past couple of years.

The plot is fairly simple here but it works really well for a game such as Pikmin. In the game you play as Captain Olimar a small alien creature who crash lands on an unnamed planet. The captains ship the S.S. Dolphin has separated into 30 parts which have spread to various areas of the planet, the captain needs to find at least 25 out of the 30 parts within 30 days otherwise he will die due to a lack of oxygen on the planet, however the captain is in luck as small plant like creatures called Pikmin are more than happy to help the captain on his mission.

The idea of the game is to use the Pikmin that you collect in order to carry the scattered parts back to the S.S. Dolphin, there are three types of Pikmin in the game, the Red Pikmin are invulnerable to fire damage, the Yellow Pikmin can be thrown higher and can also pick up bombs to throw and finally the blue Pikmin can breathe underwater.

There is one way to get more Pikmin in the game once you have discovered an onion (a Pikmin Nest), If you defeat an enemy or collect nectar from plants you can bring your spoils to one of the coloured onions in order to release more seeds which will grow more of the chosen type of Pikmin.

As previously mentioned you can use Pikmin in order to attack enemies, there are many ways to do this it can be done by simply throwing your Pikmin onto an enemy or by using an army of Pikmin in order to surround an enemy giving it no chance of survival. Strategy will need to be used through out the game in order to collect the ship parts however strategy should be used when fighting enemies as well so that you are well prepared for the dangers ahead and not to mention that you will most likely have a lot of of your Pikmin die in some situations.

The boss fights are all very creative and can also be very difficult for new players, however practice makes perfect for a lot of these and the game can be reloaded without you losing a day if you want to try out different ideas. I love all of the bosses in the game but if I was to choose three apart from the final boss I would say that the Burrowing Snarglax a bird creature that hides itself underground is my favourite, followed closely by Beady Long Legs, a large spider creature (pictured above) and the PuffStool a Mushroom boss that releases a gas which turns your Pikmin against you.

I wouldn’t say that the graphics have aged well since the game first came out however back in the day they were quite impressive, you have to keep in mind that this was one of the first games to be released on the GameCube, the visuals definitely improved in the later games however they are still nice here.

The Soundtrack is again very simple here but it really works, a lot of it is small tracks which are looped but while small and catchy some of the music is beautiful, listen to Distant Spring and tell me that isn’t beautiful music.

Pikmin is a good game I personally would not say its a masterpiece by any means as the series does improve a lot as more games are coming out.

Pikmin is a charming game that managed to grow a loving fan base, I really enjoy this game and the only real issue I have with it is the time limit, I really do no enjoy games which give players a short amount of time to finish them and because Pikmin is a game that requires a little bit of grinding now and again in order to re stock on Pikmin due to this the time limit can become quite stressful, you could look at it as adding an additional challenge to the game and I am sure that is how most people see this element of the game.

Pikmin is a short but very fun game, it has tight controls, a short but beautiful soundtrack and an interesting premise however a short time limit takes away from the experience for me. 7.4/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Pikmin for the Nintendo GameCube

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