Pikmin 3 originally released for the Wii U in 2013 and is now coming to the Nintendo Switch this month. The demo has a save carry over and takes you up to the first boss. So if you’ve never experienced Pikmin before you should definitely try it out. You can also watch the Pikmin Short Movies now freely available on YouTube, find them in here.
Pick-which?
Your journey starts as explorers from a far away planet looking for food to save their homeworld. Unfortunately upon entry to a promising planet something went wrong with the ship and the crew were all separated. They come across strange creatures known as Pikmin that will follow you everywhere. Pikmin can be thrown at objects to complete tasks such as building a bridge or carrying food back to their own ship, known as an onion. Certain items require a minimum number of Pikmin to carry, but can usually have a few more to increase the carrying speed.
There are a few different types of Pikmin in the game but you only get familiar with red and rock Pikmin in the demo. Red Pikmin are fireproof and good fighters, while rock Pikmin are heavy and can break glass. Journeying along you’ll throw them to attack creatures that try to eat your Pikmin, and whistle to gather them back to avoid death. As once a Pikmin has been thrown off or completed their task they’ll stay where they were last deployed or at the base.
Sunset stress
The game is timed in days and if any Pikmin are left strayed from the base when the sun sets, they’ll unfortunately be consumed by predators. My main tip is to not get into a boss fight if you’re past halfway through the day as they can be pretty time consuming. Pikmin aren’t your only resource as you’ll be on the lookout for fruit, because each day you deplete one canister of juice. Though if you feel you did particularly poorly you can go back to a previous day. Once you get a bit further you find another one of your crewmates this allows you to throw them to far away places and provides more strategy and management. Thankfully there’s an option to automatically send a crewmate to a specific location so you don’t need to walk everyone to previously explored areas.
3 for the price of 2
One of the new features to this edition of the game is local split-screen co-op which is very exciting. Though it would be nice if it was horizontal instead of vertical as the field of view is pretty limited. My boyfriend took quite a liking to the Pikmin and their charming characteristics so I think we’ll be able to get through regardless. At the start when you’re a single character it’s funny as you play a barely visible copy, but once you find Brittany you can each play as the different characters. You will need to regroup in order to throw each other though.
Typically you won’t be able to steal each other’s Pikmin by whistling (thankfully). Annoyingly all the cutscenes at the start would usually take Player One elsewhere and hand all the Pikmin to them. Luckily the game is built around managing up to three squads so it’s not hard to transfer Pikmin over.
Spicy feisty fiends
I also really enjoyed photo mode since now it saves as a screenshot to your Switch, but I wish it would pause the game. Pikmin drink sap so fast I can’t even get a snap in! Having in game achievements is nice as it gives returning players something to strive for. As well as being something sorely lacking on Nintendo systems.
The original Pikmin 3 had no difficulty options and many experienced players found it the easiest of the series. As the only real threat is the need to keep a supply of juice. Though it’s unlikely you won’t find at least one piece of fruit a day. Playing hard mode on my own I noticed the enemies require much more of a beating to perish. They’ll also be a super-spicy difficulty mode which you can’t try out in the demo.
Pips a plenty
Outside of the story you can play bonus missions. Such as trying to clear a special map of every treasure and corpse within a time limit. I enjoyed the after time feature because it lets me practice and find where everything is for my next attempt. There are other mission types not present in the demo including boss fights. Pikmin 3 will come with all the DLC including a Christmas themed mission.
Another multiplayer feature (not in the demo) of Pikmin 3 is the competitive mode of Bingo Battle. In which certain items or enemies must be collected to form a bingo before your opponent. This can make for some complicated play as you try to collect quickly while robbing your opponent of opportunities.
The Deluxe version of this game comes with a multitude of changes. Not only quality of life changes but also new bonus content featuring characters from previous games.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe releases for Nintendo Switch on the 30th of October. I’m looking forward to it!