As I’ve stated before, playing video games isn’t on top of my mind while I’m on holiday. Our holidays involve making a road trip and seeing a lot of sights, but even if I were to stay at the pool or lounge on the beach, playing a video game on the Nintendo Switch isn’t very handy. At times I see youngsters sitting with a towel over their head and over the gaming device like a makeshift parasol to keep out the glare; don’t fancy that!
If you do want to play a game while away from home, you could resort to playing mobile games. Over the past summers, I’ve made lists of games you can play on your mobile to scratch the gaming itch in a more convenient way. You can find those here!
Walking with Pikmin Bloom
I’ve had two major knee surgeries last year, and it’s imperative that I get moving, literally. Time to rebuild my stamina, and it occurred to me that a walking game might help me. On release day, way back in 2021, I downloaded Pikmin Bloom, but I couldn’t get into it at the time. Now, while on holiday and seeing the sights, I decided to check back into it, see how it could motivate me.
Took me a bit of time to figure out how exactly I needed to play the game. How to find people to befriend, and what all the items that flew over my screen meant. Mainly, it’s a walking and exploring game, and the gameplay loop is primarily aimed at that.
What To Do in Pikmin Bloom
If you also don’t know Pikmin Bloom and want to give it a go, here’s basically what you have to do.
You grow Pikmin by collecting seedlings and placing them in your Planter Pack. Every step you take adds “step energy,” and once a seedling reaches its required steps (usually somewhere between 1,000–10,000 steps), you pluck a new Pikmin. That Pikmin is one of the types that I know from the main game, but some have a little extra, like a sticker or a hat. These Pikmin are called Decor Pikmin; more on those in a bit.
Pikmin bring back fruit which they pick up while we walk together, which turns into nectar, and in turn you can feed them this. They are quite a happy bunch when you distribute the little bubbles of nectar, and it makes the flowers bloom on their heads. Once the flower is shiny, you can pick it to get petals.
You use these petals to plant flowers as you walk. After all these years that Pikmin Bloom is up and running, more kinds of flowers have been added to the game, like Celosia, Gentia, Hibiscus and more. Planting flowers can be part of a goal you have to meet to earn rewards, but it also covers the landscape in cheery little dots of colours. Plus, it helps nearby “Big Flowers” bloom. In some of the bigger cities, the tapestry of flowers really is something to behold. A virtual tapestry, of course.
To entice people to walk, there are virtual community challenges as well, where you can form groups that try to walk a lot of steps or plant a lot of flowers in the time allotted.
Exchanging Postcards
You can send Pikmin on expeditions, smaller ones, like picking up fruit or seedlings. Or big ones, where you have them fight to take down a mushroom. Expeditions take real time depending on distance.
Fighting these mushrooms is fun. You can join co‑op battles with friends; you can take on a mushroom yourself and call it the help of friends, and in both cases, you get rewards. The rewards depend on how strong your Pikmin are, what colour the mushroom is and so on.
In the battles, but also by interacting with the big flowers you see in the virtual landscape around you, you can get postcards of the area. On holiday, that was especially fun, like a little memento. Postcards are being exchanged with the online friends you meet, and it’s so cool to see all the places all over the world. Though I was a little disappointed that you don’t automatically keep a copy of your own postcards you send to friends. So I started saving them to my own device, so I can track our holiday adventures through them.
Decor Pikmin
Aside from the Pikmin types we know in the main game, you can also collect Decor Pikmin. Special seedlings or event spots give you Pikmin with cute themed decorations (e.g., restaurant badges, sweets, clothing). I was a bit surprised at seeing wurst Pikmin appear, but I guess that’s a special kind of humour. They wear their wurst proudly, though. And the Taco Pikmin that I got from a seedling in a restaurant is really a work of art!
And here is what made me even pick up Pikmin 4 on my Switch again: in the last update, they’ve added decor Pikmin to the main game! I’ve found a few now, and the first time I did, the game asked me to link to the Pikmin Bloom game. At the end of the in-game day, while exploring, that Decor Pikmin appeared in Pikmin Bloom! How cool is that?
Plus, I get an Oatchi Costume and a hat in the game!
A Special Encounter
Even playing mobile games with a virtual world can lead to a connection in the real world! And in my case, it was one that was unexpected and totally made my day. We went into the Loyalist House Museum in Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada) for a self-guided tour. When we paid for tickets, there was a young guy behind the counter who was playing Yokai Watch while waiting on his phone. Normally I wouldn’t have checked what he was playing, but being into Pikmin Bloom myself, I couldn’t resist a quick glance. Call me an old woman plagued by curiosity and a busybody, but I couldn’t resist remarking on his game.
He got so excited, saying that no one ever knew about the game, or could even name Jibanyan. He had played it for ages on his 3DS, but that device had just died on him, so he had resorted to his phone for the mobile version. The interactions were so funny; we had a gaming bonding moment, and it really made my day- his too, I think. He kept saying: ” sorry to geek out like this, but this is so wonderful!” Guess he didn’t see that coming!
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