Replaying the original Pikmin game after Pikmin 3 reveals a forgotten truth about the game’s titular critters: Pikmin used to be really stupid. This fact becomes increasingly obvious as the game progresses and the areas become more complex. Leaving the landing site in the Forest Navel illustrates Pikmin stupidity very well. You have to carefully weave your Pikmin around a gauntlet of potential distractions just to get to the action. Blades of grass, tiny rocks, insect corpses, and budding plants all provide a convenient excuse for a portion of your Pikmin army to lose focus and disconnect. And when they aren’t being distracted, they trip, or fall under a ramp and trap themselves before being left behind. Forget about crossing bridges over water—if your army is sufficiently large, some Pikmin WILL fall off the side of the bridge and drown.
At first, I would stop the march after every little hiccup and wait for the stragglers to catch up. “No Pikmin left behind!” was the motto from my childhood, but it seems my old heart has hardened. I used to become so upset by Pikmin death that I would play extremely cautiously. The GameCube would not remain on long enough for all of the Pikmin to die in the event of a major workplace accident. Now, I find myself weighing the cost of indulging stupid mistakes:
“I’ll go back for those assholes later, I still have enough Pikmin to carry the treasure.”
When a lose a few Pikmin in a tough battle, my instinctual remorse is quickly replaced by a numbers game:
“Okay, I can replace those losses with the bug I just killed.”
Or, more callous still:
“I have a two hundred of these guys in storage, I’ll just restock on my next loop around.”
The random tripping and similar distraction mechanics creates interesting gameplay near day’s end when the desire to finish a task or escort treasure is pit against the paternal instinct to save a stranded Pikmin. Rescue missions are a huge part of the experience. Since there are not multiple captains at your disposal in Pikmin 1, sending Olimar across the map to save Pikmin is a real risk. Pikmin 3 gives you so much map control at once with three captains that the gameplay becomes less about managing risk and more about pushing your multitasking powers to the limit.
Unfortunately for my stupid Pikmin, I found myself caring less and less about saving them from themselves as the population at my disposal shot up. Stranded dots on the map were met with spite. In my mind, Pikmin that couldn’t keep up deserved to die. Stupid bastards. The characterization of the Pikmin as lazy, lovable idiots is pushed well in this game. Once while I was taking an army from basecamp toward a battle, a convoy of Pikmin carrying a corpse happened to cross my path and pass through my ranks. My soldiers jumped at the opportunity to dodge duty and a few yellow Pikmin grabbed hold of the corpse and headed home. I let the fools go. They lived to fight another day.
And days did come when I had to dig into my Pikmin reserves. Playing fast and loose lets you progress quickly, but some losses were severe. I lost an entire army of blue Pikmin to a pale wollywog in the Forest Navel, and this forced me to head to the impact site for a little R&R (Regrowth and Retribution). This vacation, however, caused the creatures in the Forest Navel to repopulate, which lost me a day at least. The final boss really tested my Pikmin reserves. He managed to stomp an entire army of 70+ Pikmin into oblivion with a single leap. If I did not exploit a soft reset, I would have ran out of yellow Pikmin entirely. In this case, the reset mechanic saved me time and angst at the cost of interesting gameplay that would have forced me to revisit old parts of the map in search of Pikmin building material.
Speaking of the final boss, I finally spoiled myself on how to beat him. Despite watching people beat the Emperor Bulblax in one cycle, I have never been able to kill him without multiple days of effort and an incredible loss of life. This is because I never realized that there is a special stun animation that you can force the bulblax into by having bomb rocks explode right when his tongue touches them. My approach has always been to have him eat the bomb rocks, but this only puts him out of commission for a few seconds. Since the bulblax has the power to instantly wipe out an army, killing him quickly is the best option. Despite my advanced gaming powers, the bulblax fight set me back three days. This put me at a day 19 launch, which feels unimpressive to me. That’s the beauty of Pikmin 1, though… the game is tight enough to play again and again.
My Pikmin 1 victory lap may have to wait a while. The next victim of my coronavirus game binge was Wind Waker, which I intend to write about next. For reasons that I will describe, Wind Waker, despite being the best of the old school 3D Zelda games, feels terribly dated. I might jump that ship for Pikmin 2. THEN, maybe Pikmin 1 will return. I do not think I will ever play Pikmin 3 again. That game feels hollow. When the Pikmin aren’t tripping over themselves and getting into trouble, the game becomes a pure RTS grind.
I love Pikmin. It’s still one of the greats!