After the New Play Control! versions of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 showed how precision aiming can improve the experience of tactical organization and management inherent to the series, an entry on one of the touchscreen-based handheld systems of Nintendo would seem a no-brainer. In a way, that is eventually what we got with Hey! Pikmin, but its design philosophies are so removed from the core conventions of the series that it’s hardly comparable to the image that comes to mind when one says “Pikmin on the 3DS.” The great irony here is that Hey! Pikmin is a 2D platformer, one so committed to this divergent identity that it refuses to utilize the stereoscopic 3D capabilities of the hardware, despite the obvious array of opportunities in both the numerous cutscenes seen throughout the game as well as to add a sense of depth to the design of the levels, if only for the sake of more immersive aesthetics. Setting aside any misplaced expectations, though, the prospect of a side-scrolling Pikmin platformer isn’t inherently off. In fact, much of the baseline mechanics of Hey! Pikmin’s design congruently suit the congenial spirit of mainline games. It’s never really enough to justify itself, however, as beyond the relatively commendable translation of throwing mechanics and squadron management from the console games to the handheld, Hey! Pikmin offers shockingly little in terms of new or interesting interpretations of the core ideals, and feels far too drawn out and lethargic for how simple it ultimately is.

Hey! Pikmin’s primary issue is just how needlessly slow the whole experience is. From overly long load times, to the stodgy controls and movements, and the constant interruptions of cloying cutscenes introducing new batches of Pikmin several times each level, everything feels designed to arbitrarily moderate your pacing. While the intent is clearly to maintain the more relaxed and methodical nature of the series through the restriction of movement, the lack of flexibility takes so much of the control out of the player’s hand that the whole of the experience more or less feels like you’re on rails. Sure, there are secrets to be had by uncovering alternate routes and hidden exits, but so many levels are designed around pushing you forward without a way to backtrack, often requiring you to replay a level entirely in order to get to the secret items. Rarely are these items generally worth going for either, as only occasionally do the puzzles around them challenge you enough to merit interaction. Seeing as you don’t need all the treasures to beat the game (as is tradition with Pikmin) the satisfaction in recovering these items really needs to be its own reward, but due to the nature of simply obtaining an object as soon as Olimar is close enough, you often don’t even need the assistance of the Pikmin to obtain many of the items, rendering the very nature of the gameplay moot more often than not.

The novelty of collecting treasures has also somewhat run its course now. There’s still the occasional joy in collecting an otherwise ordinary item and seeing its humorous name cataloged, but the tedious nature of collecting makes it all feel so played out this time. It doesn’t help that the motivation to collect these treasures now is rather contrived. The mission here is to convert all the objects we find into enough “Sparklium” to fuel the ship, a kind of nonsense objective designed with only enough veneer to attempt to justify the conventions of artifice. It’s even more meaningless after you realize the set amount you’re tasked to obtain can’t even be used until you rescue the Sparklium Converter from the final boss, which itself can’t be accessed until making your way through all eight sectors of the game in a linear progression of uninspired, forgettable levels. Giving the player more agency when it comes to providing a path forward was always a strength of previous Pikmin games, so to restrain the player so severely here is quite the odd choice. You don’t even have control over the Pikmin you can use in any given level, as they’re all encountered along the way, with any you keep alive by the end going off to a separate location to slowly harvest small quantities of Sparklium while you progress in the following levels.

And yet, it’s difficult to bemoan Hey! Pikmin as being outright awful. It’s not a good game by any metrics, but it’s largely acceptable on multiple fronts, and even has a handful of positive qualities in need of acknowledging. The implementation of the 3DS’s dual screens for platforming and navigation is far more comprehensive than most titles on the console, or even its originating predecessor. The levels, though simple, are pleasantly short, and their straightforward design allows for a relaxing, if uninspired, progression through the game. And, aside from being egregiously slow, the actual feel of the platforming is responsive and positive, ensuring that you’re able to traverse the levels with relative ease and little dysfunction. Beyond that, though, it’s hard to see any further qualities for the title. Hey! Pikmin generates the majority of its good will by virtue of not being actively discouraging to play, but at the same time it does little to inspire the player to engage further with its gameplay beyond the hollow proclamation of asserting your completion of the game. It’s such a shallow endeavor, evidenced very early on, and never improving upon its meager offerings even as you near the end. At best, it’s a serviceable distraction, peppered with barely enough charm and intrigue to sustain short bursts of your attention, such that you may, theoretically, pick it up enough times in passing curiosity to complete it. But the belabored pacing, threadbare mechanics, homogenous level design, and scarce framing all but undermine its mediocre framework, resulting in a game that just narrowly passes for “playable.”

No es tan malo como lo pintan pero tampoco es bueno.

Es un juego de exploración en niveles 2D, aquí se castiga muchísimo más el perder Pikmin, pues en cada nivel hay varios objetos que sirven de coleccionables, algunos tendrás que recogerlos con todos los Pikmin del nivel, si alguno se te muere ya puedes ir reiniciando.
Varios puzzles que tiene están interesantes y sabe aprovechar bien que ahora es un juego 2D, pero la IA de los Pikmin tampoco es muy buena, así que se puede hacer molesto en algunas ocasiones, perdiendo algunos de la nada.

Lo más malo que tiene:
- Si vas con más de 6 Pikmin el juego empieza a ir a pedales, 4 fps para hacer honor a no ser el verdadero Pikmin 4.
- Cada vez que te encuentras Pikmin en cada nivel sale una pequeña cinemática de los Pikmin haciendo tonterías, al principio es gracioso pero se va haciendo chapas al quinto nivel.

A ideia em transformar pikmin é interessante porém não tão bem executada...

O jogo não tem uma variedade boa pikmins, só temos 5 deles (azul, vermelho amarelo, o de pedra e o voador,
não tem o pikmin branco e o roxo) e achei o jeito que eles são usados no jogo não muito criativo
As lutas de chefe são bem fáceis até, e eu achei os inimigos bem mais ou menos (a maioria são dos jogos normais, mas eles não tão filhos da puta que nem nos pikmins normais, e esse bicho bicudo na capa só é o bulborb com outro design)

porém as fases são boas e divertidas até (ainda falta muita coisa nelas mas continua sendo boas)

O jogo é diveridinho, recomendo dá uma jogada nele pra passar o tempo (e aliás eu entendo por que o pessoal não gosta tanto dele, pois foi lançado em uma época em que a franquia pikmin estava em um hiato)

I've had to just stop playing this mind numbing experience. The idea at a basic level is not terrible but the level design is so uninspired, the pacing is extremely slow and the game keeps cutting the flow of gameplay at every opportunity for really long cutscenes of the Pikmin getting up to hijinx. It was cute to start with but oh man, it gets real grating as time goes on.

The enemies are weirdly over and underpowered at the same time, leading to some frustrating moments and the boss fights are as slow as the rest of the game.

But ultimately this does go against the idea of Pikmin. Pikmin sparks joy. This does not.

Hey! This sucks.

Alright, that's mean, but I couldn't resist. Unfortunately, it encapsulates my thoughts on this game. This is another game by Arzest, who I best know for bastardizing Yoshi's Island (as "Artoon", originally) and who most people best know for Balan Wonderworld. Insofar as I'm concerned, Arzest understands Pikmin about as well as they understand Yoshi.

Adapting Pikmin to a 2D platformer is an interesting idea. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, much as it reminded me of the ill-fated Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash, because there are a lot of interesting ways Pikmin's puzzle RTS mechanics could adapt into a platformer setting. I'm not fond of Olimar's Smash Bros. interpretation, but Brawl has the start of an idea with the Pikmin Chain - theoretically you can do things with that, Bomb Rock puzzles, elemental affinities, weight and flight, etc etc etc. problem is, Hey! Pikmin rarely goes for any of that. Most puzzles in the game are of the lock-and-key variety; bring X Pikmin [of Y type] here to solve the puzzle. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing - lock-and-key puzzles are your bread and butter in video games - except that the game has little interest in iterating upon its own mechanical challenges. By way of example, there are these optional challenge rooms throughout the game. I wasn't really challenged by the first few of these, but I figured the game would ramp up the difficulty once it established what it was going for. But in fact, I found the final challenge room exactly as difficult as the first one had been.

Pikmin is a series I love for its quiet touches and moments. Especially in the first game, everything is so understated: you aren't on a big, bombastic adventure, but rather a fight for survival on a hostile world. Later games step away from this, but there's always a sense of trying to hold onto little things in a bigger universe. The Piklopedia in 2, the team chatter in 3, and I haven't played 4 as of this writing.

Hey! Pikmin doesn't seem to understand this. It has the shape of these ideas with things like Olimar's monster/treasure notes, but it doesn't really get them. It doesn't get Olimar. There's the understanding that Olimar is a salaryman who does everything he can to support his family, but... like, he sounds whiny about it here. The game knows that Olimar should fundamentally misunderstand the Earth treasures he comes across, but then the game lets him understand what humans are (for goodness' sake, he comes across a snowglobe with Santa Claus, and he recognizes that that's what a person looks like. That feels like that breaks so many rules. To say nothing about Donkey Kong Land, specifically, being canon to this game).

Then there are the little skits with the Pikmin. Every so often, you'll be treated to a little scene of the Pikmin doing something cute in the level. I really don't like this. There's an increased emphasis on Pikmin domesticity throughout side material that rubs me the wrong way. They are a hunter-gatherer people who must be accustomed to the hardships of their way of life. I'm fine seeing them as a curious child-like people in the context of something like the Piklopedia treasures, where it's clear that the Pikmin are leveraging the free time they have under Olimar's leadership and exploring the elements of their world with their newly-afforded freetime. Not like how it's done here, when in the middle of every level, there are scenes - sometimes multiple per level - of the Pikmin tripping or pushing each other around or waving at each other or SOMEthing like that. Stuff clearly engineered to make the player go "awwwww lookit em". It's such a blatant, cloying attempt to turn the Pikmin into Minions that I just got annoyed seeing the little guys do their thing (this coming from someone who's generally tolerant of the Minions).

Two things I like to this game, or at least one I like and one I am at an understanding with. To start with the latter, I don't love any of the bosses, and in point of fact I rather hate how over-the-top dramatic the final boss is (they've been hinting at him the whole game!!!!! Guys this is the ultimate pimpkin fight!!!!!!!!!!!) - but I do think the first boss fight, against an ordinary Red Bulborb, is an interesting concession. There was no real way to communicate the feeling of fighting an enemy like a Bulborb in the normal gameplay of a 2D platformer, so as weird as it sounds, I'm okay with it as an early game boss. Makes for a decent enough chiasm with Emperor Bulblax being one of the late game bosses, too.

The one level I really like is "The Lonely Tower", which comes about halfway into the game. As a change of pace, Olimar starts the level completely alone. You don't get any Pikmin until a decent way through the level, after you've already had to do some platforming to scale the titular tower. It's the one time I feel like the game gets Pikmin's tone, and I honestly think that'd be fascinating design to explore in the context of a mainline Pikmin game. As essential as the Pikmin mechanics are to series identity, there's something to be said for the moods a player can experience by their absence.

If more of Hey! Pikmin had this level of thought, it'd have the potential to be an understated entry in such an understated series. As it is? Stay away unless you're a die-hard fan, and even then, don't expect much.