Reviews from

in the past


Comecei e abandonei pra jogar o remaster pra Switch.

Best Pikmin game, and Pikmin is a top 3 Nintendo franchise.

This game was my father's favorite game when I was growing up. Watched him play it to the point where I loved it, cried at every pikmin lost. This game is my absolute childhood, and aside from the few nightmares it gave my 8 year old self, I loved it all the way.


Continuing my fervor for GameCube stuff during GameCube month, I hunted down an old favorite of mine~. It's been only a few years since I beat Pikmin, but that was on Wii. It's been a loooooong ol' time since I've played it on GameCube, and this seemed like as good a time as ever ^w^. Playing the Japanese version of the game, it took me about 6 or 7 hours to get all 30 ship parts in 19 in-game days.

Pikmin is the story of Captain Olimar, a pint-sized astronaut who crash-lands on a mysterious Earth-like planet. However, for Olimar, our precious oxygen is very toxic, and he only has 30 days to repair his ship before he does a big die. Thankfully, he has the help of eager and easily controlled little plant-like aliens: the Pikmin! The game is quite light on both story and premise outside of Olimar's logs, but they more than do the job of what the game needs for its narrative.

The mechanics and design of Pikmin are where it's at. Using Olimar, you can control your red (immune to fire and better fighters), yellow (can carry bombs and be thrown higher), and blue (don't drown in water) Pikmin to help you do everything from fight giant monsters to building bridges to destroying destructible walls. You can have 100 Pikmin out at a time, and you grow more by having them retrieve the bodies of monsters they kill and bringing them back to their little Onion homes. IF they are allowed to grow in the ground longer or find nectar to drink while they're out and about, the leaves on their heads will grow into buds and then flowers, allowing them to move more quickly.

The combat isn't super technical, and mostly just revolves around using red Pikmin (whenever possible, at least) to strategically maneuver around your large and often slow and lumbering opponent to hit their weakpoint until they're dead (while avoiding getting eaten yourself). You have 30 days to collect 30 ship pieces, and while it isn't the biggest time crunch in the world, it can certainly be stressful, so time management is the name of the game. Pikmin is a game more about gameplay and atmosphere than deep technical strategies. It's such a short game, in fact, that it even has scoreboards for how many Pikmin you had die, how long you took to get the ship pieces, how many Pikmin you grew, etc.. This makes it more of a time-attack challenge, in the long-run, and is definitely a game made with multiple playthroughs in mind.

That said, it isn't a game without flaws. Most of the issues I have with the game come from the Pikmins' AI, which can be very capricious at times. Certain objects such as little crust on the ground or grasses will hide nectar within them, and if a Pikmin passes by it at all (whether you directed them to or not), they will stop what they're doing to try and get the nectar. Additionally, Pikmin aren't the best runners, and they can trip fairly frequently, so waiting for your little guys to catch up with you is an annoyance that often eats up a fair bit of time. There are also issues with larger Pikmin swarms not packing together very nicely and leading to cases where they end up getting caught on rocks or falling off of bridges, leading to unintentionally leaving them behind or drowning just because you weren't paying attention enough. Admittedly, a lot of these things are bigger problems when viewed in the context of the sequel which fixes basically all of those problems in one way or another (sometimes AI fixes, sometimes via level design), but they're still annoyances here one way or the other.

The presentation is as excellent as you'd expect from a Nintendo first-party title. The Pikmin, Olimar, and all the creatures are unique and adorable in their own ways, and the world design really gives a great impression of being around an inch tall~. The music is also excellent, and adds to the atmosphere very nicely.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It may be a bit on the short side and rough around the edges, but Pikmin still holds up excellently. I'll always prefer its sequel, but the whole nature of the smaller world and time management aspects make Pikmin 1 unique from its successors in a way that I think is still worth appreciating.

A very gentle strategy game.

You pick your Pikmin, and throw them at things you want them to attack or carry back to base. Red ones are immune to fire and do about 1.5 times the damage of the other 2, blue immune to water, and yellow are lighter and can be thrown higher and can carry around bombs.

That's it. There's nothing else to really think about. The levels are also laid out in such a straightforward way, and there's so little experimentation to do, that the basic pattern-recognition that anyone who's played games a while would have is enough to steamroll this. I got all 30 parts in 17 days blind, and by no means think I was particularly good at it.

That's ok though. This game isn't supposed to be a kick in the teeth. It's a brief relaxed trip through a little forest area. Despite how forward it is with its gameplay, it still reminds me of a Sunday stroll. I do think the atmosphere is relentlessly pleasant.

I tend to lean towards games that present me with a challenging set of restrictions that were playtested thoroughly before release, and that makes it mean-spirited of me to dock this down to a 2.5/5, but I did play it and it was billed to me as a game first and foremost. That's how I'd score it if I was reviewing it as a game. I do like things about it other than its gameplay though.

One of my favorite games, short but sweet.

this game gave me tetris syndrome for a week i started seeing pikmin whenever i closed my eyes , so stressful

A great start for the greatest media franchise ever conceived, I just wish the Pikmin were smarter.

pikmin 1 is a game i love dearly, but i feel like its a little overrated? i dunno, it never grabbed me quite as much as pikmin 2 did, although that could potentially just be because i played pikmin 2 first. i find the controls to be a little clunkier than they are in pikmin 2, where they nearly perfected it, pikmin tend to just not listen to you, crossing bridges can be really finnicky, among other things. with all that said, pikmin 1 is still a great game. i find it very satisfying to finish each day getting as much done as possible, and i think this game's areas are a little more interesting than pikmin 2's, specifically the forest navel. EXTREMELY cool and atmospheric area that no other game really captured the vibe of for me. i do think that my wishy-washy feelings on pikmin 1 are due in part to me having played pikmin 2 first, but i still really love the game, just not as much as the second one. overall, id say to absolutely check out pikmin, as long as you're able to deal with a little bit of 2001 game clunk

Honestly. One of my favorite games of all time. Absolutely. Wow.

Love this one too. The 30 day deadline is awesome. Wish it wasn't so buggy. Also the pikmin are retarded in this one.

I'm flabbergasted at how fundamentally broken this IP is and how Nintendo keeps trying to make it work without addressing the root problems.

It's all maidwork. The amount of little plant folk that you can have following you around seems impressive at first until you hit the unit cap before you know it and suddenly it seems like this oppressively limited amount. There can be red pills lying around every freakin where and thats when it becomes apparent that those are essentially health pickups and that the unit cap is essentially a health bar. The game ceases to seem unique or interesting at that point. It's about trading health to achieve tasks and then replenishing said health, and taking note of the locations of unneeded red pills so you know where to find them later, like it's a 90s PC FPS.

By tasks of course I mean gathering collectibles and killing enemies. (Very original!) How do you gather collectibles? Throw the plant folk at them until the gauge is filled. You're simply filling gauges in Pikmin. It's a gauge filling simulator. You defeat enemies the same way. It's not really clear how the plant folk actually attack the enemies since they have no teeth or claws or any visible means to damage enemies much larger than them, but you're not really paying attention to that. You're just looking at the gauge that appears onscreen to show how many plant folk to put in the cup to make the big bad go bye bye. Filling gauges. So quirky. Pure Nintendo. Brilliant.

And the sundown timer. That reminds me of when it was time for bed and my dad would count to 10 slowly before he would shut the console off, and that's how much time we had to reach a save point. That's literally what playing Pikmin is.

When night falls in game you know you're done playing Pikmin because instead of being able to start the next day immediately you have to read the main character monologue for like twenty minutes. ("Make 'em reeeead!!" -Miyamoto, probably) I think the final screen in the game occurrs when you have a choice between two levels to land into, which is a fantastic way of introducing that generation to the concept of choice paralysis. Either way you use up one of your remaining days of oxygen or whatever you have left to finish the game in. So BETTER NOT SQUANDER IT, IDIOT. Better make sure to play each day 100% optimally, not just stumble through. Definitely don't start this level or that one if you're just playing for fun. But it's not as if you're playing games for fun?? I mean who does that.

There were two things I did not expect from Pikmin. First, I didn't think playing an RTS with a controller would be a viable option. Second, I didn't expect I would ever enjoy doing it. I'm glad I was proven wrong on both counts.

Pikmin follows a spaceman who crashes on an alien planet (presumably a future Earth) and has thirty days to recover thirty missing pieces of his spaceship and return home. To accomplish this task, the player is given control of these tiny, omnivorous, plant-based monsters called Pikmin.

The Pikmin come in three varieties, each with unique abilities and weaknesses. They are loosely classified as grunts, specialists, and marines.

Finding all of the scattered ship pieces requires using the Pikmin's abilities to overcome enemies and puzzles and then carry the parts back to your ship. The gameplay loop is simplistic but fun and rewarding. However, it appeared that most parts only had one way to collect them. I can't see a lot of replay value here unless you really like beating your previous score.

The one area that I found lacking was the interface. It's tough to figure out where you are aiming your Pikmin (you often have to throw them), and getting them to hit things in the air presents an unnecessary challenge.

If you're a fan of RTS games or drafting tiny monsters into a colourful army bent on becoming the apex predator species, you cannot go wrong with Pikmin.

Le faltan cositas de calidad de vida pero bueno, lo que plantea es super divertido y sencillito

Despite growing up with its successor, I didn't actually play through the original Pikmin until my late teen years. I also played it again recently, and I think both times, it held up rather well. I'm not keen to replay it over and over in close proximity as I think the developers intended - the high score element is cool, but not really my interest. However, the shortness of Pikmin does mean that coming back to replay it once in a while is rather easily afforded. It's a classic, and the cave level is my favourite.

This game has better combat than most action games I've played and better puzzles than 90% of the shit zelda ever did

A creative and unique experience of unending wonder. My first two GameCube games were this and Luigi's Mansion - what a beginning.

Yes, it certainly had problems in terms of pacing and environments not reacting as they should, but that tremendous feeling of using the Pikmin to reach your goals was absolutely new and refreshing at that time. I am not surprised the series has endured so well.

This is the best damn case study for video games being art. Seriously. Most of the imperfections that people complain about are what makes it so perfect, especially with the original Gamecube release. It's not an objectively flawless game or anything, but it gives the strongest account of the uniqueness of video games as an interactive media.

The controls and camera are clunky and unfamiliar, Pikmin don't go where you want them to and have a mind of their own. While occasionaly frustrating, these flaws are what provide the sense of immersion - you've crash landed on a foreign planet and have to command an army of sentient beings, of course it's going to be disorienting and awkward. The atmosphere of the game rhymes with it's control scheme in a way that no other game, Pikmin or not, has achieved since.

Oh, to buy your Nintendo Gamecube on release day with Pikmin again...

Pikmin Vermelho deputado do chega

This is the best blue pikmin type game yet. The other pikmin games just dont hit like this one


One of the most lovely nature-focused atmospheres in any game I've played. While the 30 day timer does stress me out, it made for very unique gameplay where I don't really know if there is anything like it in the series. I love the feeling of the "race to the finish" gameplay and it makes this game feel incredibly fast paced. The final trial, while short, was a pretty cool puzzle that felt like a good conclusion to the journey. My only gripe with the game is mainly the pikmin AI, it got INCREDIBLY frustrating at some points, especially during the forest navel. Most of the time though, the AI is at least functional enough. Anyways, I'm really glad I checked out this entry in the series and I can't wait to play 2 and 3!

Was in a Pikmin mood and decided to replay Pikmin 1, this game is so fun and replayable, trying to go faster and faster on replay is so appealing for a game like this. I think generally this game's just really well designed, the way the game incetavises multitasking without being TOO punishing, fun secret bosses that didn't really need to be there but are welcome. The story is really charming being told exclusivley through the daily jorunal logs is really fun and charms you to Olimar as a character which incentivises you to play faster. Of any Pikmin games it's why I think this is my favorite structure wise, it's so satisfying putting the ship together because you see that tangible progress. One thing I miss about this game compared to future installments is how fucking brutal bosses were, one bad move and you could lose like half your squad, I have some small grips with the Pikmin AI, they go off on their own a bit too much for my liking and it was VERY common for them to just get stuck on walls. But those are mostly just nitpicks to an otherwise really solid first entry.