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.

The EX-Pikmin Review

Original Pikmin review

Parts collected: 30/30

So today I sat down and was like "wouldn't it be cool if I beat this game in a single sitting" and then proceeded to not only cut my time in half (ending on day 17) but also basically completing 100% of the game.

I still stand by a lot of what I said but it's a bit more apparent to me how short this game is (I really hope I like Pikmin 2 rip). Big fan of the management and how you can basically master the game by understanding the fundamentals of throwing or just going through with a good army.

Game good

Gonna be really disappointed if the sequel is meh ngl

wonderful little compelling mood piece & learning experience of a game <3 so addictive to slowly explore this world and use your own wits (HINT HINT PIKMIN 2!!!) to master your own arsenal. just enough stress to make things exciting and tense - i need to go back and do a full 30 part run because i just missed it by a day or two and i don't want to make myself suffer through the full final level & boss on day 30 lol. glad you can get the standard ending and give yourself a little wiggle room but i'm looking forward to getting the real one

The comfiest uncomfy game

(Parts collected: 29/30)

Sometime in 2012 I briefly borrowed this game and didn't get too far really. I was incredibly overwhelmed by the time limit and felt that the game was too difficult for me so I didn't put a lot into it until I had to give it back. 11 years later and I gotta say I am an absolute fan of this game and I think it's an incredibly interesting launch title to have for a Nintendo system especially.

I forget who said it but I think there's a quote out there about how a good game is supposed to make you feel smart by doing something that's not super complex and I think the hands-off and pressure-on nature of Pikmin just creates that feeling for me.

Pikmin is a short enough game that I was able to finish it this weekend (even when I thought I'd just try it briefly) but even with my run going pretty smoothly I didn't get the best ending and I think that says enough that there's still more even when you finish it (hence, being a comfy uncomfy game). There's always something I kept working on in this game whether it was finding out when I should throw Pikmin, how to lead them with the controls outside of just basic walking around, etc. and it's something I know isn't really beginner friendly for some but it was just the right amount for me.

I'm not a massive fan of the final area (maybe I'm still salty lol) but I do feel like even with my annoyances that this game brings it only serves to work with the premise of this game being about managing resources whether they be under your control or not.

Anyways yeah highly recommended.

A super unique premise for a video game which has a lot of potential with this kind of gameplay system. While I still enjoyed the creativity of this game, the time limit needed to finish this game can make this quite stressful for a first playthrough. It barley gives you enough time to experiment and make errors, resulting in a lot of save reloads over and over again until you get a good run. The controls and commanding the pikmin can also be quite frustrating too. I know these issues get addressed in the sequels so I look forward to playing those. For now Pikmin 1 is a solid start with a lot of potential.

Pikmin, as a concept, is largely taken for granted nowadays. While not quite the juggernaut franchise akin to Mario or Zelda, Pikmin ranks respectably amongst Nintendo’s most beloved IPs, carving out a distinct style of gameplay for itself that remains relatively unique within the wider sphere of gaming as a whole. And that’s been true for Pikmin since its inception; few games have so succinctly conveyed their appeals and ethos out the gate as elegantly as the initial Pikmin game. The laid-back, exploration-based approach to resource management and survival-style gameplay is excellently complimented by an affable sci-fi set up and, of course, the adorable yet disposable capabilities of the titular Pikmin themselves. Coming in only three varieties for their debut, the relative simplicity of their power set is in keeping with the game’s straightforward introduction to the world and its objectives. The strengths of each respective Pikmin are self-evident, quickly conveyed to you through very brief tutorial sections evenly spaced across the early sections of the game. The transition of gameplay from the initial instructional area to the game proper is rather seamless, giving you the space to learn the intuitive mechanics before measuring up against the challenge of ensuring your survival within the allotted days.

The arbitrary time limit was a mechanic quickly abolished in the series going forward, recognized by most for the better. But a devoted minority still clamor for its return, and that’s because it was a very functional and appreciated challenge proposed for this initial entry. It only works because of how forgiving it ultimately is. 30 ship parts in 30 days is immensely achievable even if you’re beset by tragic setbacks and totally unproductive sessions. An experienced player can complete the game in less than 10 days if they play optimally enough, and that’s because with proper planning you’re able to obtain multiple ship parts in a single day. This optimizing of time and resource management leads to the greatest senses of accomplishments in Pikmin, as there is no better feeling than splitting your forces and ending the day with multiple parts returned to your ship, further softening that hard time limit the game starts you out against. Similarly, the survival of your Pikmin is a system of optimization and management the game is quite forgiving with, as you can very easily sacrifice large squadrons of Pikmin to powerful enemies but still come out positive at the end of the day if you’re managing to grow as many as you’re losing. This is especially important as combat is where the game is perhaps the least forgiving. There’s no real tutorial for the various encounters you have to deal with, so optimal strategies for preserving the lives of the Pikmin you enlist to defeat enemies is not always apparent. What’s worse is that the Pikmin themselves are dumb as hell, and have zero sense of self preservation around hostile environments and enemies. They’re also inclined to just get stuck against a wall when following you, and thus can easily be left behind at the end of the day due only to their own innate stupidity. The lack of command options over the Pikmin greatly limits just how much you can direct your vast units around and at various obstacles and enemies, but a modicum of leniency is certainly earned for a first stab at a concept like this, particularly considering how successful the presentation is otherwise.

Pikmin’s greatest strength, ultimately, though, is its brevity. Again, that straightforward and succinct premise and execution leads to a smooth gameplay experience that is achievable to complete in a single session. But more likely, you’re bound to break up the experience over the course of several days to a week, as the clean breaks in gameplay between days provide an easy respite that allows you to easily step away for a while, leading to a kind of mirrored experience in playing the game as Olimar is experiencing his survival on a day-by-day basis. This means that the game retains an incredible sense of pacing whether you’re working through each day as quickly as possible, or ambling along at a more protracted pace, which the game more than allows for with its very generous time limit. In many ways, Pikmin is a hard game to talk about, because so much of what works about it is so instinctively evident, it’s hard to put into words. The cozy offerings of a familiar world rendered alien and wondrous simply by shrinking our perspective to that of a garden insect is a tried and true premise. Combine that with real-time strategy and survival game mechanics, as well as a very cohesive art style and creature designs to match the fantastical setting of the game, and you’ve got a winning formula primed and ready for an iterative series to build off of. For as much as the later games added to and refined from the original Pikmin, though, the first game remains a paragon of design, as it never commits to more than the straightforward objective of the game can handle, and executes its mission quickly and satisfactorily in a way that engenders repeat playthroughs. Getting more objectives cleared in a single day while losing as few Pikmin as possible is just appealing enough an incentive to throw yourself at the game again and again, immersing yourself in the world more and more as you get better at optimizing your multitasking and time management to repair your ship as quickly as possible. In this way, the game is self-perpetuating, making its central mechanics the reason to keep playing and replaying it.

É um jogo bem divertido, a gameplay mesmo sendo simples, conseguiu me dirvetir até que bastante, eu acho que o maior ponto alto desse jogo são os Pikmins, eles são muito fofos pqp.
A única reclamação que eu tenho desse jogo é sobre a última fase, o chefão dessa fase é um bobão, chato, burro, idiota, entre outros xingamentos, eu realmente quase dropei desse jogo por causa dele, mas tirando ele, o jogo e bem competente no que ele faz, por causa desse jogo eu to querendo muito um Switch pra jogar o Pikmin 4.

The only reason I knew about this game growing up was due to Nintendo's self advertising tucked away in a menu in Luigi's Mansion. In my eyes this is one of Nintendo's core defining franchises. A splendid hybridization of action-adventure and real-time-strategy. I believe the entire Pikmin series is worthy of a place in any gaming addict's library.
Like the later games in the series, Pikmin 1 can conceivably be cleared for the first time in a single session, depending on player skill.
So long as you're pulling in an average of 1.5 ship parts per day, the time limit may as well not exist. So don't sweat it.

Pikmin: Stepping Stone Towards Better To Come

Pikmin began as a series created by Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. The foundation of Pikmin can be found in a GameCube-era tech demo called Super Mario 128, it showed the performance of the GameCube, being able to animate 128 copies of Mario at once, and this concept of multiple characters running at once moved over to what we know today as Pikmin. Pikmin is probably one of the more unique Nintendo series out there. There's your normal Mario's, Zelda's and Metroid's, as well Fire Emblem and Xenoblade for the weebs, but Pikmin as a series is kinda the middle child of Nintendo IPs. It's not as popular as Mario or Zelda, but it's not as niche as Fire Emblem or Xenoblade over here in the west. I initially knew Pikmin only as the series Olimar from Super Smash Bros was from, said 9-year-old me.

I remember trying out Pikmin before, I believe I played either Pikmin 1 or 2 on my old Wii before, I don't know which one exactly, but I never completed it, and I didn't like the controls. I was only a kid at the time, so it was only natural for me to be dogshit at games that weren't Mario or Pokemon. I decided to pick up Pikmin 1 + 2 on the Switch because this was the most accessible version available to me as a newcomer to the series. (I'm writing my review here because backloggd's system when it comes to ports/remasters is dogshit) I am able to play the Wii version of Pikmin 1 & 2, but I've heard about the mixed reception of the motion controls, and with a game like Pikmin, I didn't hate myself enough to subject myself to motion controls, so I got the Switch version. I'll be writing about Pikmin 1 here and Pikmin 2 later, for now, all I have to say about Pikmin 1 is that Pikmin 1 was such a nice change of pace from all the games I've played this year so far.

It was sorta calming to play this game, the soundtrack was composed by Hajime Wakai and adds so much to crafting the atmosphere when you explore this planet as Olimar. Olimar is a Hocotatian (I checked the Pikmin wiki to make sure before I made a fool of myself and say Olimar was human. Pikmin lore goes deep) who crashes his ship onto the planet where the Pikmin inhabit. Since Oilmar's ship is out of work, he befriends the Pikmin and uses them to collect the missing pieces of his ship on the planet to make sure he has all the pieces, or else in 30 days, the oxygen in his space helmet will run out, and he will die. You have limited time each day you play Pikmin, each day matters, and it's best to use each day to its best by either getting a missing piece of the ship or harvesting some more Pikmin. In Pikmin 1, there are only 3 types of Pikmin, Red Pikmin, Blue Pikmin, and Yellow Pikmin.

Red Pikmin are the first ones you get in the game and can withstand flames and anything similar to heat, Blue Pikmin can be brought underwater while the other ones melt to death, and Yellow Pikmin can withstand electricity. Compared to Pikmin 2, and the later games, this is quite basic, but as the first game in the series, it works and works perfectly for newcomers. This is the perfect entry point for me, I was able to understand the 3 basic Pikmin types perfectly, and going into Pikmin 2 after this game felt like a smooth transition. Pikmin isn't a game you play for a story, it's all about gameplay, and the gameplay is so satisfying. Compared to Pikmin 2, it's quite basic since this was the first game, but I still had a fun time with it. It was fun to explore the little planet with the Pikmin and explore to find treasure.

I found myself caring for the Pikmin I had around me, I felt like a guardian protecting its little ones, and whenever I lost one of them to an enemy, I made sure me and my children got sweet revenge by killing it and harvet its body to create more Pikmin. Surprisingly kinda dark for a Nintendo game. (insert Spongebob roller coaster meme here) To be honest, I don't have a lot to say here, because most of my praises are for Pikmin 2, but what I will say is that one of my issues with Pikmin 1, was that I felt that the Pikmin could just ignore you sometimes. Sometimes I threw a Pikmin at an enemy just for the Pikmin to walk around blind like they Stevie Wonder, but also another issue was that compared to Pikmin 2, there's not a lot of replay value. Of course, you can try to speed-run it, but everything after Pikmin 1 just does a better job. Overall, Pikmin 1 was a nice change of pace from what else I was playing this year. I believe this was the first RTS I ever played, and I loved it.

Stats:
8th Game I've Completed In 2024
Played on Nintendo Switch
Hours into Game: 10 hours
Score: 8/10 (4/5)
Last Statement: Red Pikmin best pikmin

I’m SHOCKED and AMAZED that nearly everything that made Pikmin 3 so good was already implemented in the first game! I was really expecting a game that was janky and hard to work with, but no! It has aged phenomenally well!

That’s not to say it’s easy, good grief, it’s nightmarishly hard! I can’t imagine playing this game as a kid because I NEVER would have beaten it within the 30 day time limit. Hell, I almost didn’t this time! (And don’t get me started on that final boss that took me well over an hour to beat and ate all of my Pikmin) I loved the challenge though, this was a tremendously fun game! That makes two in a row now! Pikmin 2 is next!

In this title, Olimar's got 30 days to locate and retrieve all 30* (you can miss 5 but they're unspecified and you need all of them to reach the final boss) of his ship parts before he's forced to breathe the same shitty oxygen that we breathe too. In order to do so, he enlists the help of the Pikmin, zerg rushing his enemies with an army 100 strong.

The world of Pikmin incites curiosity. You don't know what creatures are out there, but most of them probably want you gone. The music is laid-back and atmospheric, but it has melodies intertwined at the core of each track, ones that stick with you long after a day is done. I love all of Olimar's end-of-day logs. He chronicles his experiences with the Pikmin, documents the local flora and fauna, and even misses his wife and kids. I don't mean that last one as a joke, by the way. Olimar may be a big-nosed spaceman ordering tiny plant people around, but mentioning things like his family give him a human element that the player can sympathize with. The dude named the Pikmin and their home after foods, for crying out loud.

Something important to keep in mind about Pikmin is that you cannot do everything in a single day. The 30-day limit and daily timer are the linchpins of Pikmin 1. It necessitates scouting out the area and planning in advance. Taking heavy losses in battle may necessitate taking a day solely to farm more Pikmin. Nabbing more than one ship part in a single day gives you a little bit of leeway, and so on. It's such a weird, charming game with so much to discover, even when condensed into 3 or so areas. I even saw several enemies that I never encountered in the post-credits roll call, each one receiving a louder "What the hell is that?!?" from me. Crass attitude aside, It just looks like there's more discoveries to be made, even after collecting all of the ship parts. I'll be back to play this game again for sure.

I've been spoiled by Pikmin 3, but the controls in this game take getting used to, and I still have my gripes beyond that. Not being able to switch what type of Pikmin you want to throw without disbanding your whole team is very unhelpful, especially when merely touching an idle Pikmin adds it back to your team. The part that keeps me from letting the Pikmin into my heart is their AI. Their pathfinding in The Forest Navel astounded me, as they seemed to approach every un-bombed rock wall just to check their integrity on the way back to base. Red and yellow Pikmin make no effort to stay away from water. The Pikmin also frequently gain free will, which is a big no-no. They gravitate towards whatever Olimar walks past, be it a Bulborb carcass, some grass, a pile of rubble, and even pellet flower stems that haven't fully bloomed yet. You guys realize that you need those pellets to reproduce, right? Stop nipping it in the bud! You wanna touch grass so bad? I'll make like a Swooping Snitchbug and put you back in the ground, ensuring you can touch grass forever.

Overall though? Yeah, this game's considered a classic for a reason. I wonder how many people discovered this title through the "Pikmin movie" included with Luigi's Mansion. Maybe GameCube players just didn't have much choice on what to play during this experimental time for Nintendo. Whatever caused it to take off, I'm glad that Shigeru Miyamoto got to share his vision with everyone. Now Shiggy, where's Super Mario 128?

i never made it to the end as a kid. past that, i don't think i even collected more than one treasure in the second zone. i mean i was in a perpetual cycle of days 1-3, heartbroken at the sight/sound of one of my little friends dying and losing their soul to the atmosphere. it was just so much easier to play pokemon/mario where i didn't feel guilty when my videogame friends died. as an adult, the first pikmin game was a fun and quick game that was a perfect slice of game for me. the moment i started to feel like i had gathered everything that this game wanted to tell, it was just about over.

as a child, any boss that wasn't a bulborb was monstrous. but, replaying this later in my adult years, i LOVED discovering each new boss and seeing how kooky they were. i also felt so smart when I figured out how to solve a puzzle/get a bunch done in a day/beat a weird looking boss! siding with all the pikmin lovers that the ost and charm are here. haven't played other games in the series yet but super excited to jump in!

(Note: Played on Wii, but I logged the Gamecube version by mistake, so I'm just gonna write my review here.)

Pikmin has a lot of serenity, with it's beautiful music, charming natural environments, and last but not least, amazing water graphics. Despite all this, Pikmin isn't exactly a literal walk in the park. It's equally parts extremely relaxing, while also being an on the edge of your seat, nail-biting game, and this honestly is why I love it.

This is my first playthrough, and I only got the normal ending (which I'm happy for, by the way.) I missed out on 1 part, Olimar's beloved piggy bank. Pikmin purists, you can jump on my head like a Pikmin to a Snagret, but I'm still saying I completed this game. Doesn't mean I won't go back to play through it again, though. I definitely want to try and do better.

First let's start with the music, and art direction. For music, there is the incredible Forest of Hope OST, need I say more? The art direction is incredibly charming, the enemy designs are quite unique, and often goofy in a good way. Each has their own mannerisms, which is amazing and really builds the idea of this being a real ecosystem. The environments themselves are beautiful. While I don't think they are Gamecube limit-pushers, they are still beautiful. The shades of light and dark in each area are what create a lot of the vibe. With the areas being natural green and Olimar's ship parts being artificial chrome or other coloration, which creates a cool contrast. Also, the water graphics.

I'm bad at strategy and resource/time-management, but this is probably the most fun I've had with it. Like I said, it's no walk in the park on your first run through, but I believe you can do it.

A small complaint to add to others critiques: It would be nice if there was an option to view past dialogue from Olimar, because it's really easy to skip out on the intro tutorials because you were mashing B. I also don't know if it lists what parts are necessary in the game itself, I couldn't find that. I had to search online. That would make the game a little easier, although it's difficulty is part of it's charm.

Highly recommended you play it anyway you can.

I don't like RTS games at all. I don't enjoy their seriousness and/or base/loadout building mechanics that they commonly have, so when I got into Pikmin I was very cautious about it. I wanted to experience a genre that was new for me, I wanted to try and have fun with one of my friend's most favorite videogames and have something in common with them and I really wasn't ready for the beautyness of this game.

Pikmin is incredibly well crafted. It's not a hard game at all but it can be very punishing if you commit a mistake. Not because getting resources or penalty for dying is harsh, but because your troops are small little aliens that sing and jump and do cute thingies so seeing them die is incredibly painful and sad in an emotional level. If you don't care about this, then it really isn't painful unless you have multiple colored pikmins and you need specific ones but it doesn't matter much in this game.

The 30 day limit can be incredibly stressful for some people (it was to me too!) but there's this rule of thumb that "If you get one piece per day, you'll be good" and at first I was very anxious about this until I realized I get two or three per day on average, so I was more than good. Pikmin also offers a "restart day" button, allowing you to just go back to the start of the day if things really went that bad.
This time limit is not there just because. Pikmin is built upon this timer and most of the skill comes from being able to do stuff quickly and multitask. This will make it so you will naturally try to speedrun through the game and speedrunning while blind is an amazing experience. It can be highly overwhelming to a lot of people, but knowing that you can follow the rule of "1 piece per day" and that getting more than one piece per day is not uncommon, that fear, stress and anxiety will quickly go away.

I also love how this game has FOUR variants/layers of level song. You have the normal song, near-hazard/combat, sunset, and sunset near hazard. It really helps set the mood and note the importance of the daytime.

This is the first game of a series and while incredibly charming and fun, it has some very frustrating elements that thankfully were improved in later entries. These frustrating elements being the Pikmin pathfinding capabilities and lack of a good sorting system. Despite its flaws, Pikmin 1 will forever be incredibly important to me and something worth of your time and effort.

I really love Pikmin and I wish I could say it louder. I'm glad that with the release and success of Pikmin 4 the game got more attention because the series were criminally underrated.

For every aspect of this game I love, there's a moment-to-moment annoyance that keeps me from feeling totally into it. I can imagine a sequel or, forgive me for saying, a remake to this game really cleaning up some of the worst aspects while retaining what works, though I've heard they did not manage that.

The core gameplay loop is such a wonderful concept. It may seem a weird comparison, but each core area scratched that same itch for me as early Resident Evil, where areas serve as a sort of puzzle box to slowly be unlocked and overcome, as your figurative control of the region expands. The lack of an obvious objective and feeling of open world allows for a fun experience of exploration and piecemeal progress within a relatively contained area that I just adore. That being said, the time limit seems to work at cross purposes with this, and reloading unproductive days is something of a must.

Controlling a huge group of weak grunts is a really great mechanic, and watching your little army of 30, 40, 50 guys carrying a big thing is satisfying in a way I could've never anticipated. In the same way, watching them horde together to exact bloody vengeance against the inferior lifeform known as the bulborb makes me cheer with violent glee.

The aesthetic of the game is also delightful. I love all the little weirdo monster designs, the pikmin themselves being simple, but instantly iconic. The game also makes sure to include enough splashes of color to offset the dull greens, browns, and grays of the wilderness environment.

Unfortunately, there's a couple problems here, a big one being that the pikmin are stupid. Like, really, really stupid. They lack any sort of basic survival instinct. If you order an army across a bridge and they're too wide to fit, the ones on the outside will simply death march into the water, rather than shuffle behind. Pikmin will walk straight into water, fire, enemy attacks, with no regard for their lives. What they do care about, though, more than anything, is sap. On later levels, trying to lead an army across the level becomes a tedious nightmare, as guys will constantly peel off to start scrounging anywhere and everywhere for the stuff, even if it's useless to them. Fidgeting with pikmin wasting their time on something unimportant becomes the biggest annoyance you have to deal with.

In addition, there is no means to select specific pikmin or control them in any way other than as a horde, meaning if you want a specific color for something, that better be the only one you have with you. Olimar is capable of throwing one near him, but which pikmin near him he decides to throw is apparently between him and whatever god they worship on Hocotate. Bringing yellow pikmin carrying bombs into the equation is something that must be done with extreme care, lest you accidently trigger a massacre because someone decided to drop one off five inches away from you.

Another thing worth noting is how frustrating some of these enemies are to deal with when done through a battalion of morons. The swooping snitchbug (I googled that name) is a nightmare to hit with your tosses, and those frogs can just casually wipe out a whole pikmin community if you're not fast enough on the evacuations.

The fact that I was mostly absorbed into a game that legitimately boils down to walking around and a couple of pretty superficial puzzles is an achievement that should not be underappreciated, but the game's shortcomings, most of which I assume boil down to age, create these constant, niggling problems that really drag down the experience.

Edit / Addendum: The more I sit on this game, the more my frustrations tend to feel less significant. This is absolutely not a perfect game, but its high points really do create such a strong atmosphere and basic game experience. I was probably too harsh before. Gone from a 6 to an 8.