Jteich2
2023
Pikmin is a game about time and resource management. With its 30-day time limit and limited time each day to accomplish tasks, it originally comes off as a stressful and difficult experience. I felt myself struggling with the game's systems even 10 in-game days in. However, soon after this point, the gameplay and systems at play clicked in a surprising way. Instead of being stressful, I began to see that the enforced time limit was critical to the main feedback loop and fun of the game!
Once you can grasp the systems at work, Pikmin becomes a game of how efficiently you can spend your time completing different tasks. Your first playthrough of a level will be slower going as you get acquainted with how best to navigate the new space. The more you revisit an area to collect more ship parts, the more you can grasp all of the multi-tasking opportunities available. It becomes addicting to multi-task and compete with yourself to see how many ship parts you can take back to your home base in a given day.
The game even encourages this replayability and mastery of its systems! You can restart any day from the beginning if things go south with no penalty. And at the end of the game, you'll be scored on a variety of factors, including how long it took you collect all 30 ship parts. With the game being a few hours long, Nintendo designed Pikmin as a score-attack game where your skills can be continually improved through repeat playthroughs. But even if you don't go back for a second play through, you'll be able to feel your improvement over the course of your initial playthrough. I found this to be satisfying enough.
All in all, I really enjoyed Pikmin! It's world design and atmosphere really struck me and I am excited to delve deeper into the series.
It was interesting to come back to this game as an adult after failing to make any meaningful progress when it originally came out. As someone that doesn't play RTS games, the concepts this game introduces were difficult enough to learn now so I'll cut myself some slack from when I was in elementary school.
Favorite Tracks:
Forest of Hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc3gs7OJ0Jc&list=PL2D158F14D98DFA72&index=7
Today's Results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjTMmlj9nPM&list=PL2D158F14D98DFA72&index=17
Once you can grasp the systems at work, Pikmin becomes a game of how efficiently you can spend your time completing different tasks. Your first playthrough of a level will be slower going as you get acquainted with how best to navigate the new space. The more you revisit an area to collect more ship parts, the more you can grasp all of the multi-tasking opportunities available. It becomes addicting to multi-task and compete with yourself to see how many ship parts you can take back to your home base in a given day.
The game even encourages this replayability and mastery of its systems! You can restart any day from the beginning if things go south with no penalty. And at the end of the game, you'll be scored on a variety of factors, including how long it took you collect all 30 ship parts. With the game being a few hours long, Nintendo designed Pikmin as a score-attack game where your skills can be continually improved through repeat playthroughs. But even if you don't go back for a second play through, you'll be able to feel your improvement over the course of your initial playthrough. I found this to be satisfying enough.
All in all, I really enjoyed Pikmin! It's world design and atmosphere really struck me and I am excited to delve deeper into the series.
It was interesting to come back to this game as an adult after failing to make any meaningful progress when it originally came out. As someone that doesn't play RTS games, the concepts this game introduces were difficult enough to learn now so I'll cut myself some slack from when I was in elementary school.
Favorite Tracks:
Forest of Hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc3gs7OJ0Jc&list=PL2D158F14D98DFA72&index=7
Today's Results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjTMmlj9nPM&list=PL2D158F14D98DFA72&index=17