Played with a mouse and keyboard control scheme, more akin to usual computer RTS games.
Pikmin is a pretty peculiar series of games. I remember back in the 3DS days I would often boot up into AR Games, the bundled-in software that would allow you to play augmented reality games using the portable console's camera, the cards for it came included in I think all 3DS systems out there, but the point is that the cards for AR Games included a lot of staple Nintendo series, you've got Mario, Toon Link, Kirby, Samus... And three Pikmin. Granted, my 8-year-old self didn't quite catch what a Pikmin even was or where it came from, so my child brain being afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone usually thought I would never touch this series, not even with a stick.
Fast forward to about ten years later and here I am catching on the wave of People Playing Pikmin Because Their Friend Who Has Been A Die-Hard Fan of The Series For Years Is Excited About The New Game (Pikmin 4) So You Decide To Give It A Try For Once.(PPPBTFWHBADHFTSFYIEATNGSYDTGIATFO for short)
And I must say. I'm quite impressed, I didn't really expect it to be this super high quality octane action video game™ but rather it was more of a soothing and charming experience proper of an intellectual property Nintendo can call their own, and I think it's rather funny how in one side it is really cutesy and it can give you a laugh just by seeing your new friends doing their stuff or reading Olimar's commentary on the whole situation, and then how frustrating and anxious it can get when your units start actually dying either by homicide or suicide, the moments where the day is about to end and you're still collecting a ship part or the adventure that it is having to venture out with a sole group of Pikmin in order to rescue another stranded Pikmin which stopped following you for some reason, or when you try to cross a bridge with Pikmin that are unable to go underwater so if you have a lot of them they'll straight up go take a swim and die. And I think that in it of itself is the charm of the Pikmin games, which makes it a very distinct franchise compared to everything else Nintendo had done.
This game in particular I guess just sets in the base lines of what Pikmin is because I've heard every other game is different from this one in particular, but regardless it is a very fun challenge to collect all 30 ship parts in 30 days because you start setting yourself a dare to not wait every single day to pass while you collect just one part per day (which is something you can totally do and that's more novice-friendly), but instead for risking it and actually strategize how to collect more than one per day. Be it by clearing the path of all enemies that roam around it, or by letting your Pikmin grab an already found piece back to the ship while you grab another pack of them to swarm a bigger enemy and also get that one, or even such things as dedicating the rest of the day left to getting more units by having an exploration squad and collecting various things and enemy corpses and so on put the real strategy in Pikmin.
Now, for some of the issues it would be glaring to not say how much the artificial intelligence of Pikmin suck in this game, they often get stuck when you take a turn, in the moment of swarming an enemy things like rocks or nurturing grass becomes their #1 priority to do in the moment, their pathing isn't the best as they can just walk into a lake by themselves and die. Some controls are questionable, I know this is the Wii version and they had to make do with a really abnormal control scheme, but as far as I know the GameCube version is worse since you have to control Olimar and aim with the same stick, and also maybe since I used a custom control scheme it wasn't as intuitive but the whole snapping in the camera makes the game a bit of a pain to control in very hectic situations, and I still feel like the switching of Pikmin to throw should've been kept to another button entirely to avoid throwing ones that don't correspond, and they should've gave more utility to some units since by the latter half of the game you always have a squad of blue Pikmin since they can pretty much roam anywhere and won't die.
Besides all the nitpicking, the game is cool and I'm glad I gave it a chance. Seems worth replaying in the future as well.
Pikmin is a pretty peculiar series of games. I remember back in the 3DS days I would often boot up into AR Games, the bundled-in software that would allow you to play augmented reality games using the portable console's camera, the cards for it came included in I think all 3DS systems out there, but the point is that the cards for AR Games included a lot of staple Nintendo series, you've got Mario, Toon Link, Kirby, Samus... And three Pikmin. Granted, my 8-year-old self didn't quite catch what a Pikmin even was or where it came from, so my child brain being afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone usually thought I would never touch this series, not even with a stick.
Fast forward to about ten years later and here I am catching on the wave of People Playing Pikmin Because Their Friend Who Has Been A Die-Hard Fan of The Series For Years Is Excited About The New Game (Pikmin 4) So You Decide To Give It A Try For Once.
And I must say. I'm quite impressed, I didn't really expect it to be this super high quality octane action video game™ but rather it was more of a soothing and charming experience proper of an intellectual property Nintendo can call their own, and I think it's rather funny how in one side it is really cutesy and it can give you a laugh just by seeing your new friends doing their stuff or reading Olimar's commentary on the whole situation, and then how frustrating and anxious it can get when your units start actually dying either by homicide or suicide, the moments where the day is about to end and you're still collecting a ship part or the adventure that it is having to venture out with a sole group of Pikmin in order to rescue another stranded Pikmin which stopped following you for some reason, or when you try to cross a bridge with Pikmin that are unable to go underwater so if you have a lot of them they'll straight up go take a swim and die. And I think that in it of itself is the charm of the Pikmin games, which makes it a very distinct franchise compared to everything else Nintendo had done.
This game in particular I guess just sets in the base lines of what Pikmin is because I've heard every other game is different from this one in particular, but regardless it is a very fun challenge to collect all 30 ship parts in 30 days because you start setting yourself a dare to not wait every single day to pass while you collect just one part per day (which is something you can totally do and that's more novice-friendly), but instead for risking it and actually strategize how to collect more than one per day. Be it by clearing the path of all enemies that roam around it, or by letting your Pikmin grab an already found piece back to the ship while you grab another pack of them to swarm a bigger enemy and also get that one, or even such things as dedicating the rest of the day left to getting more units by having an exploration squad and collecting various things and enemy corpses and so on put the real strategy in Pikmin.
Now, for some of the issues it would be glaring to not say how much the artificial intelligence of Pikmin suck in this game, they often get stuck when you take a turn, in the moment of swarming an enemy things like rocks or nurturing grass becomes their #1 priority to do in the moment, their pathing isn't the best as they can just walk into a lake by themselves and die. Some controls are questionable, I know this is the Wii version and they had to make do with a really abnormal control scheme, but as far as I know the GameCube version is worse since you have to control Olimar and aim with the same stick, and also maybe since I used a custom control scheme it wasn't as intuitive but the whole snapping in the camera makes the game a bit of a pain to control in very hectic situations, and I still feel like the switching of Pikmin to throw should've been kept to another button entirely to avoid throwing ones that don't correspond, and they should've gave more utility to some units since by the latter half of the game you always have a squad of blue Pikmin since they can pretty much roam anywhere and won't die.
Besides all the nitpicking, the game is cool and I'm glad I gave it a chance. Seems worth replaying in the future as well.