Pikmin-Pick a Planted Pikmin

Gamecube’s Pikmin is an innovative, gorgeous game. The premise is simple you play Captain Olimar of the spaceship Dolphin, survives a crash landing onto a strange planet after a meteor shower. You have to find all thirty of your spaceships pieces and fix it in thirty days, before your spacesuit runs out of air. You start your search right away only to find bright colorful turnip-like plant creatures you later name Pikmin. They come from the onion, which is a Pikmin nest that expels different colored Pikmin pellets all over the garden. You pluck them out from the ground when they are ripe. You make more Pikmin by commanding them to carry a pellet back to the onion where it releases an energy beam. The energy beam shines down on the pellet and makes a Pikmin. The onion will not expel new seeds, when there are already 100 Pikmin on the field.

There are three different types of Pikmin. Red Pikmin can withstand high temperatures and have really powerful attacks. Blue Pikmin can survive in water and the yellow are able to pick up explosive rocks, and be thrown high over stonewalls. You command your army of Pikmin to help you search around the garden for your missing spaceship parts, battle hungry large giant bugs, move obstacles, and help solve puzzles.

It takes a lot of careful planning to make the best use of your Pikmin. No matter if they’re breaking down walls or attacking enemies, you will always need an endless supply of them. So it is a good idea to continuously sprout new ones as you play. Most areas require some creative thinking to solve various puzzles. You find one missing piece of your spaceship once a day. It is a race against time to create more Pikmin and find the spaceship parts before you and your Pikmin are called back to your spaceships.

The music is cheerful, upbeat and fun matching the cute personalities of the Pikmin. The most adorable thing about the game is a bell rings letting you know that the Pikmin has completed a task. The graphics are just plain beautiful and awe striking. The animation looks so real you can almost reach into the game and pluck out a flower. This game isn’t your typical button masher. You unintentionally kill your Pikmin getting used to what button controls what on your controller. There are Easter eggs hidden in the game like turning the Pikmin’s footprints into smiley faces and drawing the leash symbol and a wiggly line is supposed to bring up telephones on the peninsula of the island.

All to soon the thirty days arrive and the game ends. Hopefully game developers will continue to create even more innovative games such as Pikmin, Katamari Damacy, and Ribbit King in the future. The game is a lot of fun I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to play games like this one. Rated E for everyone with mild violence.