The review embargo has finally lifted for Xbox’s brilliant, gleaming September sci-fi comet that is Starfield and I’ve barely even scratched the surface of my review copy. Why? Because I’ve been spending all my previously reserved Bethesda gaming time revisiting a cute RTS GameCube title from 2001 instead. You know, like an actual unhinged person.
Why fully partake in what could be the (possibly literally) biggest video game of all time when I can go back twenty years and direct swarms of colorful Lemmings-like beings toward lost spaceship parts and then directly into deep, drowning water…on purpose? Somewhere, Shigeru Miyamoto is cackling in delight, I’m sure.
I’ll admit, the embarrassingly little I’ve played of Starfield thus far has left an incredible impression, and I plan on losing myself in its expansive world completely as the game officially launches tomorrow for early access people. That said, Nintendo did recently send over codes for all the Pikmin Switch remasters, plus the new fourth game. Happy happy, joy joy, comrades.
That being said, I’ve now valiantly decided to replay all three original Pikmin games, as well as tackle Pikmin 4 once that particular task is done, because this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in a jam-packed season of game releases that feels at once overwhelming and unprecedented. What even is time anymore?
I suppose the term ‘replay’ is a bit of a misnomer here, since I only dabbled in the first game briefly when I actually owned a GameCube back in the day and, as far as I can remember, never touched the rest. So maybe we’ll stick with ‘revisit’ for now.
And yes, it has been loads of fun booting up Pikmin 1 (the Switch remaster adds the number for clarification) again after two whole decades. For those unfamiliar, it’s a relatively simple real-time strategy game, at least in premise, that tells the story of an astronaut named Captain Olimar who’s crash-landed on a strange planet and must use the help of odd plant-esque creatures called Pikmin to help retrieve the scattered parts of his vessel so he can return home. Apparently, the name Pikmin is derived from a ficticious brand of delicious carrots called PikPik sold on Olimar’s home planet.
The more you know, huh? I learned this delightful fact through one of Olimar’s numerous between-levels captain’s logs, which is sort of how the game teaches you to play and lets you know about its strange world. This method of delivery works in theory, but in 2023 it feels very 2001, insofar as much of Pikmin 1 is frustratingly vague. The lack of map-overlayed tips often left me confused in terms of controls, objectives and the general flow.
See, you have 30 in-game days to retrieve all 30 of Olimar’s relocated spaceship parts, so yes, the whole experience is timed like an old NES cartridge. The adventure itself takes place over individual days that end after a predetermined amount of minutes, and it’s always a frantic race to sundown and a mandatory return to your ship. I do not like this.
It took me practically all 30 of those in-game days to finally understand and get comfortable with the gameplay loop and mechanics, which ultimately meant that I failed to complete the main story objective. I’ll be going back to actually finish the game properly now that I know what I’m doing, but my first run through Pikmin 1 felt extremely trial-and-error. I suppose that’s also part of the retro charm, but I can’t lie, it was rather off-putting.
However, this doesn’t negate the fact that Pikmin 1 is still, all these years later, very enjoyable. Once you get the hang of telling the Pikmin where to go and how to solve the many environmental puzzles, you discover a satisfying sense of accomplishment. The concept really does remind me of the old Lemmings titles on PC and SNES, only with modern 3D graphics and slightly better storytelling. The Olimar cursor is a little wonky for my tastes, but relatively serviceable, especially taking into consideration when this mini-disc was released.
The Pikmin themselves are a little finicky as well, falling off ledges and walking into water a tad too easily (except for the coveted blue Pikmin who can withstand submersion no problem). These hiccups can make overcoming obstacles more challenging than it should be. Like I mentioned previously, though, despite the old-school difficulty and vagueness, plus what I perceived to be an irksome lack of precise control at times, there is a weird charm to Pikmin 1 in how it gradually reveals its rules and flow to the player. I guess it’s just a bit too gradual for my liking.
Obviously, next steps are replaying Pikmin 1 to get the ‘good ending’, heading into Pikmin 2 with fresh eyes and taking a serious stab at Starfield, which might take me another month to fully explore. Pikmin 1 is predictably antiquated, for sure, but I’ve enjoyed my time with Olimar and his bizarre botanic brethren. Cheers to the sequel hopefully refining and improving a promising RTS formula.
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