You guys were probably expecting a review of a Wii U game as the first review of 2014, correct? Well, you would be wrong on that. The game I plan to review is a sequel to a series that already has two installments before it. So, I figured I might as well knock both of those games out before I get to the latest one.

So... Pikmin. Yeah, if you don't know about it, that's understandable. As you can see from the box art. Pikmin was released for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2001. It was also re-released for the Nintendo Wii in 2009 (both of these dates are the North American releases, by the way.) I'll be looking at the Wii version for this following review.

Pikmin is still Nintendo's newest IP and the one looked the most interesting to me when I first saw it.Was the game enough to prove worthy of that interest? Well, let's take a look by starting off with the plot.

The game begins with a spaceship flying through.... well, space. As the ship is flying, a giant meteorite hits it, sending it falling towards an uncharted planet. As the ship enters the atmosphere, the ship begins to break apart, scattering it all over the area near the crash site.

The next morning, we see an astronaut by the name of Captain Olimar. Olimar wakes up having no idea what happened before he blacked out. He then turns around to see his ship; a broken mess of it's former self. He then informs us, the players, because there's no way that he could be talking to someone else, that he comes from the planet known as Hocotate. He says that the planet's atmosphere contains high levels of oxygen, which is deadly to his people. He also states that his life support systems are damaged. In thirty days, the systems will fail, killing him in the process. Olimar then makes it his goal to find all thirty of his missing ship parts and return home to his family on Hocotate.

After walking around the area for a moment, Olimar discovers a strange, round-shaped red flying machine. Based on it's look, the captain would proceed to call this item an "onion." From the onion comes out a red seed that plants itself into the ground. The seedling takes the form of a red creature with no mouth and a long nose when Olimar pulls it out of the ground. Upon further examination, Olimar proceeds to call creatures like this one "Pikmin." From this point on, Olimar will use the Pikmin he finds around the area to recover his ship parts and return home to Hocotate.

The story overall is pretty... bare. Captain Olimar isn't really bursting with personality, and neither are the Pikmin. While the world they travel in is a great representation of an enlarged Earth, it doesn't help the main character and his army of colorful plant soldiers personality-wise.

Now that the story is out of the way, let's get into the gameplay. Like I mentioned earlier, Olimar finds his first Pikmin almost immediately after he wakes up at his crash site. The Pikmin may have been red, but that's not the only flavor they come in. In fact, this game contains three types of Pikmin.

Red ikmin are probably the most common. They're fantastic in combat and are really easy to find. Considering they're your first pikmin you find, that should be a no-brainer.

There are also yellow pikmin. Yellow pikmin are equipped with giant ears and still no mouth. These pikmin are the strongest type out of the three. They have the ability to pick up magma rocks, which are the bombs of the game, and break down solid structures with them.

Finally, we have blue pikmin. These guys are equipped with gills and a mouth this time! With these gills, they have the ability to enter the water with ease. They don't have the ability to swim, though. They can only sink and walk on the bottom.

With just one pikmin, you won't be going far in this game. Luckily, your pikmin have the ability to make more of themselves. You can make more pikmin by collecting colorful round pellets and taking them back to the designated onion. For example, if you brought back a red "1" pellet to the red onion, two red pikmin will plant themselves into the ground. Though, if say, a yellow pikmin brought back a red "1" pellet to their onion, you'll still get yellow pikmin. However, instead of getting two, you'll just get one. You can also produce more pikmin by killing enemies and bringing them back to the onions after they're defeated.

You're going to need a rather healthy amount of pikmin, too. One pikmin alone won't carry a spaceship part back. You'll usually need a number such as fifteen, or twenty, or even forty (Those spaceship parts are heavy) In fact, pikmin can barely do ANYTHING by themselves. They can't fight, collect, or even keep track of themselves without the assistance of Captain Olimar. On top of that, if you don't have good leadership skills with these guys, they'll be dropping like flies to much larger creatures in a matter of two hours into the game.

Speaking of time, I mentioned at the beginning that Olimar has thirty days to find his thirty missing ship parts. If you think those thirty days mean nothing in the grand scheme of your gameplay, you're wrong. You literally have thirty days in game time to find all of the parts, and if you fail to do so, you'll get a bad ending. Yes, there are multiple endings, but I'll save that for later. A day in the world of Pikmin is about twenty minutes long in real time. Multiple that by thirty, and you have a good ten hours to find all thirty spaceship parts and have Olimar return to Hocotate in one piece.

This time limit shouldn't be an issue if you know how to use your pikmin correctly. As I said earlier, each pikmin has their own abilities. You must exploit these abilities if you plan on getting every part, and believe me, that's easier said than done.

The situations you'll have to overcome to get these parts will come in all sorts of flavors. Simply retrieving a part from the water will become a task in of itself. This is where you'll need to use the blue pikmin to retrieve it. Another instance that will occur is a part behind a stone wall. There will typically be magma rocks around these areas. This is where you'll need to break out your yellow pikmin so they can pick up the rocks and use them to blow the wall up.

Luckily for the player, it's extremely easy to create more pikmin. Like I mentioned earlier, things like pellets and enemies can be used to create more. They're scattered all over the area, so refilling your pikmin stock should never be a tiring chore. Like I said, you'll need to create a lot of these colorful creatures to complete the game. But the ingredients to do so are so common and easy to find, it should never be an issue.

There are a total of four areas for Olimar to explore; a grassy field, a dense forest, a damp and cave, and a vast river. There is a set number of parts in each area, usually six, seven, or eight parts in each. You'll need to look long and hard for these things once you first start the game, which can be a pain sometimes. Later on, you can nab a radar part that makes it much easier to locate the other parts, but for the first part of the game, you're simply wandering around the environments looking for parts.

Each area has it's own enemies to face. Like the spaceship part situations, these guys range from all sorts. If you think you can approach any of these creatures with the intent that these creatures won't want Olimar dead and the pikmin eaten, think again. EVERYTHING in this game will try to make mincemeat out of Olimar and the pikmin. You'll need to bring a lot of pikmin to take on most of these abominations as well. These guys can eat/kill your pikmin by the spoonfuls, mainly these ladybug-like creatures that're slow, but will go after your pikmin like they're an endless buffet.

But, I think this adds to the game. If Pikmin does one thing, it gives me a good challenge. It's not just about trying to find all thirty parts by the end of the thirty day time limit, but trying to survive this dangerous world by doing so. The game always throws perplexing and challenging puzzles to get these parts. It makes me think about what I'm going to do before I do it, and I praise this game for making me do so.

However, that's not to say everything is good here. One bad thing is the control. Naturally, in a game like this, you wouldn't want to waste time. Here, you really don't want to waste it, because the control can sometimes be a bit awkward. Olimar is a tank when it comes to going from place to place. He's not fast in the slightest, he turns in a rather stiff matter, and his main method of attacking is throwing his pikmin at the desired target.

Actually, on top of that, the overall mechanics for the pikmin can be a bit weird. In order for your pikmin to attack anything, you need to throw them near or onto the desired object. This is meant to be a strategy game, but their's a difference between strategy and just mindlessly throwing pikmin at the dudes over and over again until they decide they've had enough.

There are also times where you have to split the groups of Pikmin apart and only take one type with you into a certain area. For instance, sometimes, you have to take only the blue pikmin, since red and yellow pikmin drown in water. You can call over your desired group by positioning the Wiimote's cursor of them and whistling to them. This can sometimes be a bit awkward to handle, because there's a chance that one group could be too close to another. It makes me have to specifically position the cursor so I don't call yellow pikmin into my group of blue pikmin by mistake.

Although, above all that, we have a great soundtrack to top it off. Each track is suited perfectly for whatever the mood is, whether it's triumphant, unsettling, calming, or intense, it always sets the mood higher. Same goes for the graphics. For the Wii, I think this is pretty good. Pikmin does a great job at making what would be an enlarged Earth. Olimar is a small astronaut among a giant Earth, and the design of the game caters to that well enough to pass.

Overall, I think Pikmin is a pretty good game. For the first installment into Nintendo's newest IP, it does a good job getting it all started. While the gameplay can get monotonous and the control is a bit... weird, the overall design of everything else really makes it stand out. If you're looking for a Nintendo game that isn't another Mario or Zelda title, I think Pikmin is a good game to try out.

Overall Game Grade: B+

Next Review: Pikmin 2

(By the way, I have all three endings here, so if you want it spoiled for you, I've got them all right here for your amusement!)

Bad Ending:

Semi-good ending:

Good Ending: