Pikmin 4 all you need to know: Release Date, Gameplay, Features, spoilers and more
Even though it is not one of Nintendo’s best-known sagas, Pikmin has several instalments of unquestionable quality that deserve to be claimed. We tell you everything about them.
It is unthinkable that names like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda or Animal Crossing, among many others, do not come to mind when we talk about Nintendo. The veteran Japanese company has built a great reputation since its inception and has behind it a good handful of intellectual properties so emblematic that they are recognizable even by people who are barely familiar with video games.
However, if we dig beyond the surface made up of the sagas that are well known to all, we can find some small hidden gems that, either for one reason or another, tend to go somewhat unnoticed by the general public and, therefore, They don’t get the attention that others do. Inside this bag, we can put Pikmin, a peculiar real-time strategy saga whose first instalment debuted in Europe in mid-2002 for Nintendo GameCube and which has given us endless joys thanks to its original proposal.
Now that we are barely a month and a half away from the launch of Pikmin 4, the new instalment that can already be reserved through the Nintendo website, we have decided to do a little review of the entire history of the series, from its beginnings until its last instalments, so that you can get to know it much better and be ready to start your journey on July 21.
Pikmin’s Origin Story
How could it be otherwise? Shigeru Miyamoto, father of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Star Fox, is one of the creative minds that most influenced the conception of Pikmin? The legendary Japanese designer recounted in an interview with Nintendo Power that the germ of the idea that would develop into the Pikmin saga originated from his growing interest in gardening. After observing how a line of ants passed under his feet carrying leaves and entering the grass, Miyamoto’s light bulb went on and he thought that it would be interesting to develop a video game in which the player controls an army of tiny beings.
Originally, Pikmin was going to be called Adam and Eve and it was going to be a title that would tell us about the origins of the human being and in which the player was going to take control of a divine character. Even though the project was discarded because it was not “too interactive”, Miyamoto did not throw in the towel and continued to think about the idea of him to find gameplay that would convince him. To test the viability of their game concept, Nintendo ran a curious tech demo known as Super Mario 128, in which up to 128 Mario characters ran and dragged objects simultaneously. Super Mario 128It never saw the light of day as a video game, but it is undeniable that its technology and mechanics were taken into account for Pikmin.
Reinventing real-time strategy
If Super Mario is Nintendo’s quintessential platform saga, The Legend of Zelda is an adventure, Super Smash Bros. is 2D fighting, and Splatoon is multiplayer shooting, Pikmin is the queen of the company’s real-time strategy Japanese. Nintendo’s works are always characterized by shaking the foundations of a genre and modifying them to create something unique, original and differentiating from the other games that we can find on the market. In this sense, Pikmin it’s not your usual real-time strategy game, as it manages to stand out from the rest thanks to the little creatures that give the saga its name, and it even goes further and adds other genres such as survival and even light touches to the mix Metroidvania-style exploration.
Broadly speaking, the trilogy of titles that make up the main series could be defined as a cocktail that splendidly combines the creation of Pikmin troops, which differ by type and have different uses both in combat and exploration. collecting and managing resources, investigating the environment, solving highly imaginative puzzles, and much more. At its core, Pikmin follows a principle that can be applied to other Nintendo licenses: easy to learn, hard to master. Its nice and colourful appearance hides complete and extremely satisfying gameplay as soon as we want to delve into it.
In a way, it could also be said that Pikmin is not just a real-time strategy game, but also a role-playing title by having characters with different roles. We could say that Pikmin was also a pioneer for RPGs since at that time they were mostly static and Nintendo’s work offered a much more dynamic combat system.
What can we expect from Pikmin 4?
Pikmin 4 promises to bring together all those elements that made the previous ones great while, in turn, will implement a series of most interesting new features. How could it be otherwise, this fourth installment will present a new addition to the Pikmin family: the Ice Pikmin. This icy creature will be very useful when it comes to freezing enemies and water in the settings for a limited time.
However, the biggest novelties are found in the change of perspective of the game camera, which will allow us to appreciate the depth of the places in which we find ourselves, as well as in Ochin, a space dog that can carry Pikmin on its back and help us cross certain surfaces, something that greatly benefits navigation and makes it more satisfying. You can go deeper into these aspects in our complete preview of Pikmin 4.
Last but not least, we cannot forget that Pikmin 4 will have a character editor that will allow us to create our hero with a wide variety of options: skin tones, eye colour and shape, hairstyles, complexions, and much more. Are you ready to embark on a dangerous rescue mission to save Captain Olimar?
You can pre-order Pikmin 4 now
Pikmin 4 goes on sale on July 21 and you can pre-order it now. Being able to get an exclusive Lanyard if you book at GAME, or a poster if you do it at FNAC and MediaMarkt.
You can also get it at My Nintendo Store, receiving a mobile phone holder as a gift, or get the pack that includes the game, plus a set of 3 keyrings and the mobile phone holder.
