Pikmin_Review

Pikmin may look kiddy and stupid but under that lies an original and very fun game. Pikmin is one of my favorite strategy games and is one of my favorite GameCube games. This is definitely a good example that you shouldn't judge a game because it looks kiddy.

Graphics-8
The graphics are pretty good in this game. With the exception of a couple of things. The environments look great. They are very detailed and they look nice. Stuff like water effects make the graphics look even better. The Onions and the Dolphin look pretty good and the parts of the Dolphin look pretty nice. The characters and enemies are the only thing wrong with the graphics. The characters and enemies look colorful and cute but they are a bit edgy and don't look very realistic but overall, the graphics look great.

Sound-8
The music is great and the sound effects are perfect. The only thing that is wrong with them is that there aren't a variety of sounds and there could have been more soundtracks. But that's not really a problem.

Story-10
The story is original and is easy to understand. You are Captain Olimar, an astronaut from the planet Hocotate. Your job is to deliver space minerals and freight from one planet to the other. Well, you work to hard and you had to take a vacation. So, you go out in space for some peace and quiet and you set the ship to autopilot to get some tea. While you were making tea, a meteor hits your vessel, and you were thrown against your control panel and you blacked out.

You wake up on a strange planet and you notice that your ship is wrecked and to make matters worse, the planet's atmosphere contains oxygen and to your people, that is one bad element. Luckily, your suit can keep you alive for thirty days. After a small observation of the planet, you find a large, onion shaped vessel and a strange life-form that looks like a carrot from your planet called a pikpik. So, you call it a Pikmin. Will you survive? As I said, the game has a very original story.

Gameplay-8
Your mission is to find thirty parts of your ship in thirty days or less and the only help you have are the small Pikmin. Awesome! Pikmin is full of strategy. Your parts are in the stupidest places and it requires you to sit and think about what your going to do. There are three different types of Pikmin. There are the red which are the strongest and can take strong heat like fire. Blue Pikmin are the only Pikmin that can breathe in water. And the last type of Pikmin are Yellow which can jump the highest and can carry bomb rocks. There are also many obstacles like walls you have to break down and incomplete bridges you have to finish. Put the obstacles and the Pikmin together to create some major strategy.

Say there was a path that was surrounded by water and you had to take all your Pikmin to the other side. There is an unfinished bridge near the middle of the path and the sticks to begin with is on the other half of the path. What are you going to do? You take you blue Pikmin to the other side to make the bridge and then when the bridge is finished, bring the rest of your Pikmin over. See, the game has plenty of strategy. There is something else you have to think about. You can only have 100 Pikmin out onto the field. There is something else I forgot to mention. You have to produce the Pikmin. You get pellets and enemies that you put into the onion and the onion produces a seed which you take out of the ground after it grows. The seed you take out of the ground is a Pikmin.

There are five areas, The Impact Site, The Forest of Hope, Forest Navel, Distant Spring, and the Final Trial. One area is already open and the rest you must open on your own. To open them, you have to get a certain number of parts. You actually don't have to open all of the areas. You also don't need all of the parts. You only need the parts that are necessary. You can also use a radar to look at a map of the entire area that shows you were Pikmin and parts are.

In the areas, you will find enemies. They will usually have to be killed. Strategy will usually have to be used to kill them. You don't want a lot of your Pikmin killed so you'll want to be careful when fighting. There are a couple of bosses to kill. The bosses are much harder than the normal enemies and they take more strategy to kill. Olimar can also attack but he is very weak. The only thing he can kill is a Bulbord. He also has health. The only way to heal himself is by going to his ship and healing. But you won't get hurt that much.

There's also an extra mode. It's called Challenge Mode. You choose an area to go in and then you see how many Pikmin you can grow in a day. There are extra pellets added in so you can grow more. You can have high scores depending on how many Pikmin you have. It is quite fun.

The controls are extremely simplistic. There are three buttons for the camera, a button for throwing Pikmin and activating things. Another button is used to gather Pikmin and another is to dismiss them. And the last button is used to look at your radar. The C Stick is used to move your Pikmin and the Control Stick is to move. That's it. They are easy to get used to. And they are also very responsive which make the controls perfect.

The only problem with the gameplay is how short and easy the game is. You'll probably finish the game with all the parts your first time playing the game. The game can get pretty hard sometimes but most of the time it is easy. You'll most likely beat the game in less then thirty days. And the days aren't that long so you'll go right through it. If only it was longer. But, you'll most likely play the game more than once. The gameplay is great but if it was longer, it could've been so much more.

Replay Value-9
You'll play this game plenty of times because of it's short gameplay. You'll probably try to beat it in a less amount of days. But, once you beat it a lot of times, you'll probably not play it for a while. But, you'll most likely play this game a lot. It's just plain fun.

Pros
-Good graphics
-Nice sound
-Original story
-Fun gameplay
-Great replay value

Cons
-Way to short
-Edgy characters

Buy or Rent
Definitely a buy. If you don't want to play this game more than once than rent it but if you are, buy! You won't be disappointed.