Captain Olimar crash lands into the best launch game for Nintendo's GameCube.
The story sees Captain Olimar crash landing on a strange planet. His spaceship; the Dolphin, has been blown into 30 pieces and he needs to get them back quick. It turns out the planet's atmosphere is poisonous to Olimar and his life support system will only last him 30 days. The race is on and it looks like all hope is lost for the poor Captain when, suddenly, he discovers a strange red object. The strange object sprung to life and spit out a seed, which sprouted into a strange creature. Olimar names this creature a Pikmin and it begins to follow him for no apparent reason. Olimar eventually discovers more Pikmin and they help him piece his ship back together to escape before it's too late. The story will not blow you away, but it's neat and Olimar makes interesting comments on everything he encounters between days. Though the gameplay is where the hook is.
The gameplay in Pikmin is something new. You control Olimar and he can have up to 100 Pikmin following him. As you move, a purple cursor appears in front of you and this is where a Pikmin will land if you throw them. Throwing Pikmin serves multiple purposes; such as getting Pikmin to places they can't normally go, to attack or to get them to carry something. You find a lot of items lying around the world, mostly colored items called pellets, and they can usually be carried. The Pikmin will carry them back to their ship; named Onions by Olimar, and this usually results in more Pikmin to be born. There are three different colors of Pikmin, the other two are found later on, and each have separate population counts.
The Pikmin also pick up and carry the pieces of Olimar's ship back to his wreckage. As you find pieces, his still functioning ship can travel further to find more pieces. Your Pikmin can engage the other wild life on the planet and most will gladly eat your Pikmin for a snack. When an enemy falls, the Pikmin will carry their corpses back to the Onion to breed more Pikmin. The Pikmin can all be ordered around with the C-stick, but this is usually not as effective as throwing each one on top of the enemies. You can press the X button to separate them by color and this way you can move just the colors you want to move. Thanks to this, you need to multitask to prevail against the strict time limit placed on each day. Fail to get your Pikmin back to their Onions before night fall and they fall to the predators of the night.
Not all of the pieces are needed to get off the planet and it's usually easy to tell which you need. Of course, if you find one, you'll want to collect it. Overall, the gameplay is pretty addicting and it's a really joy to see the Pikmin storm the enemy forces and take them out.
The music is mostly calming and quiet. It suits the visuals and environment even if it doesn't suit the combat. The Pikmin sounds are adorable and, while most of the creatures sound the same, they sound good too. Olimar makes no sound at all, however. There might not be much different audio here, but the soothing soundtrack is nice and enjoyable.
The visuals are incredibly attractive. The bright, green forest environment. The dank, cavern environment, they all look stunning. The creatures look great and all move like they were all real animals and the Pikmin are well realized. Olimar himself looks great as well. Everything goes so well together making it very easy to say that this is the best looking GameCube launch title. The soothing music and fantastic visuals go together with the bubble-like HUD to make a very appealing game to look at and generally just play.
PROs:
- The concept of the story is neat
- Gameplay is incredibly addicting
- Concept of having a horde of minions at your disposal is fresh
- Music is soothing and nice
- Time Limit forces Multitasking
- Visuals are attractive and great looking
- Creatures are very realized
- Very lifelike ecosystem
- Days have some consistency
CONs:
- Game is somewhat short
- Time Limit can restrict you
- Some enemies are like vacuums for your Pikmin
Overall, Pikmin is a great game to get for the GameCube at launch. It's bright, beautiful, fun and challenging. It's a new Nintendo IP and it's the start of something awesome. Captain Olimar has crash landed onto something special. The short length and time limit don't stand in the way of your Pikmin leading fun.
Story: 8.0/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Audio: 8.0/10
Presentation: 10/10