Pikmin

One of Nintendo's biggest surprises at its E3 2001 GameCube software unveiling was Pikmin. The quirky little game was exposed during Nintendo's press conference before E3 where members of the press immediately came down with Pikmin fever. And once the media got a glimpse of Pikmin's creator Shigeru Miyamoto, famous for creating videogame franchises like Mario and Zelda, demonstrating the GameCube real-time strategy most couldn't wait to get their hands on it. It appears Pikmin is the first real-time strategy to simplify gameplay, but keep the fun factor high. The short E3 demo -- no doubt lacking in many features -- still had us hooked.

 

Features

Gameplay
The extremely imaginative Pikmin is described as an "inventive life simulation and action strategy title" that offers fast-paced thinking situations, while at the same time forcing players to consider the importance of caring for and nurturing the small ant-like Pikmin creatures. It becomes increasingly important that you maintain a mutually beneficial relationship.

You take control of an "intrepid spaceman" who, after colliding with a comet, crashes lands onto this foreign planet. To get back off the planet he has to collect the spaceship's lost parts, which are scattered all throughout the planet. Making matters even worse, the atmosphere is filled with a deadly poisonous gas, so he can't take his spacesuit off. He then runs into the Pikmin, who are very small creatures that sprout from the ground. By pulling on the top of their heads, which is often a flower or leaf of some kind, the Pikmin will immediately be willing to help you on your quest. You soon realize the entire planet is chock full of the cute creatures, and their assistance would be of great help on your quest.

What's most impressive is your ability to control a giant legion of the critters -- more than 100 -- on the screen at one time! As you soon learn, if you want the help of the Pikmin you're going to have to help them solve problems too. For instance, larger predators will consume the Pikmin like snacks. Your 50 Pikmin sprouts can quickly become zero if you're not careful. To defeat such creatures, you still have to use the Pikmin, as you're not exactly powerful yourself. It revolves around the age-old principle of strength in numbers.

The Pikmin will develop distinct characteristics. There are three different sprout forms (seen on their heads) -- Buds, Leaves and Flowers. You can culture different colors and types of each, which we presume affects your success. Nintendo or Miyamoto hasn't commented on this quite yet. What was said is that the Pikmin's form -- Bud, Leaf, Flower -- reflects their nature and characteristics.

Shigeru Miyamoto comments, "The backgrounds are really beautiful and the general idea of the game is based off a group of ants. Actually, for all the resources for the backgrounds in the game, we walked around my neighborhood and took pictures and put them in the game. You can actually see the light of the sun go around as the day goes by. So actually in this game these ant-like Pikmin, you take them out and find food for them and take it back to the nest and you get more Pikmin. As you get more Pikmin they can go out and build bridges and tear down walls, build fortresses and that is really the general idea behind the game. And actually these Pikmin are like little animals but they are also like little plants. You plant them in the ground and let them stay there and they grow. They will grow a leaf and first and then a bud and that will turn into a flower. And actually when you pull them out of the ground either as a leaf or as a bud or as a flower they are going to have different abilities depending upon what stage they are in. Really I want this game to be a game where when you play it and then you go and walk around outside and you look down at your feet and say 'are there really Pikmin down there somewhere?'"

Control Interface
Getting into this game and managing all these Pikmin might seem tedious, but is really quite easy. Once you have your Pikmin following you, a target is used to point the Pikmin in the right direction. You throw the Pikmin one-by-one by pressing the B-button. For example, to defeat an enemy you must maneuver yourself around the backside of the creature and inundate him by throwing a bunch of Pikmin on his back. If you throw Pikmin directly at him, he'll simply gobble them up. To call the Pikmin back, you simply press the A-button, and with the blow of a whistle they return to your side. You can also control the direction of all the Pikmin at once by using GameCube's C-stick. This works well for large tasks, such as breaking down a large wall. If you push all the Pikmin into it they'll begin knocking it down. Of course, they can do so many other things like building and defending their nests, building bridges, and carrying pieces of your ship back to base.

The on-screen interface is also relatively intuitive. As you can see by the above picture, you'll always know how many Pikmin you have "in stock" and how many are under your control. When your throw a Pikmin away from you he is not considered to be under your control. So, for example, if you throw all of your available Pikmin to the task of breaking down a wall your meter will read zero. The number of total Pikmin available is, of course, the same. When enemies eat your Pikmin this number falls. If you watch some of the available movies, you'll see the Pikmin population can easily decrease by a number of 30 if you're not careful.

Graphics and Technology
Visually speaking, Pikmin features a very realistic environment, one so big that it accurately reflects your tiny size. Small blades of grass, weeds, and rocks appear very large. The imagery is complimented by interactivity, where the sun moves in real-time, plants drift side-to-side when brushed by Pikmin, and clouds of dust rise beneath their feet. The texture work is extremely varied, though there's always room for improvement. Textures were still a tad bit on the blurry side for most of the environment, while characters featured very clean textures, often with reflection effects. However, the design and sheer variety of textures accurately represents the garden-like world you navigate through. Lighting and shadows also didn't seem to be extremely advanced. All the characters cast simple circular shadows and there wasn't a lot of dynamic lighting going on at the time. For instance, the Spaceman's bright red orb on the end of his antenna didn't cast light on surrounding objects, nor did the teleportation beams shining down from the Pikmin nests shed light. Hopefully subtle effects like lighting, bump-mapping, and environment-mapping will be implemented as development progresses.

Outlook
Pikmin already keeps a number of IGN editors awake at night. Even after only being able to control these adorable creatures for perhaps 15 minutes at a loud trade show&we've already caught the fever. Pikmin's potential lies in both its scope and simplicity -- controlling hundreds of Pikmin is so easy to do that people from the age of around seven to adults are going to be able to enjoy the game at varying depths. The ability to use this warehouse of Pikmin to attack enemies, haul your spaceship back to safety, build bridges, and overwhelm bosses is what gives the title its flare. Everything is also progressive. You begin with no Pikmin, and before you know it you'll be controlling hundreds. The skill of management has never been more amusing. Nintendo is so sure that Pikmin will catch they are banking it as a launch title here in the U.S. The editors here at IGNcube hope to see a more playable version at Space World in August. We can't wait to bathe in the glory of the Pikmin.