Growing up, the original Pikmin was an absolute must-have for me and one of the driving factors behind my strong need to get a brand new GameCube as soon as I could save up the necessary allowance.  The ability to command an army of ant-sized Pikmin to do my bidding just seemed too unique to pass up, and ever since my initial playthrough, I was a fan for life.  Now, after roughly 20 years, Pikmin 4 is here for the Nintendo Switch, and Captain Olimar has (once again?) become stranded on PNF-404, and it’s up to the Rescue Corps to…nope, it’s up to you, a Rescue Corps noobie, to rescue both Olimar and the Rescue Corps team who crashed attempting to save him!  In true Pikmin fashion, we soon team up with the local Pikmin to save those in need and collect various treasures in order to convert them into sparklium, the energy needed to power the Rescue Corps’ ship and reach new areas.

The core gameplay of Pikmin has remained relatively unchanged.  You sprout more Pikmin by having them bring pellets and defeated enemies back to the onion, and then you use this ever-expanding army of fierce cuties to defeat even bigger enemies, collect treasures and raw materials, build bridges and climbing walls with said materials, known down walls, etc.  Multi-tasking (or Dandori) is a very important aspect of the gameplay if you want to get things done efficiently, though this particular game doesn’t have a time limit like the original and Pikmin 3 did.

One of the biggest notable changes in this game is the addition of Oatchi, a two-legged rescue dog (he could no doubt fit in the palm of my hand, which is too cute).  Oatchi has all kinds of skills, such as sniffing out various people and items and acting as a second playable character to further increase your Dandori skills.  In addition, you and your Pikmin can ride on Oatchi’s back, allowing you to navigate the landscape easier due to Oatchi’s ability to jump, swim, and charge.

Being the newest entry in the franchise, it should be no surprise that Pikmin 4 offers the most content out of any Pikmin game to date.  There are several new types of Pikmin, ice, rock, and glow (more on them later).  There are also two types of Dandori mini-games, challenges where you must complete the goal within the time limit and battles where you must earn more points than the NPC before time runs out.  There is also an extra side quest of sorts that lasts a couple of hours that mixes the gameplay of the original Pikmin with the new features of this one.  The caves from Pikmin 2 have also returned.  And the game offers upgrades that you can purchase for yourself and Oatchi, plus you can also buy items like bombs to aid in your adventure.  Last of all, there are the night expeditions.

You heard me right.  For the last two decades, going out after dark in the Pikmin universe was strictly forbidden, and we would do everything in our power to get our precious Pikmin to safety before the sun went down.  But no more.  We’re all grown up now, and we can stay up late and finally learn once and for all that…there’s a good reason the Pikmin have a strict bedtime.

So the night expeditions are basically tower defense mini games, in which you must protect one or two lumiknolls from the much more active nighttime foes.  During these expeditions, you will be using the ghostly glow Pikmin, which are immune to elements, but are still very, very edible.  When the night begins, you will have a brief reprieve to gather as many glow Pikmin as you can before the enemies become aggressive.  Fortunately, your glow Pikmin have the power to temporarily stun and swarm enemies using an ability called glowmob.  These night expeditions provided a nice change of pace from the more traditional gameplay, even if they could get a bit stressful when particularly tough enemies were on the march.

As always, commanding an army of tiny Pikmin and taking out enemies much larger than yourself is a lot of fun, and I never grow tired of watching my Pikmin carry items back to the onion like a bunch of ants.  While you would assume that, considering your tiny size, the odds would be against you, much of Pikmin 4 is surprisingly easy.  There were plenty of times where I would approach a particularly intimidating enemy, then proceed to wipe it out within a few moments thanks to Oatchi’s ability to charge into it, stunning our foe and throwing our Pikmin onto its body to finish the job.  Then again, as disappointed as I felt towards the low difficulty, I preferred that to certain challenges present in the latter portion of the game, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Growing up with the original Pikmin, I always felt the games were best with a time limit.  Having 30 days to collect all the necessary parts for Olimar’s ship forced me to multi-task and made every Pikmin’s death feel all the more costly.  In the majority of Pikmin 4, the pressure was off thanks to the fact that you have unlimited time to meet your goals.  I often wondered why I really bothered hurrying around and trying to be efficient.  And although it always pained me whenever a Pikmin perished, their brave sacrifices no longer had as much of an impact, because if my little Pikmin community ever grew too small, I had plenty of time to sprout more.

With that said…I hated the time limits in Pikmin 4.  Yeah, I know, I’m being rather contradictory here, aren’t I?  Maybe the time limits were just more strict in this game or maybe my brain is just not what it used to be.  Sure, many of the Dandori challenges were pretty fun, and I enjoyed figuring out ways to shave off a few seconds here and there and reach the assigned goal within the time limit.  But some of the later challenges were so difficult, the time limits so demanding, that I found myself just not having fun anymore.  The worst offender is the Dandori Battles, where you must accumulate more points than the NPC before time runs out.  I think what really hurts this experience most of all is the split screen, which seems entirely unnecessary when the other player is being controlled by the computer.  (Do I care what my opponent is doing?  No.  The answer is no.)  It’s also incredibly distracting and really messes with my field of vision when I can only use 50% of my TV screen!

One issue that plagued my entire playthrough was the fact that the Pikmin feel more difficult to control now than they used to.  For starters, there is this new auto-lock feature that locks on to nearby objects that the Pikmin can interact with.  You’d think this would be helpful, but it just makes it harder to throw Pikmin at the correct item when the cursor locks onto something and refuses to budge.  I have been playing Pikmin for 20 years, and I think I’m more than capable of aiming the Pikmin myself, thank you very much!  The Pikmin also seem less willing to respond to my whistle when carrying items, resulting in some being eaten because they would grab something I didn’t intend on, then refuse to relinquish their grasp on said item unless I whistled for an extra long period of time to get their attention.  In past games, there was also a way to control the group of Pikmin walking behind you when they’re not clinging to Oatchi’s back, which helped in dodging attacks or pressing them against a wall to avoid an oncoming boulder.  Yes, this feature is still present, but now it’s only unlocked by purchasing the associated item.

Aside from some small annoyances, I really enjoyed about 90% of Pikmin 4 (the last 10% being the particularly irritating Dandori mini games).  I had such a fun time just relaxing with the game, enjoying the scenery, and playing around with my darling Pikmin.  And Oatchi was a fun addition, even if sometimes he makes the game too easy.  If you’re a newcomer to the series, you’re likely to have a lot of fun, as Pikmin is a pretty unique experience that you won’t really find anywhere else.  I just think that long-time fans such as myself might feel a little frustrated with some of the changes, which serve to make a franchise that I’ve been playing since the early 2000’s feel rather foreign, like a friend whose face is familiar, but whose personality is just a little…off.  Different though Pikmin 4 feels from what I’m used to, my army of Pikmin companions will always hold a special place in my heart no matter how many years go by.

And in case you’re intimidated by that $60 price tag, Pikmin 4 took me about 42 hours to complete.  In that time, I pretty much got 100%…if you don’t count getting high scores in the dreaded Dandori mini games…