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When Shigeru Miyamoto announced back in 2015, just two years after the release of Pikmin 3 on Wii U, that Pikmin 4 was “very close to completion,” nobody would have expected that it would take the game eight more years to finally be released. For the entirety of the Switch’s life cycle, Pikmin 4 has been quietly hovering in the background, only being mentioned in passing over the years as being still in development. After much anticipation, a definitive release date was finally announced in a Nintendo Direct that aired in September 2022. With Pikmin 3 Deluxe releasing on Switch in October 2020, and ports of Pikmin 1+2 releasing a month before Pikmin 4, we now finally have the full series on a current generation system, but has the long wait for Pikmin 4 been worth it?
Pikmin 4 opens with series protagonist Captain Olimar once again exploring PNF-404, a planet that strongly resembles Earth. Unfortunately, his exploration goes awry and an accident causes his ship to crash. With the help of some Pikmin and a dog-like creature he names Moss, Olimar manages to find his missing radio, send out a distress signal, and then promptly vanish without a trace. This is where the player comes in, as part of the Rescue Corps who pick up the distress signal, only to find themselves in need of rescuing when their own ship crashes and their crew becomes scattered. Your objective is to locate your missing crew members, several other castaways who have all traveled to PNF-404 and found themselves in the same situation, and of course, the missing Captain Olimar.
After the opening couple of hours, Pikmin 4 is light on cutscenes and more direct storytelling, but its world-building is quite detailed and very satisfying to uncover over the course of the game. As you follow the trail of Captain Olimar, you will be given his log entries, which serve the dual purpose of explaining the game’s mechanics and giving you some insight into the various locations you’ll travel to in a very organic way. This makes the tutorials and glossary feel like a part of the story rather than a separate menu you’re forced to go into to glean knowledge about how to proceed. Each castaway you find also has their own ID Badge, which gives you a little background information on how they ended up on the planet, and gives more meaning to the Side Missions that they will ask you to undertake as you explore. Dalmo, for instance, has a passion for animals, so his Side Missions revolve around filling out the Piklopedia, a database of enemies you’ll encounter across the various areas. Everything that you’re asked to do or find in Pikmin 4 has an accompanying log entry or character associated with it, which makes the gameplay loop feel far more involved and rewarding.
Pikmin 4 is best described as a real-time strategy game with a focus on exploration and resource management. During the day (which lasts for approximately 20 minutes in real time), you venture out with up to three of the nine total different types of Pikmin, which each have their own unique attributes that you will need to utilize to solve the various environmental puzzles, tackle the local wildlife, and retrieve the treasures scattered across the map. For example, Blue Pikmin are capable of traveling through water, whereas Red Pikmin are fire resistant. Carrying a treasure back to your ship will convert it into Sparklium, the ship’s fuel. Acquiring enough Sparklium will unlock the next area, and bring you one step closer to finding Captain Olimar.
There are four areas to explore (with an additional two unlocked in the postgame), and each one is meticulously designed and packed with content to find. Obstacles such as high ledges and barricades may make them difficult to traverse at times, but these areas are all otherwise easy to navigate, making exploration enjoyable regardless of your preferred play style or skill level. Pulling up the map will allow you to see any unclaimed treasures, cave entrances, or other points of interest such as structures that you can build with enough materials. You can also direct your character to go to any uncovered point on the map automatically if you’re having difficulty navigating with the “Go Here” feature.
If you encounter an opponent you weren’t prepared for and lose Pikmin, you can use the Rewind function to return to an earlier point in time, or even start the day over. If you’re not sure which Pikmin to take with you on your adventure, there is also an “Auto” option to have the game choose for you. Alternatively, you can ignore all of these functions entirely if you would prefer to explore on your own. Days may occasionally feel too short, but there is no penalty for failing to return to your ship in time and no time limit on the number of days you have to complete the story. It’s important to note however, that any Pikmin not under your control at the end of the day will be lost. When you return the next day, everything will be as you left it, meaning that you can continue to transport treasures from where you left them if you didn’t have time to carry them all the way back, and won’t have to fight through the same enemies to get to that point.
In addition to treasures, there are also caves, which make a return from Pikmin 2, scattered across the map of each area for you to find and explore. These are small dungeons composed of multiple sub-levels where you will be unable to refresh your supply of Pikmin from your ship. Time passes at a much slower rate and will not run out as long as you remain inside, putting a greater emphasis on strategy rather than speed. As well as treasures, castaways, and larger boss enemies, you will also encounter new varieties of Pikmin inside caves that you won’t be able to create yourself until much later in the game, and will be able to take these back with you to the surface once you exit. Whilst caves are mostly small and linear in design, each one offers a variety of rewards that makes exploring them feel exciting and often tense, although the Rewind function will allow you to restart the sub-level if you make a mistake.
Your canine companion Oatchi will accompany you on your adventures, and adds a whole new dynamic to the familiar gameplay of the Pikmin series. Riding Oatchi is often much faster and safer than running across each area, and he can be commanded to help carry items, attack enemies, and even be controlled separately, which is sometimes necessary for sections in caves. As you rescue castaways, you will earn points that will allow you to teach new abilities to Oatchi or improve existing ones, making him feel like a fully customisable second character whose usefulness only increases as you progress through the game.
Pikmin 4 also introduces two new gameplay elements of note during its main campaign: Night Explorations, and Dandori. Night explorations utilize the new Glow Pikmin in tower-defense style gameplay, where your objective is to defend the main structure from waves of enemies until the morning. Though these are shorter than your usual daytime excursions, they serve as a nice break from the usual treasure-hunting fare. Dandori is a little more diverse, split between Challenges and Battles, which both put you on a shorter time limit as you aim to gather as many treasures as possible, with Battles being against an AI who will be attempting to do the same. The main campaign keeps these relatively simple, but they become significantly more challenging and varied in the postgame, requiring you to do more in a much shorter span of time, and compete against more intelligent AI opponents. They are also ranked depending on your performance, and while you only need to beat the trial to progress in the story, it will require practice and skill to attain the best rank possible.
Despite its excellent accessibility options and quality-of-life features, there are elements of Pikmin 4 that are frustratingly clunky. There is very little strategy involved in the game’s combat, which at its most complex just requires you to target a particular body part of a larger enemy before you can attack their weak point, or circle around them and wait for the right time to strike. Larger enemies will regularly shake off Pikmin, which will often place themselves directly into the range of the follow-up attack as you attempt to call them back, resulting in frustrating losses if you’re unlucky.
Transporting treasures or enemy corpses can also be problematic when they are clustered together, with the game’s auto-lock being more of a hindrance than a help at this point. If Pikmin attempt to pick up the wrong item, you will need to call them back to redirect them to the item that you actually want them to carry; you may not necessarily be able to lock onto it, and will likely end up calling all of them back to you due to the range of the whistle. Pikmin will also remain idle once they have carried something back to the ship, and though you can buy an upgrade to call stray Pikmin to your location and teach Oatchi a skill that will let him round them up, you will need to unlock these first, so the opening hours can feel particularly slow and occasionally frustrating until you have these tools at your disposal.
Pikmin 4 is not a difficult game, and the main story takes around 10 hours to complete doing the bare minimum of exploration required. The difficulty spikes significantly during the postgame, and a more gentle difficulty curve may have been beneficial here to ease players into the challenge, which at times can feel unbalanced. The postgame unlocks a significant amount of the game’s content, including bulbs for four types of Pikmin you will have only previously discovered in caves, or may not have seen at all. Being able to create new types of Pikmin is an excellent reward for doing the game’s tougher challenges, and only being able to find them in caves prior to that makes them feel like a more valuable resource. However, as using the right kind of Pikmin is essential to solving the game’s many environmental puzzles and caves, having access to them sooner may have given the game more variety and encouraged creativity in puzzle-solving exploring the game’s main areas, which is where you spend the majority of your time.
Unfortunately, Nintendo did not take the opportunity to implement full co-op play for the story mode. Two players can play together locally, but the second player will only be able to throw rocks at enemies, which is a definite step down from the fully co-operative story mode in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. The separate Dandori Battle mode can be played both cooperatively against AI and competitively against another player, but the lack of full co-op for the main campaign feels like a huge missed opportunity when a second player could have controlled their own custom-made character or Oatchi.
Pikmin 4 has a vibrant and charming atmosphere, and each area feels unique despite the relative lack of variety. Distant objects will appear blurred, but you can still see clearly quite a significant distance away, which is extremely helpful for keeping Pikmin in your field of vision as they carry a treasure back to the ship whilst you continue to explore. The game runs smoothly with no noticeable framerate dips despite the high number of Pikmin that can appear on screen at once, especially during Dandori Battles where the screen will be split between you and your opponent. At one point during my playthrough, I did experience an odd lighting effect in a water-based cave which caused the ground to flash rapidly, but aside from this one visual anomaly, the visuals were consistent throughout and made for a very pleasant experience. The music is more focused on ambient sounds than on providing a distinct and memorable theme, but this suits the generally more relaxed nature of the game.
It took a very long time to reach us, but the wait was worth it: Pikmin 4 is a finely crafted experience from start to finish, with an addictive and highly satisfying gameplay loop that encourages and rewards exploration in a way that will make you want to uncover everything it has to offer. Those new to the franchise or less proficient with strategy games will find this a gentle and enjoyable experience with excellent quality-of-life features like the Rewind function to help offset frustration, and those seeking the more challenging gameplay that previous entries in the series are known for will find it in the postgame. Those looking for a co-operative multiplayer experience may be better off turning to Pikmin 3 Deluxe, but otherwise this is an easy recommendation to make for both newcomers to the series and long-time fans alike.
8.5/10
A copy of Pikmin 4 for review purposes was provided by Nintendo UK.