Pikmin 1

Introduction
Pikmin 1 is a favorite game of mine. I have played this game over ten times! I will finally be able to do what I always wanted to do, Review this masterpiece from 2001. I first played this game when I was seven years old.
You will have to manage Pikmin in the best way possible. The Pikmin are plant like creatures they listen to your orders. When you select a mission the timer will begin. When it is nighttime you will have to leave the area. Any Pikmin left behind will be killed by the native creatures of the planet.
This is the reason the game is classified as a real time strategy game. If you fail you can lose many Pikmin at once. You will have to solve puzzles with the Pikmin while also battling the native wildlife. You will encounter many different species of dangerous wildlife on the planet. One of the popular enemies is the spotted bulborb. In short the spotted bulborb is called the bulborb. The bulborb is one of my favorite characters in any game ever! I have a stuffed bulborb in my house! It comes with a stuffed yellow Pikmin you can put in the bulborbs mouth. This way it looks like he is eating the Pikmin! The bulborbs only competitor is the Chain chomp from the Mario series. I also have a stuffed chain chomp in my house. I have loads of game merchandise in my house! The bulborb has different subspecies on the Pikmin planet. In Pikmin two and three there will be even more species of bulborbs. The goal in this game is to repair your spaceship called the Dolphin so Captain Olimar can go home to his family. You will need a lot of help from the Pikmin to achieve this.
Did you know? The red spotted bulborb used to be yellow in the beta version of pikmin1. How it would look when animated is unknown but there is a wild picture on the internet!

The story will contain spoilers!

The story
You will play as Captain Olimar, a pilot from Hocotate. Captain Olimar has flown his spaceship on this route many times but this time something has gone horribly wrong.
The Dolphin gets hit by a huge asteroid in space. Captain Olimar manages to get control back over the Dolphin but the damage is done and the Dolphin crashed down to the closest planet. Luckily Captain Olimar survives the crash but the Dolphin is damaged.
If he could only manage to get the engine back to his ship it could fly into the atmosphere back to safety. To make matters even worse Captain Olimar’s spacesuit is damaged, he only has 30 days before the suit malfunctions and he will die from oxygen poisoning. Despite all the problems Captain Olimar decides to explore the planet in the hopes of surviving. He encounters a red onion-shaped ship that sprouts a speed. When Captain Olimar plucks the seed a creature comes out of the ground. It is shaped like a carrot. Captain Olimar decides to call this friendly creature a Pikmin.

You will need to recruit the Pikmin for help. You won’t be able to fix the dolphin without the help of the Pikmin. The red Pikmin follows you around and keeps looking at you waiting for orders. You quickly find out you can tell the red Pikmin what to do. You look around to see what the red Pikmin could do for you. You see a plant with a red pellet in it. You think the red Pikmin would like the pellet and throw him on top of the pellet. To your surprise, the red Pikmin starts carrying the pellet back to the red onion-shaped ship where he originally came from. Another red Pikmin seed comes out of the onion-shaped ship. You use the two red Pikmin to collect more pellets. Before you know it there are ten red Pikmin following you! You cannot access the other side of the area you are currently in there is a box in the way.
The ten red Pikmin work together and push the box away. You feel extremely lucky that the red Pikmin are here to help you. Despite your bad luck, the engine of the Dolphin is in this area behind the box. The red Pikmin can’t carry it yet since it is to heavy. There are more pellets in this area. When you have gathered enough of the pellets the red Pikmin will carry the engine back to your ship. You decide to call it a day and fly the Dolphin to the atmosphere to rest up for the next day of exploring. The Pikmin go inside the red onion-shaped ship and fly after you into the atmosphere where it is safe during the nighttime. They stay as close as possible to your ship while you are resting up. You feel a spark of hope that you will see your family again.

The next day you will land in a new area, called the forest of hope there you hope to find more parts of the Dolphin. The red Pikmin comes out of their red onion ship and immediately look to you for orders. There is a wall here that the Pikmin manages to destroy.
You encounter the wildlife in this area for the first time the bulborbs are aggressive and attack you on sight. The Pikmin are able to fight off the bulborbs and take their corpses back to the red onion ship creating more red Pikmins!  You feel a lot safer knowing that the Pikmins protected you. While exploring the area, you find a yellow shaped onion. A yellow Pikmin seed sprouts from the onion. A new kind of Pikmin! They look very different compared to the red Pikmin. The yellow Pikmin has big ears. The day is coming to an end and you decide to leave to the atmosphere. Both of the onion ships follow you into the atmosphere. The next day you come back to the same area, the yellow onion ship lands near the Dolphin. The yellow Pikmin seems very eager to help you. You find out that the yellow Pikmin can hold bombs! They use the bombs on the walls that the red Pikmin are not able to destroy. You are able to find some parts for the Dolphin. The Pikmin carry the parts back to your spaceship. Luckily you find the radar for the Dolphin. Now you can find the other parts for the Dolphin faster by scanning the areas. A couple of days have passed already but with the radar, you can find a new area where more parts of the Dolphin should be. You decide to leave the Forest of hope because the missing parts of the Dolphin that are still left are in the water. You have learned that the yellow and red Pikmins cannot swim.

You land in the new area forest navel. It is a damp cave with new wildlife living here than in the forest of hope. You find lots of pools and strong walls that you need bombs to get past the walls. You encounter a flame hog that spits fire at your red Pikmin. Scared your Pikmin will turn into a crisp you try to get them away from the fire. A few of the red Pikmin get hit! Strangely enough, it seems they are unharmed. You have learned that red Pikmin is immune to fire. Using the red and yellow Pikmin you collect new parts in the forest navel. There are still parts of the Dolphin that you cannot reach at this moment. After exploring the forest navel more you find a blue onion, it sprouts a blue seed. You pluck the seed and now have access to three different kinds of Pikmin. The blue Pikmin has gills and they seem to like the water. The blue Pikmin are exactly what you needed to reach the new parts of the Dolphin in all areas you have explored so far. After a couple of days have passed there is only one part left in the forest navel, it is hidden behind a big wall. You use the yellow Pikmin to blow up the wall with bombs. Behind the wall is a large spider! The yellow Pikmin fight the giant spider and defeat it. The last part of the Dolphin had been eaten by the giant spider. Now that the giant spider has been defeated you can collect the last part of the Dolphin in the forest navel. With the blue Pikmin you return to the forest of hope to collect the other parts of the Dolphin that were submerged underwater.

When exploring the forest of hope you find a large enemy called the armored beetle cannon. He is guarding a part of the dolphin. After defeating the armored cannon beetle the Pikmin gladly carries the part back to the Dolphin for you.
You continue exploring the forest of hope and you find three large worms with beaks as a mouth. The Dolphin names them Snagrets. The Pikmin attack the snagrets by climbing on their beaks with large numbers when the snagrets tries to burrow out of the ground. The three snagrets are defeated by the Pikmin very quickly. You gather blue Pikmin to gather the part of the Dolphin that came out of the biggest snagrets. The blue Pikmin walk through the water for a shortcut and reach the Dolphin in no time to deliver the last part in the forest of hope. You are hopeful that you will see your family again with the continuous help of the Pikmin. You don’t feel lonely with the Pikmin around. The radar picks up a signal from a part near the impact site where you found the engine in the beginning.
You return to the impact site and decide to look around while you are also gathering pellets to make new Pikmins. You find a pearl in a shell but it is actually a monster in disguise! The Pikmin defeat the monster and take the pearl back to the onion ships. You find the part of the Dolphin that you were still missing in the water, the blue Pikmin return the part back to the Dolphin. Once you are back in the atmosphere resting for the next day the radar picks up a new signal. You find a new area called the distant spring. You decide to head to this new area tomorrow. With each passing day, you start to feel more confident with the Pikmin by your side.

There is a lot of water in the distant spring with stronger wildlife subspecies. A stronger version of the bulborbs lives in the distant spring. They are called bulbear. Luckily they are asleep but they will wake up when you touch them. The bulbear is bigger than a bulborb and also has a bigger mouth. There are lurking many more dangers in the distant spring that you and the Pikmin will need to conquer. For a lot of the area you will need to bring blue Pikmin to solve puzzles or build bridges. Other wildlife like yellow wollywogs will also prowl the area waiting for Pikmin that they can squash.  You will encounter another armored beetle cannon in this area that needs to be defeated. There is also a dangerous egg near the onion ships. It releases something evil when it is touched. His name is the smoky progg! It is unwise to awaken the smoke progg unless you know what you are doing. He is able to kill 100 Pikmin in a flash! As time is running out, you are afraid you that are not going to make it. You start to think of parts that you don’t necessarily need to return to back to Hocotate. Luckily the Pikmin won’t abandon you. They manage to gather all the parts in the distant spring with your guidance. There is one part left of the Dolphin you still need, the safe with your money. The radar picks up another area where the safe should be. The radar also detects a huge life form. The Dolphin calls this area the final trial.

When reaching the final trial the Pikmin create a bridge to the place where the last part should be according to the radar. The part is nowhere to be seen, all you can see is a leaf sticking out of the ground. When you come near the leaf Emperor Bulblax jumps out of the ground! The emperor of the bulborbs has eaten the last part! Using yellow and red Pikmin you battle emperor Bulblax. He unleashes devastating moves on your Pikmin. But after a long battle with Emperor Bulblax you and the Pikmin are victorious. Emperor Bulblax spits out the safe and dies.
The remaining Pikmin carry the last part of the Dolphin back. Finally, you can return home to Hocotate. This also means you need to leave the Pikmin behind. Will they make it on their own? Feeling happy you are finally able to go home you also feel sad. As you start to depart to go home you see the Pikmin attack a wandering bulborb. When you reach the atmosphere you see many different colors of onion ships. Are there more species of Pikmin? Will you ever meet the Pikmin again?

Gameplay
The most important part of Pikmin1 is that you control the Pikmin. There are three species of Pikmin. All Pikmin have different skills and abilities.
Did you know? When a Pikmin dies you can see his soul go to heaven. When you kill a Bulborb or any other kind of wildlife you can also see their souls go up to heaven.

Red Pikmin:
The red Pikmin are the first species you will find in Pikmin 1. They are the strongest Pikmin in the game. Assaulting enemies in big groups with red Pikmin can quickly eliminate any of the wildlife without a hard shell-like Emperor Bulblax.
The red Pikmin are immune to fire because of this are able to walk through fire.
Yellow Pikmin:
The yellow Pikmin have ears! Is this why they always respond first when you call for them? Yellow Pikmin are weak and hard to throw onto the wildlife. The yellow Pikmin fly higher when thrown into the air than red or blue Pikmin. Even though the yellow Pikmin is weak they have a very useful skill. They can wield bomb rocks to explode enemies or brick walls. If you don’t have any Yellow Pikmin you cannot defeat Emperor Bulblax.
Blue Pikmin
The blue Pikmin have gills which they use to breathe underwater. You will need the blue Pikmin for many puzzles in Pikmin1. The blue Pikmin are not fighters like the red Pikmin but they can defend themselves better compared to the yellow Pikmin. If you have 100 blue Pikmin they can create a bridge extremely fast. Sadly they did not implement blue Pikmins into the Emperor Bulblax fight. You only need the blue Pikmin to reach the Emperor Bulblax fight.

What can you do with the Pikmin? You will need the Pikmin for everything in the game. From breaking down walls that are in your way to defeating the dangerous wildlife on the planet. The wildlife you will defeat will not disappear like in many games instead they just drop dead. You can use the corpses of the fallen wildlife to increase the amount of Pikmin you have. The Pikmin wants to drag items that are dead back into their onion ships. This will create more Pikmin you can pluck from the ground. There are also pellets you can let the Pikmin take to their onion ships. Depending on what color the pellet is you can gain bonus Pikmin. Let a red Pikmin carry the red pellet to the red onion ship.
You will need to use all three species of the Pikmin to get the parts you need for the Dolphin. You can let them swarm enemies or decide to throw them on top of any wildlife. You can upgrade the Pikmin to level three. The level of the Pikmin can be seen by looking at the pikmins head. You can increase the level by waiting to pluck the Pikmin from the ground. If you wait too long the Pikmin will revert back to level one. The other way to level up your Pikmin is to find nectar in the field and let the Pikmins eat it.
A leaf on top of their head means that the Pikmin is level 1.
A flower bud on their head means that the Pikmin is level 2.
A flower on their head means that the Pikmin is level 3.

You can’t stay in one area forever in pikmin1. You will need to watch the time at the top of your screen. Nighttime is very dangerous on this unknown planet. If you leave any Pikmin behind by accident or any other reasons the bulborbs will come and eat the Pikmin that are left behind. Bulborbs love Pikmin who are sitting alone somewhere so keep an eye on your Pikmin. You will get a warning when the day is almost over. This is the perfect time to halt your activities and gather all your Pikmin and head back to the Dolphin. You can only have a total of 100 Pikmin out on the field at once. If you were to leave all the 100 Pikmin on the field when nighttime hits the Pikmin will all die.  You will need to master the three species of Pikmin1 to be able to complete the game.

Pros
-Pikmin1 is a masterpiece in the game world.
– Pikmin1 has aged very well.
-The Pikmin are very well designed.
-Even though there is a time limit in the game I recommend this game to the casual players.
-I like the story of pikmin1.
-I love bulborbs even though they have sharp teeth.
-Collecting the parts of the Dolphin is a very solid gameplay decision.
– The puzzles are well designed but not too hard.
Cons
-The days can go by very quickly.
– If you mess up at the end of a day and lose many Pikmins you need to restart the day.
– The camera turning is difficult to use

I recommend this game to everyone. The bulborb has an amazing enemy design.
I give this game a …drumroll…

9,5

There are very few games that can tip the masterpiece that is pikmin1. The sequels are all amazing too. But pikmin1 will be forever engraved as one of the best games of my childhood.
I hope you liked reading this review. You can leave your own rating or write your own review about Pikmin1 in the comments section.