Hey! Pikmin Review (3DS)
Hey! Pikmin is a game that seems to have fallen under the radar which, having played it, isn’t totally unexpected but is a shame since there’s a few things to admire about it. It’s a game that doesn’t aim for spectacle and is instead content to slow down the pace and provide serenity and tranquility. It does so to a fault, however, making for a game that does not hold up in longer play sessions. It never capitalises on its potential, but for a game that seems to have been made on a low budget to push an amiibo it’s certainly better than one would first think.
Hey! Pikmin sees Captain Olimar crashing on a remote planet yet again, posing the question of how he’s still allowed anywhere near a spaceship. He gets to team up with the native Pikmin who will help him search for the Sparklium needed to power his ship in exchange for helping them not be eaten alive. You’ll have much more success in one of those goals than the other. Unlike previous games in the Pikmin series, Hey! Pikmin is a sidescroller rather than a strategy game. I say sidescroller rather than platformer because… there’s really not a lot of platforming. For the most part it’s a really low stakes game without too much being expected of the player. It means that it’s great for younger gamers, or if you want something nice and relaxing to play in short bursts, but if you’re after something to hold your attention for a while then you’ll quickly get bored of this.
The aim of each level is to simply reach an escape ship at the end, collecting Sparklium to power Olimar’s ship along the way. You’ll need to use Pikmin to defeat enemies and clear obstacles, but Olimar can find some pathways himself by flying around with his jetpack. Levels are separated into Sectors (like Worlds from Mario games) and each Sector is capped by a boss fight. Even these fights aren’t particularly challenging, only the final boss gave me any trouble. Sectors also include some bonus levels known as Secret Spots and Sparklium Springs. Secret Spots are smaller levels in which you solve a few puzzles in order to reach a collectible item at the end. Some of these require amiibo to be unlocked (more on that later). Sparklium Springs are minigames that reward you with Sparklium. Generally these involve chunks of Sparklium falling across the screen and you need to position Olimar and his Pikmin so that you can collect as much as possible.
Despite the genre shift the game manages to translate some aspects of the Pikmin series quite well. It brings an alien world to life through nice ambience and interesting new character designs. The game is full of weird and wonderful creatures, some of which you can’t help but find adorable while others are really creepy and offputting. There’s a lot of variety in the areas you visit, from underwater caverns to snow-covered mountains, which means you can look forward to a new environment whenever you clear a batch of levels. Most levels do a good job of making you feel tiny in a giant world, one particular stand-out is when you’re walking amongst giant plants whose dew drops are massive blobs of water that you have to avoid.
Exploration of these worlds is rewarded with hidden collectibles and secret levels. The collectibles provide Sparklium that you’ll need in order to unlock upgrades (and eventually complete the game) and humorous log entries in which Olimar and his computer attempt to understand what human technology is, with humorous results. The secret levels were an opportunity to bring some challenge into the game, but they’re barely any harder than what you find elsewhere. I mean, they can be a bit harder but they go from ‘walk in the park’ to ‘basic level of challenge you’d find in other platformers’.
Now brace yourself, because the thing that the game lets down the most is kind of hard to believe – the Pikmin themselves. Their trademark personality is intact, and is shown through humorous cutscenes interspersed throughout levels, but the game really doesn’t make use of them as much as it should. Each variety of Pikmin has their own uses e.g. Red Pikmin are immune to fire and can put fires out, Blue Pikmin can survive in water. These abilities are used in some basic puzzles but you rarely ever have to micromanage your party of Pikmin at all because you’re either just given a single type of Pikmin, or the differing types of Pikmin aren’t threatened by obstacles. If you’re walking through a level with Red and Blue Pikmin in no danger at all and see a fire, just don’t throw your Blue Pikmin at it? There was one puzzle I remember where you need to use your Blue Pikmin to help get your non-waterproof Pikmin through a lake, which was a welcome change of pace and something I’d like to see more of.
The uses of Pikmin in levels often doesn’t require any strategy, which is disappointing given the series’ roots. When you’re under the stress of a time limit in a strategy game, wasting time using your Pikmin to build a bridge to a new area is a calculated risk. In a platformer, however, building that bridge is required in order to progress, and there’s no risk involved with it. You don’t have to worry about whether this is a good use of your time and Pikmin, you just have to do it and sit there while it happens. There’s also a surprising amount of the game that you can complete without even using Pikmin for anything other than projectiles to take out enemies. Some puzzles are even designed for Olimar to complete on his lonesome, which is a bizarre design choice for a series where the titular characters are supposed to be the stars.
The Pikmin get to really shine in a new side mode called Pikmin Park. When you clear a level, any Pikmin left standing (hopefully a lot) are taken to a park where they can live in safety. You can assign the different species of Pikmin to scout areas of the park in order to find artefacts and clumps of Sparklium. You’ll need to assess what hazards are in the area and assign the correct Pikmin, like sending Rock Pikmin to smash crystals or Yellow Pikmin to harvest electrical plants. It’s not a mentally strenuous game mode by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s so CUTE. Whenever you save new Pikmin they’ll join the groups already there and introduce themselves to their new buddies, and then they all work together to harvest each section of the park. When they find things for you they all jump around and celebrate and it’s adorable. That’s… pretty much the whole game, really – adorable and nice, but not too taxing on the brain.
We already have a full guide on the amiibo functions of Hey! Pikmin, but they’re worth mentioning here again. The biggest use of amiibo is unlocking extra mini-levels on the world map. There’s dozens of compatible amiibo and you can unlock all of these levels with just one amiibo, so you don’t need a huge collection in order to see everything in the game. Within these levels you have to solve some puzzles in order to reach an in-game collectible version of the scanned amiibo, which is then collected like any other collectible in the game. You’ll be able to read a funny log entry where Olimar has some surprisingly deep thoughts brought upon by your amiibo.
The Pikmin and Olimar amiibo have some extended functionality in the game. Olimar can be used to instantly add 4 Pikmin to your party during a level, and at first the Pikmin amiibo will do this as well. However, as you fill your Pikmin Park with more Pikmin you can level up your Pikmin amiibo to summon more allies during a level. At its maximum level you can use it to fully replenish your party as many times as you want during a level! That sounds game breaking but unless you grind levels over and over you won’t unlock this ability until you’ve already seen most of the game’s content.
I was really conflicted writing this review because Hey! Pikmin is a really confusing game. It’s enjoyable enough if you play it in short sessions, but I feel like that’s more due to the aesthetics of it than anything of substance within the mechanics. The game really doesn’t take them far enough and it’s frustrating because there’s flickers of ingenuity that pop up occasionally that make me scream “YES! THIS IS THE GAME I WANT TO SEE!”, but for the most part it just really can’t maintain your interest if you’re playing it for extended sessions. It’s worth checking out if there’s a price drop (especially if you’ve got a good collection of amiibo to scan into it), but at the full retail price it’s definitely asking too much.
This review was written based off a game or game content provided by the publisher. We don’t assign review scores to game reviews.
