At first glance, I feared this would be disappointing like Arzest’s other Nintendo spin-off project, Yoshi’s New Island. But it turned out much better than that!
I’ve enjoyed the Pikmin games, cute-ified strategy games with amusing writing. Pikmin 2 is my favourite, partially for the latter reason: there’s a large number of “treasures” to be found in the game, which are logged and commented on by our diminutive spaceman/salaryman Olimar. The third instalment, for all its whiz-bang advancements, cut out this factor in favour of the bland fruit system. So I was glad that this sidescrolling spin-off brought back the treasure database with a vengeance.
But I suppose it’s more “important” to talk about the gameplay. The change in perspective to a 2D “platformer” style greatly simplifies the strategy aspect. You don’t leave Pikmin to tasks, you just roll with a posse of 20 at most. Instead of large spaces to explore, levels are more focused, more action-y, with Pikmin delivered to you at prearranged spots. This (or otherwise progression) is sometimes accompanied by a jolly little animation showing the antics of these adorable creatures that can thankfully be skipped on replays.
You are still managing their lives, so they can help you pass obstacles or carry things, etc. But Olimar now has a jetpack to get some height and cover horizontal space. If only it wasn’t so slow-moving, or its landing animation so insufferably long. It’s one of the relievingly few instances where the clumsiness I expected from Yoshi’s New Island reared its ugly head. I’d compare this game more to Yoshi’s Island DS from Arzest’s predecessor studio Artoon; not just in being a more polished, enjoyable experience, but the dual-screen setup extending the visible play area resembles it as well.
Unlike all these Yoshi examples though, Hey Pikmin is doing something new while being a successor, by shifting the gameplay so strongly. This means it’s not really a “true” Pikmin game I suppose, and has a different set of aims and challenges. But they’ve done a decent job translating the series’ staples and feeling faithful while doing so.
I liked the little puzzle challenge rooms between levels. I liked using my cloned NFC chip to use the “Pikmin group” amiibo, to cheese replays and get random other amiibo statues in-game for Olimar to comment on. I liked the fuzzy, colourful backgrounds. The “Pikmin Park” feature (where you assign your retrieved Pikmin long-term tasks) was a bit half-baked. Overall I had a nice little time here, it was nice to revisit this tiny world where ordinary human objects are wondrous and strange treasures.
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