Pikmin hands-on impressions

   Pikmin was released to Japanese stores this Friday, and the GIA has had a chance to spend a few hours with the early missions. 73 screenshots help illustrate the game's opening stages. The game begins when miniature space alien Orima (Mario spelled backwards in Japanese) crash lands on a hostile alien planet. Pieces of his ship, the Dolphin, are lost on re-entry, and Orima must enlist the help of the indigenous residents -- Pikmin -- to recover the missing parts.

   At its heart, Pikmin is a vastly simplified real-time-strategy game. Pikmin come in three different types: red, yellow, and blue. Red Pikmin are powerful warriors, yellow Pikmin can be hurled long distances, and blue Pikmin can walk through water without dying. It's not exactly a Blizzard tech tree in terms of complexity. Enemies, so far, also come in three varieties: small frogs, big frogs, and pillbugs. The emphasis is on the sheer number of units; tasks may require 5, 10, 20, or more Pikmin cooperating to accomplish. It is also sometimes possible to "overallocate" Pikmin to a task, reducing the amount of time required for it to complete. With such a seemingly simple structure, where does the strategy come in?

   In Pikmin, the most valuable resource is not gold, lumber, or power crystals, but time. Orima has 30 days to recover 30 parts of his ship. Despite the numerical similarity, however, there is not a one-to-one relationship between the days and parts. Environments contain multiple ship parts, and fully exploring them is a matter of several days. Some days, the player may recover two or even three parts; other days are spent simply cultivating Pikmin and progressing through the environment. Pikmin, as plant-creatures, cannot survive after dark, so players must carefully do as much as possible during precious daylight hours: recovering colored tablets to Pikmin bases to earn more sprouts; fighting and defeating the various enemies; chopping down walls, building bridges, and otherwise modifying the environments; and, of course, recovering ship parts. At the end of the day, Pikmin return to their home base, and any incomplete tasks must be continued the next day. The game ends after 30 days, even if Orima has yet to retrieve all the parts, so gamers hoping for the best conclusion should allocate their time carefully.

   Orima controls Pikmin by "whistling" to bring them under his control. Once active, Pikmin will naturally follow Orima around, and can be maniuplated as a group via the C-stick. Orima can "toss" Pikmin at tablets, enemies, and environmental features via the A button. Finally, a special whistle tells the Pikmin to subdivide by color--very useful when you want to only take Blue Pikmin across a stream, or only toss yellow Pikmin up to a high ledge.

   The player earns additional Pikmin by bringing colored tablets and enemy carcasses back to a Pikmin base. Returning a colored tablet to a base of the same color earns double sprouts, so it's worth subdividing your Pikmin properly. The game is scaled so that progressing further in environments requires more and more Pikmin of various types. The Pikmin ranks are thinned occasionally by epic battles or environmental mishaps, so it's important not to stop raising the little guys, even if you have a lot. You can never have too many Pikmin!

   Graphically, Pikmin is extremely impressive. The garden environments are well-realized, and the engine smoothly handles the rapid changes in scale, distance, and positioning that this sort of game requires. The sheer number of Pikmin on screen at once is also mind-blowing; the engine never slows down or misses a beat. The music is probably the game's weakest point, so far; the few songs are mostly simple, wind-instruments based affairs, and unmemorable. The squeaks and chirps of the Pikmin are cute, but in general, the game's "miniature garden" aesthetic has led to a cheerful, quiet feel.

   Can Pikmin's gameplay stay fresh and original for all thirty game days? This remains to be seen. Though quite enjoyable thus far, the game threatens to become a repetitive series of fetch quests if the developers don't keep things interesting. Hopefully, interesting obstacles and ways to use Pikmin will continue to be introduced all the way to the end.