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Pikmin

Format: GameCube
Published by: Nintendo
Based on: Gardening at night

Genre: Genre-bustin' tactical carrot sim
Media: GC DVD-ROM
Date: Dec 2, 2001

Adventures of the legion of super carrots

Game designers, like other creative types, desire the ability to stretch out and indulge themselves. Unfortunately, the team-oriented nature of game design makes it much more creatively confining to the average bear than, say, music or writing. So when a director or producer decides to satisfy his own whims, it has a tremendous impact on the overall product. This is often for the worse - witness, say, disc two Xenogears, or the eleventh hour (literally) of Metal Gear Solid. But when the developer in question is Shigeru Miyamoto, a fellow revered by everyone on earth (except by EGM, because they've become so iconoclastic) as a man with a firm grasp on the nature of effective game design, the result is just as likely to be something wonderful as something painful. What happens when a creative mind with an intuitive sense of gaming decides to ignore pesky things like marketability and genre? You get Pikmin, that's what.

Despite being a game which somehow evolved from Miyamoto's love of gardening, Pikmin isn't exactly the Martha Stewartesque experience one might expect. You (meaning the gamer, not necessarily the person reading this right now) are Captain Olimar, the last survivor of that fleet of warships that was swallowed by a dog in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Olimar's ship has been struck by a (very tiny) meteor and sent plummetting in 30 pieces to the surface of the planet below. Luckily, Olimar discovers that the indigenous life of the planet - 1-inch high carrot people called Pikmin - is very subservient, extremely fecund, and carries a violent streak that belies its utter adorability. Which, as it turns out, is perfect for creating an army of little baby carrots to help salvage the chunks of his shattered craft.

It's sort of hard to describe the gameplay in Pikmin, because it resembles quite a few different genres without actually adhering to any particular one. A real-time strategy game might be the closest analog, but only in the sense that you control a small army of differently-skilled critters with which to wage war. There's no real micromanagement outside of "don't let the red or yellow ones fall in the water" and the resource management is limited to "let them take a similarly-colored seed tablet back to the ship to yield more efficient Pikmin crops." With typical EAD simplicity, every action in the game is very basic and easy to manage with the GameCube controller yet offers an increasingly complex ramp of challenges and feats to surmount. I'm sure developers like Westwood or Rare would have managed to make the game's interface inscrutably dense, which is why I have to admire cap'n Miyamoto even if I don't always enjoy his games.

The challenge of breaking down barriers and managing to perform all the necessary tasks within the window allotted by each game "day" (about 15-20 minutes of play time) is highly entertaining. But what makes the game even better than the action and puzzle-solving is the subversive tone of violence beneath the chirpy, happy exterior of the diminutive Pikmin. The Servbots, adorable as they are, have nothing on these guys, who will happily fling themselves upon an enemy several times their size and then drag its corpse back to their "onion" generators to produce more Pikmin seedlings. Some of these beasts could kill a good-sized dog, but your little carrot pals will happily attack them, heedless of life or limb. If you can count those pointy little protrusions as limbs, I mean.

Further adding to the satisfaction of a puzzle well solved is the way in which new ship pieces gradually power-up Olimar's rocket, offering access to new areas for exploration. As much fun as it is to see little sproutlings bludgeon a foot-tall ladybug to death with what passes for their heads, the real payoff for successful navigation of the stages' hazards is gaining access to new regions where new and more intimidating challenges await. Apparently Miyamoto's back yard contains geysers of fire, tiny grenades and hovering monsters, which really goes a long way to explain how he grew up to be such a wonderful eccentric.

But there's a single, tremendous flaw holding Pikmin back from the perfection it so nearly reaches - a single glaring design decision that contradicts the nature of the game, undermining a good portion of what makes it so wonderful. Unfortunately, Nintendo decided that to keep the pace snappy and add some challenge they should impose a rigid, absolute time deadline on the game - not only the daily routine deadline (which keeps things perfectly interesting on its own), but an overall schedule. Players have but 30 game-days to complete their mission and find all the necessary parts to the ship (25 of the 30). At the end of thirty days, whether you're ready or not, the game summarily ends and Olimar's fate is determined by how much determination you played with. If you don't have enough parts, well, you're "treated" to the most macabre ending I've ever seen. Cute, yes, but gruesome.

This artificial limit on gameplay doesn't appeal to me. Nintendo's games are typically big, beautiful and exciting to explore - Pikmin's world is no different, and it's frustrating to be forced to rush through it as quickly as possible. I would expect Miyamoto of all people to understand the appeal of giving players the freedom to explore as they see fit; it's been a hallmark of his games since the first Zelda, and even became incorporated into his side-scrolling platformers (a trait which distinguished them from so many generic deadline-oriented left-to-right excursions). But more importantly, I would expect him to understand the value of rewarding gamers for an excellent performance but not punishing them for failing to complete a perfect game on their initial playthrough. [Ending spoiler - highlight to read:] Killing the player's character for falling short of perfection definitely qualifies as punishment, though, and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that really taints my final opinion of the game.

I found Pikmin to be a very relaxing, laid-back game that captures the tranquility of tending a garden (except for those bits where you gang-rush a giant predator, of course). Being forced to goose-step your way through the verdant game world really shatters the idyll in an irritating manner. While the strict deadline does prevent gamers from cheaping out and raising an army of 3,000 Pikmin with which to storm the enemies, there are better ways the game could have been handled. For instance, it would have been sufficient to allow the gamer to reach the final battle only by completing the 30 items/30 days requirement, allowing those who wish to play at a more leisurely pace to do so, returning to space when they had completed the task at hand.

But it's hard to be too upset; after all, this game defies the traditional boundaries of genre, so it's understandable that Nintendo's first foray into such uncharted territory would have a few rough spots. Especially since they've been listening to the complaints of gamers who demand more games from them at a faster pace - never mind that Nintendo works best on its own schedule, angry Internet denizens demand no more delays! So Pikmin was pushed along to mitigate the frenzied hordes at the cost of polish and a satisfying mix of game goals and restrictions. Which means it's your fault this game comes up short, you stupid jerk. I hope you're proud of yourself.

This (admittedly large) flaw aside, Pikmin is a clever, imaginative and violently adorable game that easily justifies the existence of the GameCube. And until X-Box comes out with a game that lets you play as Bill Gates growing an army of baby programmers with which to take over the world, it's also the only game of its kind. Anyone looking for an excuse to grab Nintendo's latest console (or needing a placebo to hold them over until their next Servbot fix) could do much worse than Pikmin. And frankly, not much better.