I’ve never been much of a Pikmin fan, despite the series typically being highly regarded by most other hardcore Nintendo enthusiasts. Now, I certainly recognized that Pikmin 1 was a quality game, but the time limit stressed me the fuck out, and while I did reach the final area, I never beat the final boss. Naturally I skipped out on Pikmin 2. However, I *did* end up buying Pikmin 3 (as a Wii U owner in 2013 I didn’t exactly have many games to choose between), and I actually really enjoyed that one, beating the game and concluding that it was quite excellent. However, being quite a short game, I wasn’t exactly getting that much time to enjoy it, and at the same time I never felt compelled to find all the collectibles after beating the final boss, so you could say it didn’t ultimately make that strong of an impression. All in all, if you had asked me just a month ago, I’d probably have ranked Pikmin quite low among the existing Nintendo franchises.

For various reasons however, Pikmin 4 managed to grab and hold my interest in a way no previous Pikmin game did. Part of it was simply building on the gameplay that already made Pikmin 3 so much fun for me – that unique formula of growing Pikmin, then using the little creatures to fight much bigger monsters, gather materials, break down walls, build bridges, solve puzzles, collect treasure and generally prove indispensable as your little spaceman explores a familiar, yet alien and mysterious world. There’s no longer any overall time limit (not even the purely symbolical time limit of Pikmin 3) that has the potential to softlock you, but you still only have a limited amount of time each Day to explore an area, thus continuing to incentivize efficient time management. The end result is a good balance between relaxing and stressful moments, keeping the experience fun and exciting throughout,

Pikmin 4, like all Pikmin games, takes place on earth, the twist being that both your spaceman explorer character and the Pikmin he commands are barely even ant-sized, giving you a whole new perspective on both the natural world and man-made objects. When you’re that tiny, a molehill actually does become a mountain, and as a result seemingly ordinary, mundane locations end up delivering all sorts of striking and unique vistas, as well as tons of cool and creative obstacles and landmarks. Furthermore, Pikmin 4 breaks new ground for the series with an area that takes place entirely inside of a modern house. This place, called Hero's Hideaway, very much reminds me of New Donk City from Mario Odyssey – a type of modern “real-life” location that’s nothing like anything you’ve previously seen in the series, and which could potentially have been a shark-jumping moment, but instead is so cleverly designed, and so well adapted to the game’s setting, that it becomes a high point instead. Hero’s Hideaway 100% feels like a proper Pikmin area, just an especially unique and imaginative one, turning the likes of air circulator fans and even domestic drones into key mechanics for traversing the house.

There are A LOT of new mechanics to grapple with in this game, starting with your new dog companion Oatchi. This giant dog (well, giant compared to your little spaceman character – he’s ultimately still just the size of an insect) can not only act as a second Pikmin master, but do many things that the main character can’t, like ram into objects to break them or cause out-of-reach collectibles to fall down, carry around Pikmin (including swimming across bodies of water with Pikmin that can’t swim themselves) and even jump, adding some light platforming elements to your Pikmin gameplay experience for the first time ever (Hey! Pikmin doesn’t count).

Indeed, Pikmin 4 really expands and enriches the standard Pikmin experience, whether by bringing back elements from past games (Pikmin 2’s caves), integrating side modes into the main campaign (Pikmin 3’s mission mode), giving you singleplayer versions of multiplayer modes (Pikmin 2 and 3’s bingo battles) or by adding brand new elements like night expeditions (a basic, yet still fairly enjoyable tower defense-like mode), a hub world, a surprisingly huge cast of characters as well as side missions tied to them, and new Pikmin types – not to mention giving you a total of 9 different Pikmin types to play around with! For the sake of reference, Pikmin 3 only gave you 5 different Pikmin types, since White and Purple Pikmin didn’t return for the main singleplayer campaign. Pikmin 4 gives you ALL the old Pikmin types, as well as Ice Pikmin (an addition that’s such a natural fit that you’ll wonder why it only now appeared) and Glow Pikmin, which are the exact opposite of their glow-in-the-dark IRL counterparts – cute and useful, but with limited availability.

…and if all this is sounding a bit too much, you later on actually unlock something of a simplified prologue story, one that plays as a throwback to Pikmin 1; You only have 15 days to collect 30 ship parts, and only Red, Yellow and Blue Pikmin are available (you still have a dog companion tho). I actually found the time limit, in the context of this shorter side mode, a welcome addition. It’s strict enough that you really do feel the pressure, yet forgiving enough that it doesn’t require autistic levels of optimal Pikmin gameplay. The first few days I was actually slightly behind schedule, so when I finally pulled off an extremely productive day (with 4 different ship parts found) it felt extremely satisfying, and I eventually ended up finishing the prologue story with 2 days to spare.