Just got my 2004 Olimar!

see if you can spot the difference

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel a bit let down with pikmin 4 for one reason, the co-op. A few months ago my boyfriend introduced me to Pikmin. I LOVE the games and I honestly think I love just playing any co-op game with my boyfriend.

We were very excited to play Pikmin 4 together and when we got to the co-op story mode, it was very disappointing. We had just binged the previous game together and had so much fun.

I’ve looked in other reviews and I don’t see many people talking about it so maybe it’s just me? I’ve since just played the game in my own and I’m obsessed and it’s the same game mechanics really, so why on earth would they make co-op so lame. All player two can do is throw a rock?

I want my gaming buddy back and for us to be able to play together like past games. Idk maybe it’s just me. It’s a great game and I do like playing, I just don’t understand why they made that change.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel the same?

Pikmin 2 was the first Pikmin game I ever played. I got it when I was 8 years old and I would spend hours wandering around the world, exploring and finding new creatures. I remember it felt so big when I was a kid, because I would play it sort of like how I would play a Harvest Moon game: notice something that you want more of (for me it was always either berries or Pikmin), then follow a set routine to get more of that thing.

I played the game "normally" for a while (my dandori skills were pretty awful, I'd take my full squad of 100 everywhere and never switch between the two captains, but I was still exploring and looking for treasures and stuff), until I reached a cave where the final boss killed all of my Pikmin, including a Pikmin extinction for 1 of my colors (I guess I had taken all of my yellows to that cave, and none of them came out). That made me absolutely terrified for nearly a year to make any more progress, in case I met another monster that would kill all my guys, so instead I just played the game like a farming sim for close to a year and collected Pikmin and berries. The very first cave wasn't too bad, I remember thinking I could just run that single cave over and over again and loot all the monster corpses for a couple dozen pokos per run, and eventually clear the game that way. I asked my teacher to help me do the math to figure out how many times I would have to redo the cave and decided it wasn't worth it when she showed me it'd work out to hundreds of attempts.

Eventually I made a new best friend who was an even bigger Pikmin nerd than I was and I told him about my struggles with making progress (it was less of a skill issue and more of a "I was so afraid of the caves that I legitimately didn't even try going back for nearly a year despite being over 100 in-game days in at this point" problem, but you know, I didn't want to look like a wimp so I said I just didn't know how to beat one of the bosses). He came over my house and I remember how shocked he looked when he saw I had over 100 days in my save file, and that I had dozens and dozens of both of the sprays and over 1000 pikmin total. He cleared the cave that had killed my Pikmin for me, and then I tried to look tough and not afraid when looking at a new cave. After he left, my hands would still shake when holding the controller when I explored new caves, but I pushed myself to keep trying it and eventually I beat the whole game! I even went back and did the "post-game" stuff (I don't know if the Wistful Wild counted as "post-game" but you get the idea).

By the time I was a teenager, I'd replay Pikmin 2 every once and a while, even making a lot of progress on a deathless run of the game, and eventually getting a purple flower on every single Challenge Mode level, unlocking the hidden cutscene. I loved this game. I think it just had such a peculiar and natural vibe to it, like walking around the forest and looking for bugs under logs.

Eventually I put it away in a drawer and didn't play it again for around 15 years, though. I skipped Pikmin 3 (didn't have a Wii U). I played Pikmin 4 when it came out and thought it was okay. The vibes were there but it wasn't a lot of fun, and I didn't like how many Pikmin types there were. Finished the main game, didn't 100% it, put it down and didn't look back.

With 2CPhoenix's new series on Pikmin 1, though, I've recently gotten the itch to go back to my childhood game. I thought it might be fun to play 1 in-game day every IRL day, and document my progress here. No resets, no speedrun attempts, just me playing the game and trying my best and seeing how well I remember it after 15 years. I don't know if it'll be interesting to anyone, but if you're enjoying it, let me know! I'm sure this would be more fun to watch as Let's Play videos instead of Reddit text posts, but I don't want to figure out a recording system for that. Maybe anyone else who hasn't played in a while can join and record their progress, too!

So that was day 1! I would have liked a way to skip the tutorial, personally, but I get that the first few days are designed around it. I remember seeing a lot of people complaining on early YouTube about how much the ship speaks in this game and missing the Dolphin, but I don't especially mind it because you can mash through it with B if you don't feel like reading it.

It DOES make the start of the game feel a bit slow, though, with how linear it is, but that's just the nature of the thing. Hopefully once I get a few days in, I'll have some more novel things to start saying.

Not throwing shade lmao just thought it was funny

Biology minor here. I found my old Wii in the garage and I was thrilled. I thought my mom sold it like a decade ago and I was really excited to see it again. Found my old games, played some Mario kart, some animal crossing city folk, all of it. Even pikmin 2. Which has entirely stumped me biologically. What the hell even are grubdogs biologically like what even are these things. They’re definitely vertebrates without a doubt so they’re not mollusks or insects. But they have eyestalks which true eyestalks do not exist in vertebrates. Some of them are wet and moist like amphibians but can’t swim. Others are basically just sea slugs but again are vertebrates. They have reptilian jaw structures to swallow large prey whole. They blink horizontally like mammals so they have nictitating membrane. Some of them live in the cold so they seem to be warm blooded. Hairy bulborbs being in the grubdog family pretty much all but confirm they’re mammals except that it gets more complicated the deeper we go??

Empress bulblaxes are called oculus kageyamii matriarchia during their hypotrophic period of their gestation to birth and bulborb standards are called oculus kageyamii russus so these animals are all subspecies of one another they aren’t like a queen and worker scenario. But they give live birth which is again another point for mammals. But the fact they give birth to something explicitly called larvae is so weird cause, as you all know, mammals don’t have larvae. The closest thing animals have to a larvae are marsupials. Kangaroos give birth to jellybean sized worms which develop legs, arms, eyes and fur inside their mother’s pouch after birth. Which given the development of the larvae she gives birth to implies they’re already born and develop inside of her. Which means she’s having litters of hundreds of babies squirming around until they emerge having already been born. But grubdogs probably aren’t marsupials. Only the hairy bulborb has hair and none of them have pouches. Even ones that take a more maternal role than the bulblaxes like the spotty bulbear. Their young follow them around, not rude on or in them.

Thats not even getting into water dumples which I don’t even know where to start with.

My current theory puts them firmly in the mammals, but that’s certainly subject to change. These things are a mess taxonomically and I’m starting to realize I’m overthinking a children’s game.

Olimar is not a professional ecologist and I’m 90% sure he was just going at this with a fake it till you make it strategy

Travelled to Japan from the UK with one of my main goals to visit the Pikmin Terrace before it goes away. I know it isn't much, but I'm happy I happened to be there on the 25th anniversary.

Happy 25 years to pikmin 1

Wanted to share it with you guys, i think it looks dope

No ai ofc

Also uhh Pumpernickel

forgot how to do a poll so just write it in the replies or comments or whatever the heck its called.

my personal fav is pikmin 1 because its so simple and the music is insane. pikmin 1 and 3 are phenomenal games, i dont like pikmin 2 that much but its still like a solid B tier for me. pikmin 4 is ass and hey pikmin is above pikmin 4 but below pikmin 2

remember this "series" of mine?

I love this franchise so much, the characters are just so silly~

Art by me! (@AnOddArtist)

I will do it again

In honor of the 25th anniversary I figured id do another poll.

Alguien mas ha pensado que el Mocrobio (Goolix del pikmin 1), el espectro acuático del pikmin 2 y el Plasma espectro del pikmin 3, con una línea familiar? O almenos seres de una misma familia animal o algo así? O almenos el Mocrobio y el Plasma espectro si parecen conectados, ambos tienen núcleos y tienen forma acuosas gelatinosa, además de que ambos buscan zonas circulares con acceso a la luz solar, además de que el plasma espectro del pikmin 3 toma una forma similar a la del Mocrobio, yo creo que estos tres evolucionaron de forma directa para ser el Apex Predator de los pikmin, que opinan?

Getting back into Pikmin recently. Played the first one a hundred times. Played entirely through the second one and really enjoyed it! All hail the king of bugs!!!

As per my hyperfixations go, I ordered the third one for a small 40 bucks off ebay and arrived today of all days!!!

Just carved this yellow pikmin yesterday so I hope you'll enjoy!!!

Don't have much time to draw, here's Olimar with cake instead ...