Check out our review:
Pikmin 3 is the first game in the franchise I played. The series has always intrigued me and Pikmin 3 came out for a system I actually owned at the time of its release so I got it and enjoyed what I played. After that, I played through the first two games for the first time. Compared to its sequels, the first Pikmin does feel a little bare but the gameplay is fun and unique and the game makes for a good foundation. Pikmin 2 expanded things significantly and offered a lot more content and variety. It was followed up by the long awaited Pikmin 3 which came out nine years after Pikmin 2. Developed and published by Nintendo, Pikmin 3 was released for Wii U in August, 2013. An enhanced version containing all the DLC along with some new content was released for Switch in October, 2020 as Pikmin 3 Deluxe and that’s the version we played for this review.
Set on PNF-404, the same planet from the previous games, the story follows a new group of tiny extraterrestrial explorers – Brittany, Alph and Charlie – who are searching for food to bring back to their home planet Koppai. After their ship crash lands on PNF-404, they gather food and search for the “cosmic drive key” which they need to leave the planet. On their quest, they find data files left behind by Captain Olimar and suspect he has the key. Pikmin 3 does include two side stories that follow Olimar and Louie, the protagonists from the previous games. Olimar’s Assignment centers on the duo repaying another debt and Olimar’s Comeback centers on the duo recovering ship parts so they can repair their ship.
The Deluxe version of Pikmin 3 includes quite a bit of new content including multiple difficulty levels, the Side Stories which are just additional missions, and now the Story Mode can be played cooperatively which is how we played through it. Badges have been added to the game which are like achievements that are unlocked by meeting certain conditions and an “After Hours” feature has been added to the Mission mode. This lets you continue and complete a mission even after the time limit has run out but a new score will not be saved. Deluxe also features some tweaks to the gameplay, controls, and brings back the Piklopedia which originated in Pikmin 2. Ultimately, I like all of the new additions and feel that most of it adds more longevity and replay value to the experience.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe comes with several game modes including the Story mode, Side Stories which need to be unlocked, Mission mode, and the Bingo Battle mode which requires two players. The Story mode is your typical Pikmin experience and we would recommend playing through that first. The Side Stories are additional missions with specific objectives to complete and you are awarded medals based on your performance in each mission. The Mission mode comes with three sub-modes which are pretty self explanatory – collect treasure, battle enemies, and defeat bosses – and just like the Side Stories, you are awarded medals based on your performance in each stage. Bingo Battle is the game’s competitive multiplayer mode. Two players are given a Bingo card and must collect the enemies and fruit on their card and the first player to complete a line in any direction, wins.
Being able to play through the Story mode with another player is significant and can make the experience much easier, and I think it’s pretty obvious that the new difficulty levels were added to balance this out. If you play through the game on Normal with another person, you can blast through the Story pretty quickly and easily so veterans of the series may want to play on Hard on their first run. The higher the difficulty, the shorter the days get and the stronger the enemies. Even the Mission mode is made significantly easier with two players.
The Story plays out in days and there are multiple regions to explore. You have a limited amount of time in each day to find as much food or fruit as possible and complete any objectives. There are multiple endings and the one you see will depend on how much fruit you’ve collected. The stressor in Pikmin 3 is your food or juice reserve. All the fruit you collect is converted to juice and stored on your ship. At the end of each day, the trio consumes a bottle of juice which substracts one from your stock so needless to say, you want as much juice as possible and there is a finite amount of fruit in each region. If playing cooperatively, you can collect a lot of fruit very quickly and when we beat the Story, we had over fifty bottles of juice in reserve.
The higher difficulties can make things more challenging which is good because I think the original base game and the Normal difficulty here are nowhere near as challenging as Pikmin 2. The juice reserve is the new stressor but I can’t say it makes things quite as stressful as the day limit in the first game. At least I don’t think so. Pikmin 2’s stressor is the inability to generate new Pikmin in the underground areas and that combined with the numerous sub-levels containing numerous enemies and hazards make each underground area essentially a challenging gauntlet. However, time stands still when underground so you can take as much time as you need get through the sub-levels. The idea is to keep the Pikmin you brought with you alive and if you missed any treasure during the descent, you would have to descend through the sub-levels again to collect whatever you missed.
In my opinion, the juice reserve in Pikmin 3 isn’t as stressful as the day limit nor is that stress made up for by any significant gameplay challenges except for maybe the new difficulty levels in the Deluxe version. There’s no areas where time stands still but there’s also no trial and error gauntlets, either, except for maybe the last region where you must run through areas killing enemies and solving puzzles while you’re being chased by the final boss until you reach the end where you fight it. However, I would argue some of underground areas in Pikmin 2 are more challenging than this final region. The amount of fruit is finite so you do need to mindful of your juice reserve but many fruits typically make enough juice to cover you for multiple days so spending one or two days not collecting fruit in favor of exploring or doing something else isn’t necessarily a waste.
If there’s any negative thing I can say about Pikmin 3 is that it doesn’t expand on things all that much in my opinion. The gameplay is basically more of the same but with some improvements and tweaks that makes things more convenient or easier. One example of this is a single Onion. Any new Pikmin types you find have their own Onion but when the day ends, that Onion merges with yours. You can control the three leaders and switch between them at will just like how you switched between Olimar and Louie in Pikmin 2. They can each have their own squad of Pikmin and you can toss leaders which will often be required to solve certain puzzles. Furthermore, you can command them to move to specific locations which proves to be a very useful mechanic, especially if playing solo. All Pikmin can carry Bomb Rocks and unearth buried objects and they will never regress in maturity so fully mature Pikmin will always remain fully mature. Another nice new feature is that you can call any Pikmin you left out in the wild back to the landing site from the ship so you don’t have to go searching for them.
As you progress through the Story, you will find and acquire some upgrades that benefit the leaders but there’s not as many as there were in the previous game. Unfortunately, there’s no pluckaphone, no rocket fist, and no rush boots among some of the other cool upgrades from Pikmin 2. I would say the most significant new upgrade is the dodge whistle which allows the leaders to dodge left and right.
Red, Blue, and Yellow Pikmin return and retain the same strengths and weaknesses and now Yellow Pikmin can complete circuits. White and Purple Pikmin are absent in the Story mode but you can find and use them in the Mission and Bingo Battle modes. Bulbmin are completely absent. New Pikmin types introduced are Rock and Winged Pikmin. Rock Pikmin are strong and can destroy crystals and crystal walls and best of all, they cannot be trampled. Winged Pikmin are the weakest but they can fly which allows them to reach areas other Pikmin normally cannot, they can take shorter routes when carrying things back to the Onion, they can fly above water, and are great against airborne foes.
Not unlike the previous games, you are free to explore each region at your own pace and the game will force you to use all the Pikmin types to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. There’s only five regions in the game, each with their own enemies, hazards, obstacles and boss and enemies will respawn after a certain amount days. With two players, you can explore each region and collect fruit much faster than if playing solo. You will have to solve puzzles to gain access to new areas or unlock shortcuts and you will have to revisit certain regions when you have the appropriate Pikmin types to reach certain areas. The only obstacle we didn’t care for was the Bamboo Gates. They cannot be destroyed. Winged Pikmin must hold them up so you can pass through. What sucks about these is that they don’t permanently stay up and depending on the camera, it can be easy to whistle and call the Winged Pikmin to you inadvertently, especially if you’re fighting enemies near the gate.
Pikmin 3 is easily the best looking game in the series up to this point. The texture work, lighting, and character models all look great. The aesthetics are beautiful and the game retains the surreal quality of the previous games – the Earthly-like environments populated with alien creatures but also real-world foliage and fruits. The characters and many of the enemies are adorable and the presentation is colorful. The cartoony sci-fi quality mixed with realistic-looking environments make for a very unique look and feel. We found the soundtrack to be very relaxing and there’s a good mix of intense and whimsical tunes that perfectly match the game’s style and tone and what’s happening on-screen. On the technical side, the game ran smooth and we did not encounter any major problems.
I really enjoyed Pikmin 3 and I think Deluxe is the definitive version. In general, I feel like the jump from Pikmin 2 to Pikmin 3 isn’t as big as the jump from Pikmin to Pikmin 2. Pikmin 2 rectified some of the issues of the first game and gives players a lot more content and variety. Pikmin 3 feels like more of the same but tweaked and refined for the better. I absolutely love some of the more convenient mechanics and Pikmin 3 has my favorite side content in the series so far. There’s a lot here to keep players occupied and the Deluxe version is the most accessible game up to this point. Having played through Pikmin 3 on Wii U years ago, I went into this thinking Pikmin 2 would still be the best but after playing Deluxe, I think it’s marginally better. It’s the co-op functionality added to the story and the side content that really puts it in the lead for me. I still think it doesn’t feel as grand or epic as Pikmin 2 or as big, but I feel the new features and tweaks make the gameplay more enjoyable, overall.
I would absolutely recommend Pikmin 3 Deluxe to anyone. I think it is the superior version and I would recommend it over the original game. It’s an enhanced version, it was made a little more accessible, and it contains more content. Plus, it can be played on-the-go. Pikmin 3 retains the adorable strategy action gameplay the series is known for and it can be enjoyed with a buddy. Definitely check it out.