So I saw part of Gravity the other day, and I have to say, I wasn’t really feeling
it. Granted I was trying to put
something together, and my dogs were being so wild that I eventually gave up on
watching the movie in peace, but I went in expecting it to grab me from the get-go
and it didn’t. That’s not to say that
it’s bad or anything. It just wasn’t for me. I couldn’t get into the characters, and it
felt as if the movie could have (and should have) ended as soon as they
spiraled into space. Weirdly, that’s
a sentiment mirrored elsewhere -- and I have to wonder how far off the mark
I am when most of the praise thrown its way comes from the visuals. Because clearly, the only thing that matters
is how good something looks. Thanks,
video games!
Maybe I’ll give the movie another shot when I can
give it my full attention, but there is one thing I took away from it: SPACE IS
AWESOME. There may still be
plenty of mysteries left here on Earth, but the stars are the premiere source
of adventure in both fiction and real life.
Anything could be out there, but the one surefire thing is the potential
for exploration. Space can scratch that
itch, and take us to whole new places.
Admittedly, that adventure is only possible with some hyper-rigorous
training and skill in real life (a sobering truth for six-year-old Voltech),
but games can compensate easily.
Which brings us to Pikmin 3 -- the game you should have played already if you love
games. And/or space.
I see the light, Gen-chan. I can finally see the light. *sheds a single manly tear*
For those of you who grabbed Mario Kart 8 -- which,
thankfully, makes you one of millions -- you may have partaken in a special
deal offered by Nintendo. Consider it an
incentive to buy in early; if you picked up a copy of MK8 and registered it online before a cutoff date, you could earn a
code to download one of four complete games.
For free. No questions asked. And you wonder why I spam #GoodGuyNintendo.
To be fair, though, it seemed as if there was one
obvious choice out of the four. Wind Waker HD was one, but I already had
it as a part of a bundle (not to mention the original game). New
Super Mario Bros. U was another choice, but it seemed redundant off the
heels of Mario 3D World. And then there was Wii Party U, which -- while no doubt serviceable -- probably
wouldn’t have been welcomed with open arms by a certain Mario Party-reviling brother who can’t be arsed to “wait his
turn”. So after some difficulty
downloading the game (the Big N’s site probably got overwhelmed by the number of people hungry for swag), Pikmin 3 found its place beside me.
And you know what?
I get Pikmin 3. I’m
100% on-board with its mission, in-game and out of it. The more I play it, the more I enjoy it --
and it was already unreasonably good to begin with.
Here’s the skinny.
The planet Koppai is in the middle of a food shortage, and in a
desperate attempt to survive, expeditions are led to the far reaches of
space. That puts you in control of three
explorers: the dorky yet good-natured Alph, sharp-tongued botanist Brittany,
and macho captain Charlie. Well, in theory,
at least; as Pikmin games tend to go,
the touchdown on new soil goes awry and leaves the crew separated. You start off as Alph, and -- with the help
of the native Pikmin you meet early on -- your adventure amidst the worst (and
best) nature has to offer begins.
Still, there’s an important wrinkle to the story
and gameplay alike. See, the three
explorers only have a finite level of resources -- which is to say, they’re low
on food. With each completed day in Pikmin 3, the team (be it one, two, or
three members) consumes one stock of food -- or juice in this case -- from their
reserves. So keeping the game going is
made possible by finding fruit in the field; you can apparently go back to an
earlier point in your journey if you put yourself in an unwinnable situation,
but the point still stands. If you don’t
keep finding food, your team will die of starvation.
Pikmin 3:
rated E for Everlasting Nightmares.
You can think of the game’s plot as a
three-pronged mission. Obviously, the
immediate objective is to keep gathering fruit so your crew stays alive. But on top of that, Alph and the others will
have to keep scouring the land for clues on Olimar’s whereabouts -- because the
way things are looking, the only way they’ll be able to return home is if they
get some of his parts/data.
And of course, there’s the whole reason the crew
blasted off in the first place: they need to find a solution to the hunger crisis. Given how the game plays out, I’m guessing
that if the crew’s going to save their home, they’ll have to be saved by the
plot find some hidden bonanza that’ll offer up sustenance on a global
scale.
In any case, I’m actually kind of surprised by how
much I like the story -- and the characters, more than anything. Nintendo’s not usually the one you think of
when it comes to sprawling tales (remember the Other M debacle?), and while what’s here is…slight, more or less, it’s full of charm. Alph is the straight-laced smart guy of the
group, but he’s dedicated to the captain to a feverish degree, to the point
where he tried to copy his hairstyle.
Brittany’s very goal-oriented, and while she’s
just as curious about this alien planet as Alph (maybe more so), several of her
lines imply she has been -- or is --
considering mutiny. Captain Charlie’s a
macho, macho man with plenty of confidence and bravado…which lets him shrug off
getting carted off by a flying monster minutes after touching down on the planet’s
surface. They sell themselves with their
dialogues in the field, but what I really
appreciate is how you can have them talk to one another before starting a
new day. Party synergy is simply the
best.
If for some reason you’ve never known how Pikmin works -- in which case I wonder
why you’re even here -- here’s a rundown.
You play as an explorer and take command of the planet’s indigenous
creatures, the Pikmin -- bipedal plant-men of varying properties, but with
furious loyalty and the work ethic of the average assembly line. You can travel around with a squad of up to a
hundred of them, so they’ll fight on your behalf, clear obstacles, and cart
resources back to the home base centered on your ship.
In exchange, you’ll give the Pikmin commands and keep
their numbers strong by feeding their Onion (their personal ship) pellets and
downed enemies. Pull the seeds that pop
out from the ground, and you’ve got more soldiers. Or leave them in the Onion and build up a
reserve in case something goes wrong.
Chances are that you’ll need some reserves, especially if a Beady Long
Legs catches you unaware.
Man, I hate those guys and all their kind. The bastards are like death incarnate.
The big wrinkle in the gameplay is that you’ll be
controlling all three explorers simultaneously -- or maybe “asynchronously” is
the word I’m looking for. While Alph,
Brittany, and Charlie all play identically (as far as I know), each one is
capable of taking control of a fragmented Pikmin team to complete separate objectives. So if you want Alph to hang back and harvest
pellets while Brittany tends to a wall and Charlie builds a bridge, then you
can do that. In fact, that’s pretty much
how the game will play, even before
you fully reunite the team; multi-tasking ensures that you get the most done in
a single day, and thus minimize how much juice you have to go through.
It’s worth noting, though, that you’ll have to use
your explorers to clear certain obstacles -- to the point where you can’t
progress in some early areas until you’ve got a team of three. You can forcibly separate them by tossing
your other two teammates as you would any other Pikmin (though it’s worth
noting that you can’t toss any of them quite as high -- meaning you can’t cheat
the system), and toss some Pikmin to them so they can continue on the other
end. To be fair, that mechanic was a part
of Pikmin 2 with the Olimar/Louie duo,
but it’s nice to see that it’s back again and taken to the next step…even if
that next step was just “the same, but more.”
I was thinking about calling Pikmin 3 “industrious”, but now I’m not so sure if that fits. Sure, when you’ve got all your pieces moving,
you’re a hundred-three-man machine. But
being industrious implies being surrounded by and dependent on technology --
and while you do make use of it (in-universe and out of it), the emphasis is on
nature. And as it stands, that might be
the secret to the game’s quality; even if you don’t exactly get to go from
planet to planet, or use space as much more than a safe haven (in-universe) and
a level select screen (out of it), it’s still the game that makes you into an explorer. An adventurer. A player who can walk away with some REAL
experiences, not just the buzzword version thrown around these days.
It’d be downright silly to call Pikmin 3 an open-world game, because
even if its areas are surprisingly large (I constantly find myself thinking,
“Wait, you mean there’s MORE?!”), they’re self-contained stages with challenges
and obstacles to call their own. Still,
that’s something that helps keep the focus; you go out in search of fruit,
figure out what needs to be done, and do it with your Pikmin squad. Considering that the explorers are
technically no bigger than a quarter, the levels aren’t just window dressing;
they’re puzzles to be solved, even if they are broken into dozens of spread-out
micro-challenges.
It’s true that there are deadly creatures you have
to deal with in your quest for fruit -- including story-advancing boss battles
-- but there’s a de-emphasis on combat in general. The game puts more focus on nature, and
treats that as the enemy instead of some alien horror. Really, that’s how it should be; generally
speaking, beating enemies comes down to “throw Pikmin at it until it stops
breathing”.
And technically that’s true for a lot of the
obstacles in the field, but there are still plenty of things you have to manage
and plan out and solve on the fly. That’s
a form of conflict you don’t see every day in games; you can’t beat nature, especially in Pikmin 3. Instead, you have to maneuver through
it. You have to be wary of it. You have to make use of it, and even change
it -- however slightly -- so that it suits your fancy.
It’s a conceit that works wonders for the
gameplay. You’re discovering new things
on a regular basis, whether it’s a new obstacle to overcome or a new sight to
be beheld as you fill in an area’s map.
It should go without saying that the environments are beautiful (I’d bet
that the original Pikmin holds up
today, graphics-wise), but the world feels alive in more ways than just “Yo,
check all this nature, bro”. You may be
small, but you can enact changes upon it.
You can claim its bounties. You
can make it more manageable -- more efficient for stranded explorers. Or, hey, maybe you can just set all that
aside and check all that nature, bro.
I think this is the game that best sells
Nintendo’s design philosophy -- or to be more precise, its intentions with the
Wii U GamePad. As always, it’s not
detrimental to gameplay, or the player’s hands; it’s true that it’s larger and
weightier than the average controller, but it has yet to hamper my ability to
play any given title. More to the point,
it adds more than it takes away, especially in Pikmin 3.
The most common use, for me at least, is to use
the touch screen to send a B-team Pikmin squad to a different area while the
A-team (under my command) went somewhere else.
Coordinated attack patterns, and all that -- the perfect way to solve a
puzzle or position my forces without the hassle of sifting through menus and
button presses. (It certainly helps that
the action is paused whenever you get ready to do it, or when you’re just
checking the GamePad map.)
There’s some additional stuff, of course. If you’re looking for more in-depth stats and
data, you can check all that on the touch screen just as you would the
map. You’ll be able to find info on the
enemies you’ve faced, tips on getting the most out of your Pikmin, and info
from Olimar, just to name a few things.
On top of that, every now and then -- i.e. in story moments -- you’ll be
asked to look at the touch screen to receive messages from your teammates or
your ship. So if you’re talking to
Brittany (as much as one can) via the GamePad, Alph will be doing the same
in-game on his “KopPad”, AKA his all-purpose explorer’s tool. It’s a cute little touch that helps the player
synergize with the game…though you cannot imagine
how much the prospect of it drove my brother up a wall. Because reasons, I guess.
Call this a delayed reaction, but the more I think
about it, the more I realize Pikmin 3 has
a hidden element that can really resonate: being able to take pictures
in-game. At first I didn’t think much of
it, and just showed some friends that you can take Pikmin selfies with the
GamePad as your camera (however strange it may feel). But now I realize that it’s part of the
mindset, and what Nintendo tried to sell via its game. It’s not just about taking selfies; it’s
about making the player feel even more like
an explorer, and even more like a
part of some strange alien world. But
you can claim ownership of tiny slices of it -- turn the sights you see into
digitized memories.
Take away the conflict in this game and what do
you have? A straight-up expedition. An adventure.
And guess who’s holding the scrapbook?
That really is the best way to play it. Alph, Brittany, and Charlie have a reason to
be on that planet: to find a way to survive, to escape, and ensure that their
planet survives in kind. That’s their
mission -- but it’s not yours. Even if
you can identify with them and synergize with them, you don’t have any reason
to care about the fate of their world…their fictional
world. You’re only there as an
observer -- as a way to have fun. It
sounds selfish, but really, even the best, most engrossing video games have
that as their core conceit. It really is
all about offering up an experience, much as it pains me to use that worn-out
buzzword.
But Pikmin 3
makes true on its understood promise.
The player wants an experience, so it provides. It gives you an opportunity to explore, and
learn, and discover new things, and -- maybe most of all -- see mundane,
everyday things in a whole new light. Why
else would you be able to see grapes (dubbed “Dawn Pustules” in-game) rendered
lovingly in HD with full camera control as computers scan each piece? Why would there be an entire subsection of
the menu dedicated to analyzing beasts and fruits alike?
If we’re being presumptuous, we can make a huge assumption: why do you think
Nintendo held back Pikmin 3, a game
off-handedly mentioned as being made years ago, to the point where it skipped
the Wii entirely? My guess: the devs
wanted to wait until the Wii U made its debut and could thus make the most
beautiful world it could handle -- as a way to do justice to the game, and the
players hungry for adventure.
…Hey, can you tell I love this game yet?
I suppose for completion’s sake I should talk
about the combat, because even if it is de-emphasized, it does play an
important role. Like I said, you can
resolve a lot of conflicts just by
throwing enough Pikmin at an enemy -- so with that in mind, you can play the
button-mashing card and nobody would fault you.
A big change from the other Pikmin
games is that (as far as I know) you can’t move your soldiers around with
just the right stick. It’s a strange
choice, and while it does feel like a loss sometimes, it’s not a game-breaking
one. You can still toss out and call
back Pikmin, and one of the most notable additions is the ability to dodge roll
your entire squad to escape from trouble.
Makes me wonder if someone on the dev team is a fan of Kingdom Hearts 1.
What this means is that battles are chaotic as all
get out -- in a good way, and a bad one.
It’s good in the sense that, in a lot of cases, you can’t just sit
around and hammer that button; you have to stay mobile, bobbing and weaving as
you avoid enemy attacks and pick up Pikmin that get tossed around (or
worse). Couple that with the need to
take advantage of specific Pikmin abilities at times, AND targeting certain
body parts/sides, and there are some strategic wrinkles to combat. One of the early bosses has you taking on an
armored worm, meaning that you have to toss heavy-hitting Rock Pikmin to
shatter its shell pieces, and throw damage-dealing Red Pikmin at the soft spots
you uncover. Don’t expect said boss to
make that easy for you, though.
Still, I’m not a hundred percent sold on some of
the underlying mechanics. In normal
situations -- in a fight and out of it -- you have to manually aim Pikmin to
where you want to throw them, as shown by a bright reticle and trajectory
arc. It works, for sure, but at times it
doesn’t exactly feel the most precise; that lack of precision -- and the
general need to aim -- is the last thing you want when you’ve got some massive
beast trying to chew you up like a doggy treat.
You can make things a lot easier on yourself by
using a lock-on feature, but at times it felt as if I had to switch between
lock-on and lock-off in order to get the exact tosses I wanted. It could be that I just need to adjust to the
learning curve, and that’s where the skill in the game comes on. Even if that’s true, though, is Pikmin 3 really the sort of game where
you’d want a learning curve to the controls?
Surely something a little more intuitive would be preferable?
To be fair, there are alternate control schemes
for the game (including Wii Remote support, IIRC), so maybe those work
better. One of them involves straight
stylus control, so if you’re the sort who enjoys off-TV play, then it’s
entirely possible that that’s the most precise option. Still, I’m not about to dock metaphorical
points at this stage. Even if there are
flaws, what I’m concerned with most right now is the core concept. It’s the design philosophy that the game is
built around -- and excels at selling that philosophy to the player.
Here’s the interesting bit. When you find files out there in the field,
you won’t just get tips from Olimar; you’ll find his personal logs, detailing his expedition of the planet. I know it’s hard to imagine Olimar as
anything more than a silent protagonist -- he has all of zero voice clips in Smash
Bros. Brawl -- but the logs show just what sort of person he is, at least
right now. He’s a die-hard treasure
hunter, and there’s a level of fervor to his words that suggest maybe, just maybe, he’s gone off the
rails. He’s willing to brave the risks
of the planet for the sake of some new trinkets…which might be a problem
because as far as I can tell, there aren’t any salvageable treasures in Pikmin 3.
It seems strange to make Olimar’s side story a
straight-up retread of Pikmin 2 --
that is, until you realize that it’s a way for Pikmin 3 to completely disown the philosophy of Pikmin 2. And taken as-is, Pikmin 3 can be interpreted as a way to completely refute the
loot-fests spread throughout the gaming canon.
Am I reaching here? Probably.
But hear me out. Destiny (or its marketing at least)
promised us the stars, but in the end it boils down to “shoot aliens and get
loot”. It’s a disservice to the extreme
amount of effort and resources from an army of artists and programmers -- the
people who wanted nothing more than to create a sprawling world. Worse yet, it railroads players even without
sticking them in some endless hallway or set of corridors; the only thing that
matters, by and large, is getting better guns and better armor so you can…get
better guns and better armor again. And
again. And again.
The stuff in games needs to matter again. It needs to do more than just make players go
through the motions -- and that’s what Pikmin
3 strives for. Olimar’s story is there
to remind players that they’re not on that planet just for glory; they’re on a
mission, and a dangerous one full of traps and terrors. If you screw around, you will die. The “loot” in this case isn’t something you
can use as a symbol of prestige; at most, you can find utilities that give you
more HP or the aforementioned dodge roll.
You’re using that loot to stay alive, and earn the right to continue
your perilous journey -- a journey that may very well put your explorers’ home
on the line. And you know what it’s like
to be on the brink of starvation, because you’re
always on the brink of starvation.
All of that makes Pikmin 3 sound like some harrowing, desperate struggle. It is, but that’s only one side of the
coin. The intent with this game, no
doubt, is to make that expedition into something fantastic; the weight of
danger, failure, and doom are there to make the positives shine that much
brighter. You can discover some horrible
monsters, but there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from finding glistening
fruit, and hear the delight of your explorers as they wonder how it
tastes.
There’s nothing stopping you from appreciating a
gentle snowfall as you toss your soldiers back and forth across a shifting
creek. There’s nothing stopping you from
listening to the chants of your Pikmin squad as you trot amongst towering
foliage, with the sun beaming overhead, as you uncover new and yet-unexplored
territories on the map. And meeting a
new color of Pikmin for the first time may as well be its own reward.
You’re not adventuring for the loot. You’re looting for the adventure. And that right there is the secret brilliance
of Pikmin 3.
Frankly, I’m surprised a game like this even
exists. Against all odds, it’s the game
I’ve more or less been asking for since I realized, “Hey, maybe focusing a game
around bland, run-of-the-mill murder is pretty
dumb.” This one game has given me
more than plenty of other games in the past few years, almost without
trying. Obviously, it’s given me a more
exciting world than Destiny. But it’s given me more frightening moments
than The Evil Within. It’s gotten me to care more about its cast
than Infamous: Second Son. I’d bet that if it had hacking, it’d do it
better than Watch Dogs -- but I
suppose it’ll have to settle for being better than Watch Dogs in every other conceivable way.
I’m not so star-struck as to say that Pikmin 3 is the greatest game I’ve ever
played. But taken as-is? It’s thoughtful, rewarding, enticing,
surprising, and most of all fun. It’s a
game that can say a few words once every hour or so and still stay full of
meaning -- all while letting you dig in your heels and put your leaf-headed
soldiers to work. Given all that, it’s
hard for me to walk away unsatisfied.
And I’m hoping that if you decide to pick it up, you’ll feel the same
way.
Not that that’s a possibility, anyway. After all, you should have already played
this game.
And that’ll do it for this round of Nintendo
shilling. Still, it’s hard to imagine me
doing something this extensive again.
I’ve got my biases, sure, but I’d like to think I can be objective even
as I highlight some of a good game’s high points. After all, if there’s one thing I took away
from Trauma Team, it’s that “your
mind is the ultimate tool”. That, and
never trust butterflies.
Okay, I think I’m calm now. So what’s next on the list?
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Yep. 100%
objective.
#GoodGuyNintendo
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