Having become curious about the world of games and game design on top of linear storytelling, I have decided to embark on the DP Challenge. To sum up, analyse the top 100 ranking games for your chosen platform. I have a Wii, and with this post I'm officially 1/100th of the way through. Tiny acorns, and all that.
Game: Pikmin New Play Control!
Ranking: 76/100
Average Score: 79.55%
In Pikmin, you play the role of plucky Captain Olimar who has crash landed on an oxygen-rich planet. As such elements are lethal to his kind, he has just thirty days to salvage parts and repair his spaceship before he suffers from oxygen poisoning and dies. Luckily, he chances upon a group of curious little beings called Pikmin and uses them to move obstacles, carry parts and generally do his bidding (apparently Olimar is blissfully unaware of the contention surrounding imperialism).
'Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go. With a shovel and a pick, and a dirty...' Yeah.
The way the story was conveyed using ship's logs and observational notes really set the scene, given you are controlling a space explorer. It also conveys a sense of danger regarding the time-critical mission (in 30 days tiny Captain Olimar will die from oxygen poisoning).
There was very little in the way of options; until you get further into the game you could be left thinking you need to digest the whole manual before being able to play. The introduction was also very heavy on the telling and much lighter on the showing, which is a bit of a no-no in any story. It can be argued this is due to the nature of Olimar’s situation.
Although I enjoyed the observation aspect of the introduction, I think it could have been improved by showing a little more of the backstory; flashbacks to Captain Olimar with his family and his life back home could have added a little variety to the straight observation text passages.
Getting Going
The tutorial section was done nicely in some respects; the use of Olimar's observational notes as he discovered more about the Pikmin to tie in with you completing various key points was a neat way of world-building. This builds as you progress through the stages and day increments and you slowly discover hints and tips for the game as this happens.
The main problem with the tutorial is the way it dropped you in the environment and expected you to figure out certain aspects of the gameplay. For example, it isn't immediately apparent what the game means by 'command your Pikmin' and I only managed to progress and move a box by complete accident. This leads to another problem; it isn't that obvious which areas of the environment you can influence.
'The horror... the horror...'
A lot of the issues could probably be cleared up by making the tutorial more explicit in regards to using Pikmin in the gameplay area. Once you figure out the controls and limitations it's fairly straight forward- the problem is figuring out that it’s fairly straight forward in the first place.
Fun
The game was fun but slow-moving; I played for two hours on the first sitting and only really got to the very first part of the game. It had some nice strategy-type puzzles, the Pikmin are quite cute in a Lemmings sort of way and there is a time-critical element which adds further challenge on top of the puzzle aspects. The fact that the game seems to sit somewhere between a real time strategy and a cute puzzler works; I could imagine younger players becoming interested in playing an RTS after having a go at a game like this. You appear to have an endless supply of Pikmin which you can theoretically 'grow', so any major mishaps (usually as a result of being eaten by wildlife) will slow you down but not end the game (but there's still something a little disconcerting about the way in which you're encouraged to treat the Pikmin as disposable commodities).
However, the time-critical aspect does have its drawbacks; as you have to return both Olimar and the Pikmin to the ship by night, it means you often find yourself having to stop mid-way through a task or even just exploring the area, which can be frustrating. Also I found myself very irritated by the fact that I could happily plough Olimar through water, but the Pikmin inexplicably die if they follow the exact same path (I believe the technical term for this is 'a dick move'). NB- the manual states that certain types of Pikmin are good in water, but it does not state that the others will react like the Wicked Witch of the West when put near a drop of H2O. Again, this fits in with a model of exploration and discovery but it’s annoying all the same.
An overall map of each area would help when it comes to exploring the environment so you could work out a strategy without having to walk around the gameplay area several times (as this feels especially frustrating when you're running out of time to actually do anything).
Visuals
There wasn't anything particularly clever about the visuals, but it did have some nice touches such a crop circle-esque patterns (presumably left by the tiny spaceships) and fog when the ship landed in the early morning. Oh, and Olimar and the Pikmin are super-cutesy and teeny-tiny, so everything is designed as though it’s a back garden of some description which is nice from a scale point of view.
Sadly, because Olimar and the Pikmin are so super-cutesy and teeny-tiny it can be very difficult to see them or what you're doing when Olimar has dozens of Pikmin following him and you're trying to uproot new Pikmin. You can zoom in but it doesn't help much; also, when you zoom in to perform an action, you then lose sight of the main environment which makes forward-planning more difficult.
Amending the design of the Pikmin so they stand out more would be enormously helpful; maybe having them a little fatter so their colours are more obvious. An overall map of the area that sits in the corner of the screen could also help here, if it showed you where Pikmin were and what they were up to in the whole area.
Intelligence
The intelligence is really hard to judge, especially as the game is somewhat low on interaction with opponents (most interactions are based on obstacles). Sometimes enemies will attack you, others will flee from you. It appears to be based on size of the enemies which makes sense.
Personally, I feel the lack of hoards of enemies is a good thing in a puzzle type game; too many creatures attacking would detract from the actual gameplay style. What is a little irritating is that charging en masse against enemies (which is what the manual recommends) just seems to get your Pikmin helpers slaughtered. Perhaps this is supposed to be another trial-and-error aspect of the game but it impedes your progress which, when coupled with the short amount of play time you get per ‘day’, becomes a real issue.
It would be nice to have some way of gauging the strength of enemies vs. that of the Pikmin; it seems like complete guesswork as to who you can defeat and who you should leave alone.
Immersion
The time definitely flew by while playing and it was maddeningly easy to think to yourself, 'Oh go on, just one more day…' (the gameplay is timed in increments of daylight- once it gets dark, you have to be back on you spaceship).
However, I was not immersed enough to be able to ignore how little progress I seemed to be making in each daylight stage. This is something I would expect to dissipate the further you got into the game.
It would still be nice to see more progress in the early stages as encouragement to the player, or have the daylight increments last longer so you can actually get around the environment and perform some tasks before having to gather up all of your troops to start all over again.
Cameras
Well, you can alter the zoom and direction of the camera to a degree, or just let it follow you around. This is perfectly acceptable behaviour in a game.
Alas, the camera was one of the most irritating parts of the game for me; I either couldn't see the environment very well or I couldn't see the Pikmin and Olimar very well- there didn't appear to be a happy medium. Well, there was a medium option, but it meant you couldn't see either the characters or the environment particularly clearly. The designers had clearly tried to work around the problem by having the three different settings which you could easily toggle through, but it just didn't help matters for me. With practice it gets easier switching between the three as you move to get a useful view, but it's still a pain.
That map idea mooted earlier would be really helpful here; then you could focus closely on the characters and still see the environment as a whole. Also the redesign to make the characters stand out more against the background would make a wider view more useful.
Controls
The controls are very simple, which frees up your time to working out the best routes through the areas to required items and Pikmin tablets.
Sadly, the problem is it takes quite a while to realise the controls are really simple! I expected to require different moves for different commands rather than the one-for-all option you get. Issuing a generic command
causes the Pikmin to react with an object and that's the extent of it. In a way this limits your interactions and pushes you towards being a spectator at times.
It might be nice to have a set of commands so you can interact with objects and the environment in different ways; the trick would be to balance this against over-complicating the game.
Ideas
The fact that you control a character who controls other characters is a nice take on strategic gameplay; something different to the usual pointing and clicking at the screen to move armies.
The time-critical 'daylight only' gameplay is good… until you get interrupted for the third time in a row when your Pikmin are all in the middle of multiple tasks and you have to recall them all because it's bedtime (or, to be more accurate, 'critters will come out at night and eat you' time).
If each daylight session lasted longer so you can get on with more before the session ends, this would be a much better game.
Memory
Overall it's enjoyable. I felt there was still a lot to get to grips with and still reason to go back and keep playing. The difficulty curve appears to be reasonable; I'm neither bored because it's too easy nor wanting to ignore the health and safety instructions from Nintendo regarding throwing my Wii remote through the telly because it's too hard. And if you're happy to let a three centimetre tall spaceman with a wife back home die of oxygen poisoning then you have no heart.
It is slow-moving. It does seem to take an awfully long time to actually get anywhere in the game and your session time always seems to run out just as you're beginning to make progress, which means you essentially have to pack up and start again.
If either the session time was longer or the exploration of the area could be shortened somehow, I think this would help the game a lot in terms of keeping your interest. The fact you have to stop and start all the time pulls you out of the gameplay.
In a Nutshell
A fun, engaging game that is a good stepping stone to the world of real time strategy titles which would benefit enormously from longer playing times. Also, part of me wonders whether Captain Olimar would swiftly turn into Kurtz from ‘Heart of Darkness’ if left to his own devices with the Pikmin.
'I am a god amongst... umm... onion things!'
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