Pikmin might be one of the most underrated Nintendo series because the note it tries to hit is so specific. Its charming visual style and cute alien antics need to excite casual Switch players while not turning off strategy game experts, while the actual puzzles in the game need to be challenging enough for advanced players, but solvable for players who just want to pluck little colorful dudes out of the ground and ride an alien dog. It’s quite the balancing act and Pikmin 4 absolutely nails it. If you haven’t jumped into the world of Pikmin before, Pikmin 4 is one of the series’ strongest entries — it captures the charm of the previous installments while rebalancing the game’s sometimes frustrating control scheme and rewriting the story a bit to make it easier to follow for new players. Straight-from-Nintendo titles rarely get solid discounts, and it’s not uncommon for them to remain at launch-day prices for years, so it’s an absolute joy to see right now.
Pikmin 4 follows a similar storyline to previous entries in the series — you control a crew of astronauts that crash-land on a mysterious planet and enlist the help of the native Pikmin (the cute little plant guys) to repair the ship and escape. The overall gameplay really leans into an idea it calls “Dandoori,” or the art of organizing tasks strategically and working effectively to execute a plan. It’s a thought exercise that really helps players control the chaos that comes with managing a small army of sprouts on a hostile alien planet. The concept has always been a piece of Pikmin games, but the term has never been explicitly used until this entry. Gaming Editor Giovanni Colantonio, who reviewed the game in July 2023, wrote that it might be “the best life coach I’ve ever had.” “The adventure grabs various ideas from the series’ past and puts them all in order, like someone shuffling a handful of loose-leaf papers into one neat stack,” he wrote in a four-star review. “At its heart, this is the same series I’ve enjoyed for two decades, but I feel like I’m seeing it in a whole new light thanks to a thorough reorganization. I don’t know that I can name any other game that made me excited to do my household chores every time I powered it down.”
Personally, Pikmin 4 is just one of those games that I never wanted to put down. Each in-game day bled into another — there was always an unfinished task that my Pikmin were close to completing, a puzzle I was just about to crack, or a area of a region I wanted to explore. There was truly never a dull moment throughout my entire playthrough. I also had a blast watching my wife complete her own playthrough alongside mine. While normally watching someone play through a game you just played could be boring, it’s so interesting to watch someone else tackle the same puzzles in their own way. The Nintendo Switch is home to plenty of fantastic titles, but Pikmin 4 is one of my all-time favorites.
