You’ll slowly unlock different parts of each stage as you learn more about the planet’s native Pikmin inhabitants and solve puzzles. This can get hectic, especially with tons of Pikmin on screen at once, but many of the game’s puzzles are better experienced with two players.Īt the start of each in-game day, you select a specific area of Pikmin 3’s world map to hunt down food and other items related to explorer captains Alph, Brittany and Charlie. The entire game, including the new side stories that feature familiar characters from previous Pikmin games, can be played in local co-op. This is where Pikmin 3 Deluxe‘s surprisingly excellent new co-op mode comes into play.

There are also several puzzles involving throwing your own teammates on ledges and tossing Pikmin up to them. Though the game now features a hint system, much of its appeal comes from experimenting and uncovering each Pikmin’s purpose. There other types as well, including rock Pikmin that can smash through glass and crystal objects. For example, if you want to get your tiny minions to pick up a rather large lemon, shoot roughly 10 Pikmin at the fruit and watch as they bring the food back to your base.ĭifferent coloured Pikmin have various advantages, including red being resistant to fire, yellow conducting electricity and blue being able to swim.

Pikmin can carry creatures and items much larger than them - usually food or large dead foes - similar to ants. In Pikmin 3 Deluxe, you control a trio of intrepid explorers and command plant-like creatures called Pikmin to find items and collect fruit that can then be used as food for your space crew. That said, in the face of fancy new next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony and no new major original Switch titles on the horizon outside of next month’s Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the Japanese tech giant has little choice but to dig into its surprisingly solid back catalogue of lesser-known Wii U games. It’s a little strange for Nintendo to be finally giving Pikmin 3 the Switch re-release treatment this late in the handheld’s life-cycle. I reviewed the game seven years ago for Postmedia-owned ‘s technology section, where I called the title “charming, unique and addictive.” However, the review has since been wiped from the now-dead website (you can still view the review through The Wayback Machine).Īlmost amusingly, I have no recollection of writing this review, though during my roughly dozen hours so far with Pikmin 3 Deluxe, my time with the game all those years ago is starting to come back to me.

This isn’t my first experience with Pikmin 3.