Pikmin 4 Review

The series has always had a real tension between its charm and its cruelty, since losing thirty Pikmin to a careless throw is a small tragedy that the earlier games recorded and moved on from. This one gives you a rewind, and the difference is enormous. Undoing a mistake removes the anxiety that kept people away without removing the strategy, because good routing still matters and the day timer still applies.

Oatchi is the other change, a dog who carries your squad, charges obstacles and can be sent off on his own, which effectively doubles your ability to run parallel tasks. Night expeditions are a genuine new mode, closer to a tower defence than exploration, and the underground caves return with more inventive layouts than the third game managed. The costs are pace and stakes, and they are heavier than they first look.

Rewind does not merely lower the penalty for a bad throw, it removes the consequence that gave the earlier games their grip, so a run becomes a sequence of attempts rather than a day you have to live with. Oatchi compounds it by solving traversal and combat problems the level design was built to pose. Add a long, heavily tutorialised opening and a difficulty curve that stays gentle until the final caves, and what is left is a comfortable, generous, faintly slack game. The friendliest way into the series, and the least like the series.