It used to be that the adventures of Captain Olimar and the Pikmin were incredibly niche. The franchise first came out on the Nintendo Gamecube, and while the first two entries on the system made a mark, it had hardly the same impact as games with Mario, Link, or even Samus Aran and Donkey Kong. That’s why when Shigeru Miyamoto and the Pikmin 4 team came together to finally finish the 4th entry, they put everything they could think of into it so everyone would feel a draw to the game. Fast forward to now, and its success has gotten lots of attention from fans and Nintendo.
The game was revealed recently to have easily outsold all past entries, and over a million copies have likely been sold in Japan by now! That’s very impressive, given the “lackluster” series sales in the country before then. But Nintendo didn’t just celebrate that sales milestone. They decided to put the Pikmin to work by making some new shorts to highlight them and possibly get more people interested in the game.
The first short features the “Hum” of the Pikmin as they work together to do multiple tasks both in the game and the real world. You can check it out below, and you’ll notice that they have a catchy tune to dance to!
Then, earlier this week, Nintendo released a little holiday short to celebrate the upcoming holiday season. We see the Pikmin working together to decorate a Christmas tree, among other things, and it’s hard to deny that it’s rather adorable.
With the success of Pikmin 4, it’s not hard to imagine Nintendo has plans for a 5th mainline entry. That goes double now that they know they have a formula to bring players to the game and enjoy it. It was honestly just a case of doing the “little things” to lure people in. For example, while the first three games were fun, they were also known to be a bit hard for casual fans to get into. So they worked on that and had a much more balanced gameplay loop for players to enjoy, all the while having harder sections for more experienced gamers to try out.
They also added in things like Dandori and new characters like Oatchi to bring gamers to the party further. With these things all lined up for next time, it might not be a bad idea to get the latest entry so you can beat it before the next one is announced!
