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I foresaw one plot twist – that who the crew believed to be Olimar was in fact Louie – but did not foresee the other one, with Louie scarpering as soon as he could, taking our food supply with him. Suddenly there was a fresh urgency about finding fruit, and with the game urging me to chase Louie but me being aware that I was one tropical smoothie away from starvation, I found myself pulled in two directions. Not only that, but shortly after I landed in the Garden of Hope I was introduced to the blue Pikmin, and so I had a third objective – build up the blue population.

I decided to forget about Louie for now, get a number of blues ready, and collect some of the underwater fruit that I’d noticed on the map. Blue harvesting initially went a little wrong, when I was attacked by a frog who killed off five of my then-population of 10, but I got back into it with a vengeance when I remembered that flying pikmin could provide important backup while I walked around the riverbed. Within a couple of game-hours (the notches across the top of the screen) I was up to an army of 50, and went off in search of fruit. An underwater strawberry and orange, building a bridge using submerged pieces, and a wayward plum later, I felt ready to look for the wrongun.

Over the two next days I found more fruit and enemies, building more bridges and pillars, and having to carefully manouvre rock pikmin around to break crystals. And then I found a new boss, bigger than anything so far, who tried to stamp on my pikmin and drown them in the mud. It had no luck, however, because my reds held on tight to its legs before I jumped on its back and threw rocks and yellows at it. Goodbye big planty thing, and hello again Louie – and the captain’s rubber duck.

What looks to be the final area has opened up now, with no fruit to collect; with the juice returned from Louie I now have a buffer of about 45 days but I am minded to collect all the remaining fruit before going on to find Olimar. I mean, he’s been held for a while already, what harm are a couple of extra days going to do?

I have a tendency to come to the Pikmin games late.

I completed the first game on the GameCube, over two years after it released, due to people on uk.games.video.misc enthusing about it. I previously on this blog said that I played it twice, the second time in order to come in under the 30-day limit, but I think I was mistaken on that point; my first playthrough on the GameCube came in at 29 days, and my second playthrough was on the Wii version a while after that came out. I bought the second game relatively soon after release, I recall, because there was a sale in Woolworths. I put it into my GameCube in 2005, but never actually played it until I got the Wii version many years later, and finally completed it in 2014, after Pikmin 3 came out, spurring me onto playing it. I bought Pikmin 3 for the Wii U in 2015, but never played it past the first half hour; and then I bought Pikmin 3 Deluxe in 2021, intending to play it and then … not. When Pikmin 4 came out on the Switch, I added it to my wishlist, and then received it for my birthday this year. Which is a longwinded way of saying that it’s finally time to play Pikmin 3.

I found the first game very stressful due to the 30-day time limit; I was always aware that I had to cram as much into each game day as possible, and since I didn’t know what was needed in future days, I had a tendency to panic. The second game, where there was no time limit inside the caves, was less stressful, but this meant that there was less compelling me to the end. The third game strikes a good balance; there is a daily time limit, but as long as you recover at least one jar’s worth of fruit each day (since your crew drinks one a day) you know you can continue going for some time. While there is a theoretical time limit overall, governed by the number of fruits scattered around the levels, it’s so long that I doubt anyone would have run up against it. For the first few days you are led to fruits quite directly, while searching for your missing crewmates, and so it’s not until you’re well established that the time constraints start to take hold.

The game is beautiful to look at, with varied backdrops being present and useful for recognition. There isn’t much of a gameplay difference between snowy and rainy levels – pikmin seemingly just walk on the snow as if it’s solid ground – but it helps to remind you of your location. The map areas are relatively small, but then again so are pikmin, and it can take a little while to explore everywhere.

By Day 8 I had discovered three types of pikmin – red, yellow and rock – and there were some areas in which I could see fruit but not reach it since none of my companions could swim. I had worked through the storyline a bit, rescuing the second crewmate of the Drake, and building up pikmin populations. I was busy trying to reach Captain Charlie, but that took a couple of days before I could finally rescue him – by which point I had some significant juice reserves built up.

Now that the three-strong crew is back together, it’s time to follow the rest of the story. The objective of the mission is to steal Earth’s fruit – or, at least, the seeds of them – to overcome a famine back home. However, the ship crashed during landing, and there’s a vital component – some sort of drive key – that’s gone missing. We found some notes saying that Captain Olimar had found the key, so we’re in hunt of him – but we keep going to the wrong places, where old phones are broadcasting interference. Luckily we can use those to extend our listening capabilities. We’re also getting hold of some new fruit as well, particularly through murdering the local animal population.

And then finally we found Olimar, who was being held by a big conical wasp thing. That was one of the harder boss battles so far, requiring flying pikmin to attack small swarming bugs, and then sending the other pikmin in for the main boss when the swarm had disappeared. Eventually it fell, with Olimar lying on the ground.

But wait, I hear you say; you said we are in hunt of Olimar, not we were. Well, yes. Because while the crew of the Drake think we have rescued Olimar, and are just waiting for him to wake up, the character lying on the ground was actually Louie – Olimar’s brother from Pikmin 2. Oh, what a lovely plot twist.

And I ran out of daytime to bring him back to the ship, so the next time I play there’s an important first job to do.

At least I have about 35 days of juice left to try to find Olimar for real.