Pikmin 4delivers a wealth of content for fans, who waited for over a decade to experience the next installment. It’s a wondrous amalgamation of the best parts of all three preceding games: a time-based Olimar mode from 1, dungeons from 2, and the bonus challenges from 3.
Related:Pikmin 4: Best Dandori Battles
Renamed ‘Dandori Challenges’ here (‘Dandori’ being the art of organization), these missions will see you racing against an incredibly strict time limit as you and your canine pal Oatchi gather all the items in a given area. And not just the treasures – but the enemies and the tiny incidental nugget piles too. They’re toughies, alright, and here are the best ones, not counting the tutorial stage.
10Ice-Cross Course
Ice Pikmin are one of the neatest additions to Pikmin 4; so versatile are their uses. This course puts all of those to the test, tasking you with navigating a series of pools you’ll need to melt and unmelt at precisely the right times so your Pikmin aren’t wasting time taking the long way around. Or, you know, sitting frozen in a tundra of icy death.
Complicating matters is a couple of swamps in the center of the map. Not only are these tougher to freeze, but they’ll slow down anyone or anything that passes through with their gloopiness. Prioritize your jobs right, and drag those rubber duckies to victory.
9Aerial Incinerator
Now there’s a name that ought to give you pause. Set inside a house’s heating system, this challenge has you dealing with only the most irritating of Pikmin baddies:the Puffy Blowhog. These jerks will huff, puff, and ruin your Platinum score as you and your Pikmin are swept from an assortment of ledges. Better keep them on Oatchi’s back.
Blowhogs aside (and they really,reallyblow), fire is the order of the day in this stage. Your Red Pikmin will need to pick up burning rocks and use them to clear out piles of straw, allowing you access to the goodies beyond. Balancing the powers of wind and flame won’t be easy.
8Hotshock Canyon
Keeping the elemental theme going, Hotshock Canyon tests your ability with both Red and Yellow Pikmin, as well as their respective environmental resistances. You’d better hope you’ve purchased the heat and electric protective gear from Russ at the Lab, as you might find yourself a smoldering pile without ‘em.
That the enemies here are mostly Bulborb variants is only a small blessing, as you’ll be contending with lava puddles, electric gates, and all manner of other hazards. Especially frustrating is when you trust Oatchi’s AI to head off and collect some stuff on his own, only to hear him yelping from the other end of the map as he wanders blindly into a flamethrower. But boy, is it ever satisfying to grab that Platinum.
7Oasis of Order
‘Order’ is right. Order of events; ordering Pikmin around; the massive order of paracetamol you’ll be needing when you’re done. As one of the final Dandori Challenges to unlock, this calls on essentially every skill in the game. From swimming, to digging, to climbing and separating off from your loyal pooch, you’d better have your muscle memory down-pat.
Related:Pikmin 4: Best Cave Systems
Particularly devious is how the stage makes you choose between using Oatchi’s digging prowess, saving you time and resources, or using him as a floatation device to transport non-aquatic Pikmin to other areas. It’s a fine balancing act that epitomizes what the best Pikmin gameplay is all about.
6Cliff-Hanger’s Hold
As the name implies, this underground challenge mostly revolves around getting your Pikmin to the top of a couple of high ledges to snag the loot that awaits. The trouble is, only Yellow Pikmin can get high enough, and their sprouts (if you didn’t bring any of your own) are guarded by some pretty fierce foes. In the meantime, you’ll sling your non-Yellows around on some bouncy mushrooms and just generally be scrambling up and down all over the place.
Once your Yellows are in hand, it’s a more simple matter of busting down electric gates and just crossing your fingers you’ve saved yourself enough time to scale those cliffs and make it backwith the goodiesin tow—best of luck.
5Hefty Haulway
Another largely water-based challenge, you’ll be plucking fruit from atop podiums and squashing a nice variety of slugs aiming to chow down on your Pikmin. The tiling on the floor here is nice and gives the impression this is all taking place under some poor human’s bathroom floor. If so, they’ve got a serious bug problem.
The stage’s trickiest part comes when you must dig up a gigantic sweet potato while also dealing with the violent advances of a miniboss jellyfish. You’re best off coming armed with Ice Pikmin, as they can freeze his gooey form and drop him to the floor for maximum extermination.
4Strategic Freezeway
How nice of Nintendo to just abandon all pretense and give this stage a tremendously literal title. It’s a way where you freeze things, and you’ll need to be strategic about it. Primarily because the air in the level is deathly cold, meaning that any non-Ice Pikmin will begin popping their clogs the second they’re off of Oatchi’s warm, comforting back.
Related:Pikmin 4: Best Oatchi Upgrades
You have some measure of control over the temperature as flaming rocks scatter the stage, allowing you to dissipate the cold air entirely by melting all of the ice. But wait! That ice might also prove useful as a shortcut for Pikmin hauling treasure. Choices, choices. A delightfully devilish challenge.
3Rockaway Cellars
A seven-minute time limit might seem like a lot, but here, every precious second of that counts. The map is positively littered with giant veggies that’ll require tens of Pikmin (or just one Oatchi; good boy!) to carry and more than a fair share of Pikmin-flattening stone slab enemies.
To take home the Platinum in this cellar, you’ll want to balance breaking down walls with picking off those dastardly creatures, one by one. You might even end up busting out a couple of those game-breaking items in your Pack. Y’know, if the need arises. Bilbo Baggins never had to deal with this.
2Toggle Training
Don’t be fooled. Despite that title, the training wheels are very much off in this challenge. A gimmick that Pikmin 4 refines from earlier titles is the switch mechanic, i.e. dirty great buttons you step on to raise or lower gates. If you’ve any hope of succeeding in this stage, you’ll have to memorise exactly where each switch is and what they do. It could mean the difference between victory and inadvertently slamming a door shut in your Pikmins’ faces.
On top of that, you’ve got rock-spewing caterpillars, countless mushrooms that cover the floor in progress-slowing goo (bring poisonous White Pikmin for that), and solid steel walls that can’t be broken. It all adds up to a whale of a test.
1Planning Pools
Frankly, this stage is a winner purely based on its visual design; a lush underground pool bordered with tree stumps and gorgeous cracks of light beaming down from above that really push the aging Switch to its limits. But gameplay-wise, it’s fab too. It iterates on the freezing/melting mechanics that other stages use by having a good three-quarters of the map submerged.
As you’d therefore expect, Blue and Ice Pikmin will be your best buds here – as will Oatchi, who again can ferry the little fellas across bodies of H2O. Can you avoid the ravenous blowfish, hop from island to island, knock down gates and dig up the colossal bath sponges to claim the win? With practice, and good Dandori, anything is possible.
