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This is the first game in the Pikmin series. For other games in the series see the Pikmin category.

Box artwork for Pikmin.
Box artwork for Pikmin.
Pikmin
Developer(s)Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Year released2001
System(s)Nintendo GameCube, Wii
Followed byPikmin 2
SeriesPikmin,
New Play Control!
Genre(s)RTS
ModesSingle player
Rating(s)ESRB Everyone
Pikmin
Developer(s)Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Year released2023
System(s)Nintendo Switch
Rating(s)ESRB Everyone 10+
LinksPikmin ChannelSearchSearch

Pikmin is a real-time strategy game developed by Nintendo EAD that was released for the Nintendo GameCube in Japan and North America in late 2001 and worldwide in mid-2002. It is one of the first launch games for the system.

The game was first conceived as a god simulator titled Adam and Eve by Shigeru Miyamoto, who was inspired by a pantheon of ants carrying food in his garden. The game eventually evolved into its current form with three main concepts behind it; the pikmin (or the "people"), the bulborbs, and the concept of raising, taking care of, and growing the army of people. The concept of 100 Pikmin occupying the screen at one time was heavily inspired by the GameCube tech demo Super Mario 128, which boasted the GameCube's technical capabilities by showing more than 100 Marios simultaneously on the screen. Releasing to positive reception, the game has since gone on to be rereleased for the Wii in Japan in late 2008 and in early 2009 elsewhere under the New Play Control! line in the form of New Play Control! Pikmin, which itself was rereleased for the Wii U Virtual Console in September of 2016 in Europe and America and in Japan in June of 2017. Pikmin was also given an HD remake as part of the Pikmin 1+2, which released in June/September of 2023.

It is of note that the events of the game appear to be retconned in Pikmin 4, as the Olimar's Shipwreck Tale mode in the game is somewhat of a retelling of the story in the GameCube original.

Story[edit]

The game follows Captain Olimar, a family-man spaceman from the planet Hocotate who crashes onto an unknown world and meets the Pikmin, a humanoid-vegetable species that can assist Olimar in retrieving all 30 of his ship pieces before he succumbs the the poisonous oxygen on the planet.

From the manual:

Olimar's Crash
Olimar's Crash
My name is Captain Olimar. On my homeworld of Hocotate, I am a well-known navigator of the stars. I use my faithful ship, the Dolphin, to carry small freight and deep-space minerals from planet to planet. It is a job of no small importance, and I take it seriously. For a long time I had been working too hard, a tendency of mine, so I decided to take some time off by myself to recuperate. The night before I left, my wife prepared my favorite soup. This soup is a famous dish on my planet, made with three large onions and hundreds of miniature red, yellow, and blue carrots. Once I had my fill of this delicious dinner, I climbed into my warm bed and began to think of the leisurely vacation that would start the next morning. I finally fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.


The journey began well. With no set destination in mind, I simply allowed the sleek Dolphin to make its own efficient way through the vast reaches of space. A strange feeling came over me... I then felt a premonition that my short trip would soon be<sic> become an epic adventure. I dismissed the thought as foolishness from my overactive brain, then switched the Dolphin to autopilot and stood up from the central seat to make a hot cup of tea. Just then, a massive jolt shook the Dolphin! For a brief moment, my mind reeled with the possibilities of what might have happened, but I had little time to react. I was thrown against the control panel, and I blacked out.

When I came to, I found that the Dolphin had crashed on a strange planet, in a place whose name and location I could not guess. I thanked the laws of chaos that I was at least, for the time being, safe. After some inspection, I noticed that the Dolphin was so shaken during reentry that several of her pieces had been jarred loose, probably scattered around the planet. To make matters worse, my space suit's sensors indicated that the planet's atmosphere contained oxygen, an element incredibly deadly to my people. Fortunately, the life-support system built into my suit seemed unharmed, but I knew that it had only enough remaining battery power to function for another 30 days. If only I could find the engine, then at least I could fly within this planet's atmosphere to search for the other parts... Will I be able to find the missing parts from my spaceship? Will I be able to return safely to my home and family? I must steel myself against fear and loneliness if I am ever to see them again.

Olimar's Crash
Olimar's Crash
I have decided to record all of my observations and experiences in my journal until I am able to leave this forbidding planet. My only hope lies in the promise of two strange encounters that I had today. The first was the discovery of a large object, similar to the onions on my planet. But it was enormous, and it rested on three legs. The other was the appearance of a small life-form eerily similar in appearance to my planet's miniature carrots. I have decided to name this small life-form... Pikmin...

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