I’ve never really played Pikmin before. While I’ve played the Pikmin level from Nintendoland and I have played the demo for Pikmin 3 on the Wii U, I haven’t sat down and started up a game of Pikmin from the beginning before. Luckily there is no prerequisite experience necessary for Hey! Pikmin, the spinoff title for the Nintendo 3DS. Like many Nintendo pieces the game is a stand alone tale and you don’t need to have played any games in the series before.
After crash landing on this new planet Olimar is tasked with the seemingly insurmountable task of collecting 30,000 units of Sparklium in order to fuel up his space ship and escape the planet. Luckily there are also Pikmin on this planet which he can use to help him reach his goal. Pikmin are tiny, curious, plant-like creatures. They come in different colors and types, each with different strengths and weaknesses, but they all seem eager to help Captain Olimar.
These impressions are based on the Hey! PIKMIN demo which was released on July 14th. The full game will be released on July 28th.