YMMV / Pikmin

For games with their own pages, go here:

• Pikmin (2001)
• Pikmin 2
• Pikmin 3
• Pikmin 4
• Hey! Pikmin

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• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Is Olimar justified in his taking over as the leader of some of the native creatures of the planet? Is he a bastard for what amounts to alien enslavement, and his actions sometimes leading Pikmin to be killed? Or is he a savior to the Pikmin, considering they were practically extinct in the first game, and in every game after that, they're on the verge of extinction again because they just can't survive without a leader to organize them? While most are willing to cut Olimar some slack in the first game as he needed the Pikmin in order to repair his ship and get home without dying, debates on whether doing so again in the second and third games to collect treasure to pay off his company's debts are a lot more divided, to say the least.
  • Louie is definitely becoming this as time goes on. Once a fan favorite, most fans are now divided into a few camps based on how they feel about him. His fans love him, either for being a Memetic Psychopath or for being a genuinely intriguing character with nuances who's actions come from a bad upbringing and mental issues that make him act childish. They also love his positive qualities, such as his good relationship with Olimar despite being a troublemaker (even if he, like the other Hocotations, was rather flaky in 3) and his incredible cooking talents, and have even tried some of his recipes. His detractors hate him for his childish behavior, along with all he's done to endanger others, such as putting Hocotate Freight into debt from his own gluttony and impulses, stealing the Koppaites' juice supply, attacking his co-worker and boss with the Titan Dweevil^note Though whether he was actually in control or not is left ambiguous, given he had passed out, and lashing out at the Rescue Corps with the Ancient Sirehound he had befriended. Often, his detractors will go as far as to consider him evil, malicious, and irredeemable, and the closest the series has to a main antagonist.
  • The President has been subjected to this, especially after the release of the Side Stories in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Some fans think he's a hilarious character and prefer him as the second captain over Louie, while others hate him for being overly harsh to Olimar (such as severely underpaying him and selling off his prized S.S. Dolphin the moment he gets back home) and being a generic "mean boss" that constantly belittles Olimar and Louie for slacking off.
  • Blue Pikmin. Of the original trio, Blue Pikmin usually get the most criticism from the fan base, who feel like they suffer from Crippling Overspecialization with their ability amounting to being able to enter large 'Blue Pikmin only' zones. More often than not, this means Blues often serve as a clean up crew you're forced to take with you if you want 100% completion. There are those who wish Blues would be given some ability on land that makes them useful for something else than carrying things outside of water, while others feel their design is fine and they don't need a secondary ability to be useful.
  • Winged Pikmin. They're either loved for their unique abilities and adorable design, or they're hated for essentially invalidating Yellow and Blue Pikmin's abilities, as well as being rather cumbersome to use at times.
  • Brittany has become this for similar reasons to the President. She's either a fan favorite for her funny dialogue, fruit notes, and her adorable relationship with Alph, or she's hated for constantly snapping at Charlie and making rude remarks towards him behind his back, as well as frequently complaining about the crew's food supply at the end of each day.
  • Pikmin 4 players either hate Oatchi for trivializing much of the game with his upgrade tree and "Ride" mechanic, lessening the overall difficulty, or love him for his endearing personality and ability to customize your game experience with upgrades you personally select.
• Best Level Ever:
  • From Pikmin, there's the Forest Navel, being a surprisingly dark, condensed cave-like area in a game where most of the areas take place in brightly lit open areas. It's a nice change of pace from having to wander across big areas, and it has plenty of areas where all three Pikmin types can shine.
  • From Pikmin 2, there's Perplexing Pool and its four caves, with the Citadel of Spiders featuring the return of the Beady Long Legs from Pikmin, the Shower Room with its fantastic music and atmosphere, the Glutton's Kitchen for being a fun Breather Level with a cute toybox design and fan-favorite Breadbug enemies, and the Submerged Castle for featuring the iconic and difficult Waterwraith chase.
  • The fan-favorite level of Pikmin 3 is Twilight River, for having a unique theme of puzzles involving navigating the eponymous river with lily pads, to a Breather Boss with the fun concept of having the Pikmin fight a Mirror Boss of bee-like creatures, to being centered around the well-liked Winged Pikmin. The area also provides very well-looking autumn scenery all around.
• Broken Base:
  • You're much more likely to find someone who specifically enjoyed one of the first two installments than someone who enjoyed both of them, with the sequel generally attracting more fans. They're very different games and they're both very good, but the idea of a linear game on a timer is too much for exploratory players. On the other hand, the second game treats the Pikmin as much more expendable and the original foreign atmosphere is somewhat lost. Shigeru Miyamoto aimed to rectify this for the third game by combining both the resource management aspect of the first game and the exploration of the second game, though he prefers the first. Though a Vocal Minority, there are also a few people who felt Pikmin 3 focused a bit too much on the elements of Pikmin instead of Pikmin 2.
  • Whether or not caves should come back. Some want them to come back because they added length to Pikmin 2 that the other games lacked, and provide a difficult challenge that makes every lost Pikmin that much more devastating. Others don't want them to come back, and would rather have the developers focus on more engaging, expansive, and interesting overworlds, since cave levels could get dull and repetitive after a while, in addition to bordering on Fake Difficulty at times.
  • With rumors of Pikmin 4 being a Continuity Reboot for the franchise, there's been some discord in the fanbase over whether or not a continuity reboot is even needed for the franchise, especially with Pikmin 3 ending on a very blatant Sequel Hook. Others, however, point out that there's not much else the franchise can do with the current game setup of collecting Mac Guffins for various reasons, and a reboot would likely be a good way to freshen things up again.
  • Which set of captains is better? Either you like Olimar/Louie/The President best because they were the heroes in the first two games, nostalgia and having more time to grow to like them, or you think Alph/Brittany/Charlie are better for having more meaningful interactions with each other and being more fleshed out.
• Catharsis Factor: Reading some of Louie's recipes on the harder-to-kill enemies and bosses can make the player grin when they realize what Louie must have had to do to learn this stuff.
• Contested Sequel: The series in general has had quite a problematic history with this trope, due to many games introducing new play styles and gameplay changes that many fans are split over. It's telling that the only game in the series to narrowly avert this and be widely seen as a true better sequel is Pikmin 4, and even then only narrowly, as it still isn't without faults of its own (namely the lackluster soundtrack, the boring overworld areas, the sometimes unintuitive controls, and the battle mode, while still fun, being quite a step down from the far supieroir battle modes of 2 and 3).
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Pikmin short movies have a surprisingly dark sense of humor at times, with Pikmin death occasionally being used as a punchline to several visual gags.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Spotty Bulbears, especially in the second game. They're hard enough to kill in the first game without losing a sizable chunk of your force, but in the second game they come back to life if you don't harvest their remains quickly enough. Unlike the other adult Bulborbs, they don't sleep in the second or third games; instead, they're already awake and alert, patrolling around the area, often with Dwarf Spotty Bulbears following them. And if that's not enough, they receive a resistance to Bomb Rocks in the third game, though they're very vulnerable to eating bombs.
  • Gatling Groinks in the second game. They fire explosive balls, the one "element" that no Pikmin is immune to. However, sometimes the balls will just knock Pikmin back rather than killing them, but it's not reliable. In addition, they have armour on their face, meaning that you have to get behind them to attack them, not easy given that they are always alert and will often turn and drop some explosive death on your army. They are even worse on towers, when they have more HP and can only be reached using Yellow Pikmin. In the Wistful Wild, the Random Number God can actually spawn one close enough to your base camp that it'll start attacking you before you can even finish picking your Pikmin for the day. The icing on the cake, however, is that this thing can bring itself back to life, just like the Spotty Bulbear.
  • Water Dumples can eat Pikmin easily and have a larger range of sight than most enemies (despite having no eyes). What makes them tricky is that they are the size of a Dwarf Bulborb but must be fought in a similar fashion to the large Bulborbs. The only consistent way to deal with them is to mass-swarm or charge them with a large group so that they will fall before they have the chance to eat any Pikmin, which is a risky strategy on its own especially when facing a close group of them.
  • Peckish Aristocrabs in the third game are not only fast and dangerous, but also intelligent. They'll dodge and block thrown Pikmin like no tomorrow, and swarming Pikmin at them will cause them to lift their bodies to prevent them from being attacked. Sure, Rock Pikmin can deal with them easily by breaking their claw, but their speed and tactics makes this more difficult than you'd expect.
  • Wollyhops. Especially in the first game, and to a lesser extent in the second. They're one of the few enemies that has an attack that instantly kills Pikmin (crushing), and their hitbox in the first game is far larger than one would think, making it very possible to kill Pikmin that are only relatively close to it instead of under it. They're also one of the worst offenders of the crushing glitch, as, upon death, they can still easily take four to seven Pikmin with them in the process. While 2 fixed most of these problems, they're still annoying in that the little amphibian abominations are hard to latch Pikmin onto thanks to their jumping, and when they knock Pikmin off, it's usually right under them when they're about to slam down. Thankfully, they're easier to deal with in Pikmin 3 thanks to Rock Pikmin being able to No-Sell crushing, on top of them taking much longer to flop onto the ground once airborne.
  • Sheargrubs and Shearwigs are also enemies that were despised in the first game, due to a bug that caused them to be invincible while chomping on a Pikmin, meaning that swarming them would mean certain death for at least one squad member. Thankfully, this was fixed in Pikmin 2, making them much less hated.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Louie doesn't connect well with others, is largely nonverbal, has very simple and almost childlike pleasures and motivations (apart from his love of food, Pikmin 4 has Louie express the desire to ride various objects and creatures), and is an overall unmotivated employee for Hocotate Freight, but is very skilled and verbose concerning a specific subject he loves (cooking). Olimar has trouble fully understanding Louie and his motives, but believes that he still has his own personal reasons for doing what he does. This combination of traits lead some fans to consider Louie to be somewhere on the autism spectrum.
• Discredited Meme: Fiddlebert. Like how "Moss is Homophobic" started being used by actual homophobes, racists have started using Fiddlebert to spout unironically racist beliefs, so the fandom retired the character in response.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ask any fan what their favorite enemy is and chances are they'll tell you Bulbmin or Breadbugs.
• Even Better Sequel:
  • The first game was critically acclaimed for its concept and approach, but criticized for its short length and the opinion that the time limit could be a bit suffocating. Pikmin 2 adds far more depth to the gameplay and replaces the scramble to collect all the ship parts with a long adventure to find all the artifacts you can that's much better suited to the gameplay and overall mood of the game; it also has a much bigger selection of Challenge Mode stages, and introduces multiplayer.
  • Pikmin 3 is shorter than Pikmin 2 (as it removed underground caves), but otherwise a vastly enhanced experience with bigger overworld areas, a more intrincate story, clever and unique bosses, much-wanted quality of life changes like the target and charge mechanics, and impressive music and visuals.
• Fan Nickname:
  • A lot of people tend to refer to Rock Pikmin as simply "Rockmin". This may or may not have to do with a certain blue robot's Japanese name. People also tend to call Winged Pikmin 'Pink Pikmin' simply out of tradition; the same goes for referring to Rock Pikmin as Grey Pikmin.
  • Olimar after being turned into a Pikmin in the first game's Bad Ending is called "Olimin" or "Pikmar".
  • The Red Leaf Pikmin is popularly referred to as Steve the Trooper thanks to Chuggaaconroy's playthrough of the first installment, in which he nicknames the first Pikmin Olimar encounters "Steve" and later commends him for attempting to singlehandedly carry a dead Firey Blowhog to the base despite the day coming to a close^note Firey Blowhogs require at least 7 Pikmin to carry. Chuggaa's astonished description of Steve as a "trooper" coined the nickname, and thanks to the playthrough helping keep one of Nintendo's more niche IPs in the public consciousness, the nickname caught on with the wider Pikmin community too.
  • There's also the "Koppai Crew" for Alph, Brittany, and Charlie.
  • Some parts of the fandom refer to the creatures on the Pikmin Planet as "Pikavores" considering they only ever seem to go after the Captains and their Pikmin.
  • The President of Hocotate Freight tends to get his name abbreviated to "Prez" by most of the fandom. In one odd case, certain fans started calling him "Hubert" during 2005-2009; nobody knows why they settled on that name. Sometimes he's also called "Sacho" from his voice line in Pikmin 2 when the player switches to him (shachou in Japanese just means "president" or "manager").
  • The mushroom-topped Pikmin that can come about from the Puffstool's spores have never been given an official name, so fans have applied the name of "Mushroom Pikmin" to them, though "Toadmin" and "Puffmin" are also fairly common.
  • Onions resulting from the fusion of multiple Onions aren't given official names, but everyone calls them "Master Onions".
  • Some fans have taken to calling Olimar's son and daughter Sagittarius and Libra, respectively, after the ship parts of the same name from the first game, seeing as both are mentioned to be gifts from his children.
  • The Hocotate Ship is occasionally nicknamed "Rusty".
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Go ahead, call Olimar incompetent for not using the Nova Blaster to destroy the meteor. You will get a lot of angry Pikmin fans demanding you Read the Freaking Manual for the first game to see that Olimar had set his ship on auto-pilot at the time for a route he traveled many times before, or the fact that the meteor blind-sided him before he could react to it. This isn't even going into the hints that the Nova Blaster doesn't even actually work and Olimar was ripped off in buying it.
  • Despite their similar appearances, Alph and Olimar are entirely different characters, so it's not a good idea to confuse them with each other.
  • Olimar being mute, due to his divisive depiction in the Super Smash Bros. series. Olimar speaks pretty frequently in his surprisingly deep voice, especially in Pikmin 3.
• Fandom VIP: Arlo is known to be a huge fan of this series, talking at length of how he loves the series despite its niche audience. He was very happy that the series became more mainstream thanks to the Newbie Boom caused by Pikmin 4.
• Fanon:
  • White Pikmin were not in Pikmin and thus cannot be tested against it, but it's often theorized that they'd be immune to the Puffstool's spores and/or the Smoky Progg's gas, should they appear in the same game one day. This is due to the white Pikmin's toxin immunity. These would ultimately be Jossed with Pikmin 4 bringing back both enemies, with the Puffstool having a new type of non-toxic spore attack that confuses Pikmin and makes them dance around it, whereas the Smoky Progg's poison is simply too toxic for even the White Pikmin to withstand.
  • The Pikmin Onions possessing some form of sentience is pretty common, thanks to being smart enough to follow the captains around, knowing they'll propagate more Pikmin. Just how sentient they are, though, varies from person to person.
  • The Pikmin life cycle being Pikmin -> Candypop Bud -> Onion is a pretty common theory, despite leaving the Pikmin in the ground long enough just resulting in the Pikmin cycling through the usual leaf -> bud -> flower cycle in game. The fourth game actually seems to hint at this, as it classifies the Onions as being part of the Candypop family (though still as a different species than Pikmin or Candypop Buds proper).
• Fountain of Memes: Louie. With his awkward yet charming mannerisms, his quotable Piklopedia entries ^example  Inedible, taste like chicken , his ability to survive the hostile Pikmin planet boosting him to Memetic Badass status, and his large supply of funny facial expressions which have been used throughout various reaction pics.
  • With Oatchi and Moss both being cartoon dogs with funny expressions, they slotted in well to many meme templates, as well as a few involving a Good Vs. Evil schtick with Oatchi and Moss, respectively. The latter trailed off after players found that Moss was not an antagonistic or evil character, but simply very loyal to Olimar (and later Louie)
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • There is some overlap between Pikmin and Katamari Damacy fans. Both feature tiny space-antenna-wearing protagonists with a world of bizarre designs and unconventional gameplay for their genres (Action and Real Time Strategy respectively). The two also have a major focus on space theming, and have a decent amount of crossover art together. The two are even both examples of smaller franchises from their respective companies that spent long periods of time without much attention from them, only to gain a resurgence within the Ninth Console generation.
  • Quite a lot of Plants vs. Zombies fans are also fans of Pikmin as well, with a lot of crossover fanart between the two series being created and a lot of Pikmin fan mods containing numerous Pikmin-themed remixes of Plants Vs. Zombies music. It makes a lot of sense actually, considering the similarities between the two franchises; both being Strategy Games that have you commanding an army of Badass Adorable plant creatures who battle against monsters that try to defeat them by eating them. Even the almanac from Plants Vs Zombies is strikingly similar to the Piklopedia from Pikmin.
  • For whatever bizarre unknown reason, a lot of Pikmin fans seem to really enjoy Pizza Tower, as it isn't uncommon seeing many of them fondly praising the game and even posting memes featuring the Pizza Tower characters all over Pikmin fan subreddits and discord servers, along with making Pikmin-themed spins of various Pizza Tower content.
  • Lethal Company has also caught attention to many Pikmin fans as of late, likely due to the many similarities between the 2 games; both starring spacemen employees forced to enter planets filled with hostile wildlife in search of materials and loot.
• Game-Breaker: Each game so far has had one type that contends for this:
  • The Yellow Pikmin's Bomb Rocks in the first game, provided you can actually use them without accidentally blowing a massive hole in your Pikmin squad. When used correctly, they can two-shot most enemies, and make the final boss much easier.
  • Purple Pikmin so much in the second game. They are almost twice as strong as Reds attack wise, and have a homing ground pound that not only deals heavy damage to enemies, but stuns them as well. They also count for 10 Pikmin when carrying items, meaning you can simply toss one or two Purples on a treasure and go to do something else. The only downsides are Purples are horribly slow and lack immunities to any elemental hazards, but their combat strength more than makes up for it.
  • In the third game, both Rock and Winged Pikmin are this. Rock Pikmin deal heavy damage when thrown and are immune to crushing and piercing hazards (including the only directly fatal attack of the final boss), while Winged Pikmin can break puzzles wide open by simply charging them at whatever you're trying to collect, overcoming the need to even do the puzzles in the first place.
  • In the fourth game, Oatchi in general. You and your entire Pikmin squad can hitch a ride on Oatchi after the first couple in-game days, and his increased on-foot speed makes avoiding many enemy attacks a breeze, even against most of the bosses. Furthermore, with enough investment in Pup Power upgrades, Oatchi becomes a Jack of All Stats Lightning Bruiser that can, among many other things, single-handedly clear out entire hordes of smaller enemies by himself by charging through them, stun larger enemies so long that even many bosses can be killed before they can even get one attack off (especially in combination with the aforementioned Ice Pikmin), transport non-Blue and Ice Pikmin across large bodies of water unscathed, ignore most environmental hazards and carry pretty much any treasure or creature you find by himself back to the ship/onion. The only notable drawbacks are not being able to use the Charge Horn while riding him, and he can't fit through certain passageways once he grows, but he more than makes up for it in his overall utility, and that's without mentioning the fact that he can be buffed even further with certain items, like Ultra-Spicy Spray just like Pikmin, and with Scrummy Bones to increase his HP.
  • Purple Pikmin once again in the fourth game, for the same reasons as 2. They are even more overpowered than they were in Pikmin 2 if combined with Oatchi, as the pup completely negates Purples' slow speed, which is their main downside otherwise.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Snitchbugs are this due to their habit of carrying Pikmin or captains to bury them in the ground.
  • Bulborb Larvae. These cute critters can munch your Pikmin in zero time flat, and the Empress keeps spewing them out. One sublevel in the Hole of Heroes lands you directly facing the Bulblax's birth canal, making distracting them with a captain necessary to move to the fight area without losing any Pikmin to them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Pikmin 2, Olimar's notes on the Disguised Delicacy boast that if fruits from the Pikmin planet could be cultivated on Hocotate, nobody would ever go hungry again, before lamenting his utter lack of knowledge and talent in agriculture. In Pikmin 3, the three new captains seem to have hit upon the exact same idea, as their objective is to gather seeds from the Pikmin planet to save their home planet, Koppai, from a food shortage.
  • There's also how you can have Pikmin carry the playable characters back to base in the first two games. Louie must be carried back twice in the third game, and the entire final area is saving Olimar from the Plasm Wraith.
  • This fanfic is based on how the author thought the Piklopedia would look if there were notes based on the new monsters in the third game. The Switch port of the third game brought the Piklopedia back, with Olimar, Louie, and the Koppaite captains writing entries for it.
  • In Episode 2 of Pikmin Shorts: "Treasure in a Bottle", the main conflict is a Red Pikmin stuck in a ramune soda bottle. Come the full release of Pikmin 3, and the new Pikmin species are the Rock and Winged Pikmin. Both would've instantly solved the problem by either smashing the bottle or airlifting the Red Pikmin out.
• Inferred Holocaust: The "good ending" of the first game shows the Pikmin going off to fight a Bulborb after you leave, showing how you've helped them learn to survive on their own. Nonetheless, at the beginning of every following game the Pikmin always appear to be near extinction with few to no Pikmin remaining in every Onion, suggesting they haven't fared so well without Olimar after all. Indeed, after Olimar goes AWOL in Pikmin 3 every Onion is found in a bad way, which carries only the bleakest implications about the survival of the Pikmin without a captain to guide them (unless, of course, Olimar was using a separate group of Onions during his escapades pre-capture). Pikmin 4 mitigates this with wild Pikmin being in most of the caves, confirming that there is a larger population out there who are doing decently on their own and that the Pikmin recovered near their Onions are not the only members of those respective species.
• Iron Woobie: Poor Olimar can't catch a break no matter what game he shows up, but keeps a stiff upper lip regardless:
  • In the first game, he crashes on a planet full of dangerous creatures while in the middle of a vacation, given thirty days before his life support system fails. His only hope of salvation are the Pikmin, the planet's only creatures that are friendly to him. Fail to repair his ship within the thirty days given, and Olimar tries to lift off but crashes yet again, his lifeless body being carried back to an Onion which transforms him into an Olimar-Pikmin hybrid.
  • Once Olimar's ship is repaired successfully, he returns home in the second game only to find out that the company he works for is in massive debt due to the actions of his coworker Louie. He immediately has his beloved ship repossesed and is sent right back to the deadly planet he just escaped from, along with Louie, to collect treasure in order to repay the debt.
  • Even when he pays the debt off (and later rescues Louie), his troubles continue in Pikmin 3 where he's sent back to the planet yet again in order to help pay off another debt. Eventually he's captured by a mysterious creature (the Plasm Wraith) that holds him hostage in a perpetual stasis until he's rescued by the Koppites. All the while he's being kept away from his beloved family, exploited by his employer, and made to work with the thorougly unhelpful Louie.
  • In the Continuity Reboot of the fourth game, Olimar crashes on PNF-404 for the first time once again, but this time his failure to escape is actually canon, and he's transformed into a Leafling, having to be rescued and cured by the Rescue Corps. His ID badge in the game even notes that he seems to be a magnet for bad luck.
• LGBT Fanbase: For no particular reason, though they make up a surprising portion of the fanbase, especially in the Twitter and Reddit circles. It's part of the reason why "There's straight people in the Pikmin community?" and "Homophobic Dog"^note Moss, a character from Pikmin 4, has a squinty-eyed expression in preview material that has caused fans to jokingly compare it to the memetic "Homophobic Dog" thanks to its similar habit of looking like it's staring judgmentally at the viewer, and from that it's been joked that Moss is judgemental, bigoted, or otherwise a bit of a Jerkass. Moss isn't actually that bad, and only opposes the player in Dandori Battles. became community memes.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Each game in the series has one type that falls under this:
  • Yellow Pikmin in the first game are largely situational due to the lack of electrical hazards, meaning their primary use is for carrying bomb rocks to tear down stone walls. Once these walls are gone, there's no real need to use Yellows at all, not helped by bomb rocks themselves being a Scrappy Mechanic. Yellows' high throw ability is extremely underutilized as well, only really being used for a grand total of 3 ship parts in the entire game.
  • Red Pikmin in the second game, due to their combat abilities being outclassed by Purple Pikmin, and their immunity to fire not being very helpful in general since fire geysers can be dispatched by any type, and simply whistling can save any non-reds that are on fire.
  • Blue Pikmin are barely utilized in the third game due to how late they are unlocked, the addition of Winged Pikmin that can bypass water hazards, and the general lack of underwater fruits in the game overall. Their only real use is for a section in the Garden of Hope near where you unlock them, then a handful of fruits in other areas from optional backtracking.
  • Purple Pikmin fall under this in the third game due to severely nerfing their attack power and removing everything that made them so overpowered in the second game (such as their wind resistance and ability to stun) other than their carrying strength and slow speed, making them more of a hindrance than anything else. The fact that Purple Pikmin are only available in a select few Mission Mode and Bingo Battle stages has had fans wondering why the nerfs were even necessary in the first place.
  • Winged Pikmin are generally seen as lackluster in the fourth game due to their onion being discovered extremely late in the game (at the point where you've basically completed everything else anyway), as well as the removal of flukeweeds and bamboo gates, making them much less useful and unique than they were in the third game. Their weak attack power and lack of immunities (that were carried over from 3), the number of other types available for use (such as whites and purples), and the three type limit make them undesirable or inconvenient to use compared to Pikmin obtained earlier in the game, since there isn't very many situations where they are needed for. On top of this, Winged Pikmin's unique pathfinding from 3 was removed, meaning they simply take the same paths as other Pikmin rather than taking advantage of their flight capabilities.
• Memetic Badass: Yellow Pikmin of all things appear to be this. 3 implies that Yellow Pikmin are the most successful species of the original three. Besides having the most versatile abilities of the original 3 (Can be thrown high, be immune to electricity, carry bomb rocks again, and generate their own electricity), a colony of 30 of these guys can be found at the start of Pikmin 3. Meanwhile, you'll only find four Reds at the start of the game and Blue Pikmin had seemingly gone extinct again. This implies that out of the primary three Pikmin types, they're the ones who have been the most successful to surviving without a leader. Some fanon has even portrayed Yellows as being the first Pikmin to transition from animal to primitive civilization.
• Memetic Loser: Blue Pikmin are seen as this by a large chunk of the fanbase due to being the most "average" type of Pikmin with no utility beyond their water immunity and no special abilities four games in, consistentaly being the last type to be unlocked three games in a row, almost always being in a horrible spot when you find them (like almost going extinct in the third game), and being more likely to die than any other Pikmin type. Others however view them more as a Woobie Species for these exact reasons.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Louie's note on the Mamuta. "Inedible. Tastes Like Chicken."
  • Steve the Trooper. ^Explanation In Chuggaaconroy's playthrough of the first game (which, at the time, was the biggest exposure that the series had on YouTube), he named one of his red leaf Pikmin "Steve" and treated him as a Butt-Monkey. Steve turned his reputation around much later on, when Chugga found a Red Leaf attempting to carry a Fiery Blowhog by itself, and dubbed him a "trooper" for the effort. Steve quickly became an in-joke with fans afterwards, though it eventually became a Discredited Meme due to Chugga getting tired of the gag, which only got worse when it became apparent that several Pikmin LPers were becoming irate at having Steve mentioned in their videos despite having no idea who he was. It's telling that Chugga has only given Steve small nods in his later Pikmin playthroughs, and even the community itself has shied away from referencing him these days.
  • Olimar's Psycho Smirk from the animated short Midnight Juicer is an occasional reaction image.
  • "See you all again in nine years!" or some variation of the phrase has quickly started to pick up in the fandom, with Miyamoto dropping hints about a possible Pikmin 4, mirroring his early hints about 3, and considering Pikmin 3's infamous Sequel Gap was already something of a meme in the fandom... Hilariously, it would take 8 years before any solid information about 4 was shown off, and with the confirmation of a 2023 release date, it would take 9 years before the next game came out.
  • "We're making Pikmin." ^Explanation A phrase that was spoken by Miyamoto at an E3 event during Pikmin 3's development. It was used, often sarcastically, in the rather long wait up for Pikmin 3 since phrases along this line were the only things Miyamoto was willing to say about it at most events until its official unveiling at E3, to the point people questioned whether or not it was truly in development at the time. Started to pick up steam again after Pikmin 4's development started to get rather lengthy in its own right.
  • "I LOVE MY YELLOW PIKMAN!!!!! HE LOVES SWIMMBING!! :DD" ^Explanation This meme originates from a 4chan post showing a picture of someone holding a plush toy of a Yellow Pikmin underwater while claiming that "he loves swimming" despite that in the games, Yellow Pikmin cannot swim. Cue other posters panicking about the drowning Pikmin.
  • "Very close to completion" ^Explanation Originating from an interview with Miyamoto where he mentioned that Pikmin 4 was likely close to completion... nearly a decade before the game was even properly announced, much less released. The phrase became an in-joke with fans during the lengthy wait.
  • "Mom! Dad! Pikmin 4 is out!" "That's right! Pikmin 4 (for) [x]!" ^Explanation A preexisting meme format using the "Bart's dead" scene from "Itchy and Scratchy Land", which was frequently applied to Pikmin-related things released before Pikmin 4 (such as "Pikmin 4 your mouth" with the Pikmin-themed gummies, or "Pikmin 4 the 3DS"), and then to the actual game itself.
  • The Whiptongue Bulborb is popular in emotes and reaction images for its expression of constant dread.
  • r/pikmin^Explanation The main subreddit of the series has become somewhat infamous for the often bizarre nature of its posts. This especially became noticeable during the Sequel Gap between 3 and 4, leading to jokes that the 9 year wait had driven the subreddit to madness.
  • Dandori issue ^Explanation The Japanese word dandori is used in Pikmin 4 as a term meaning a person's ability to organize and manage tasks efficiently, which is the main challenge of the Pikmin series. Fans took a liking to it and now use "dandori issue" as a popular phrase in response to making catastrophic and/or silly mistakes in a similar manner as "skill issue". This was made funnier when Miyamoto himself said that people who are bothered by their Pikmin dying need to practice their dandori.
  • im fag? ^Explanation A screenshot of a Blue Pikmin standing in a body of water with this text has become a reaction image among the community, sometimes used to comically reflect on one's coming out.
  • No one out-Pikmins the Hut ^Explanation A meme started on the Pikmin subreddit as a pun on Pizza Hut's tagline, and soon grew somewhat out of proportion as a running joke on there.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Louie sometimes gets this treatment, either because he caused the company's debt by eating the shipment of Gold PikPik Carrots, his Piklopedia notes making him look like a psychotic chef wanting to cook PNF-404's wildlife, his notes even including some larvae of certain animals; Mind-controlled a massive Dweevil as Olimar and the Ship speculated, or nearly dooming a civilization to extinction by stealing the Koppaite's Juice. In Pikmin 4 it's possibly ascended into the franchise itself, as he's the main antagonist of the second half of the game.
  • The Pikmin themselves also tend to be portrayed like this, with many parodic depictions of them being psychotic invasive pests who wreak havoc on the various wildlife of the lands they forage on.
• Moe: The Pikmin are adorable plant-like aliens with big, round eyes and high-pitched voices. They sing childish tunes while following the protagonists, whom they form a strong bond with.
• More Popular Replacement: The Glow Pikmin have slowly started to become this to the Bulbmin from Pikmin 2. While Bulbmin still have their fans that clamor for their return, a lot of people have come to perfer Glow Pikmin more over them and generally consider them better than Bulbmin. Not only are they immune to all hazards like Bulbmin, but they can also teleport immediately to the player so they can never get lost, have an insanely overpowered explosion attack that can stun enemies, and their Creepy Cute designs coupled with their cool and unique ghostly appearances that make their designs look much more cooler and interesting than the Bulbmin.
• Polished Port:
  • The New Play Control! Wii versions of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 were sworn as the definitive way to play the games by many fans before the Switch port's release, due to making the cursor controlled by pointing the Wii Remote rather than having to finagle it with the GameCube control stick, allowing a lot more aiming freedom. In addition, the port of Pikmin adds in the quality-of-life updates from Pikmin 2, including a day-select feature and being able to swap which Pikmin type you're throwing. Their only issues are being slightly glitchier, lacking the option to use the original control scheme, the changes to bomb rocks in Pikmin (idle Pikmin don't drop both when whistled, which removes a few strategies), and the removal of Totaka's Song from Pikmin 2.
  • The 2023 Nintendo Switch ports of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 have since supplanted the New Play Control! versions, retaining their quality of life improvements while also upscaling the game to HD and fixing what issues the Wii versions had (most notably fixing the bugs and mapping camera controls to the right stick, while also providing a motion control option for those who prefer the finer control the Wii's pointer gave) and of course being able to be played on the go. The only real changes are the complete removal of product placement and the theme song Ai no Uta, presumably for licensing reasons.
• Recurring Fanon Character:
  • Back in the really early days of the fanbase, the IGN board about the series had several characters that originated from fanfics that would not only appear in others' fics, but also in several Play-by-Post game threads. The most notable of these was "Blacknight", a villain character originating from this Script Fic who quickly became the go-to villain for most stories on the board and an Anti-Hero in some others.
  • The Pikmin subreddit would have you believe that the original Gamecube version of the first game included a second captain: Fiddlebert, a small, green, Lithuanian-speaking clone of Olimar who was removed from the Wii and Switch ports of the game due to his extremely racist dialogue.
• Sacred Cow: The charming presentation and unique gameplay has made the Pikmin series amongst some of Nintendo's most beloved franchises, which is only fueled by their Cult Classic status and the games being a personal pet project of Shigeru Miyamoto. Because of this, even so much as lightly criticizing the games is not recommended unless you want to anger fans. You might get away with criticizing Hey! Pikmin due to how divisive it is (but even so, the game has its fans), but the main console games are off-limits.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Disbanding the Pikmin in tight/confined spaces. There'll be situations where you need to seperate your large group into individual types to better deal with hazards/obstacles up-ahead. Not a problem in wide open places, but in some levels this is a nightmare. The Pikmin often spread out, getting distracted by something of interest, fall off ledges, slowly slide down slopes, or bump back into you thinking you're summoning them again.
  • The camera has been a light though persistent criticism of the games due to the tedium of cycling between zoom levels and the occasional difficulty of changing the view to what you need to be looking at. The camera controls were rather clumsily mapped onto the D-pad in the Wii ports of the first two games, making accidental camera shifts a common occurrence while swarming.
  • The Auto-Lock system in 4, while generally good at snapping to things while exploring, can often be a nuisance in tight spaces or combats with already dead enemies due to its tendency to snap to irrelevant targets. Notably, the Trials of the Sage Leaf are made more difficult due to its tendency to prioritize corpses (which are completely useless to collect in these challenges, and leave the Pikmin completely exposed to attack when thrown to them), especially the 7th trial, where the sheer number of enemies makes it a toss-up on which one your Purple Pikmin will be thrown to.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • Attempting to beat the story mode of each game without losing any Pikmin. The only mode across the series where this is required is Challenge Mode in Pikmin 2, but otherwise it's the most common challenge run for the series.
  • The pinnacle challenge of each game is a minimum-days run, each game having a theoretical minimum days possible (without abusing glitches to acquire other Pikmin types early or get collectables early). Pikmin's is six days, Pikmin 2's is eight days, and Pikmin 3's is ten days, all just barely possible (though 3 requires many time-saving exploits due to how large each level is).
  • With Oatchi added to Pikmin 4, many players have tried completing the game as much as possible without using him. Others have tried doing it with only Oatchi, rejecting Pikmin entirely.
• Spiritual Successor: One could see this series as one to the Ecco the Dolphin series despite being made by Sega's former rival given that they have tonal and visual similarities, are set in worlds where nature itself wants you dead and use a sound based item as a core gameplay mechanic. Pikmin 2 even has dungeon music similar to music from that series.

• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Olimar's home planet Hocotate is often pronounced "HOE-koh-tayt" by fans, but it actually uses the Japanese pronunciation "hoe-koh-tah-tay."
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The short films look amazing. They use about ten times the fidelity of the game's models, and Occupational Hazard has 500 Pikmin onscreen at once.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The games are often marketed towards kids, with their colorful visuals and the titular adorable Pikmin, and the highest age rating any game has ever gotten is an E10+. They're also filled with copious amounts of Family-Unfriendly Violence, terrifying monster designs, Piklopedia entries that range from disgusting ^example  Louie using a creature's liver as food sause to pure Nightmare Fuel ^example  Sheargrubs feasting on the skin of dead Pikmin , horror levels that put Survival Horror games to shame ^example  The Submerged Castle or The Formidable Oak , and ongoing themes of War Is Hell and Nature Is Not Nice all throughout, which are often played horrifically seriously with little comedy or satire in sight. To say the games push their E10+ rating to its absolute limit would probably be an understatement, to the point its almost become a meme amongst the fanbase to sarcastically call the series "kid friendly."
• Woobie Species: It's hard not to feel bad for Blue Pikmin, especially since they never get any extra powers in the new games and are almost always shown in a horrid spot by the time the player encounters them like almost going extinct in Pikmin 3. Not helping matters is their immunity to water isn't even unique or special anymore, due to the addition of Bulbmin (which resist all four elemental hazards) in 2, Winged Pikmin (which can fly over water) in 3, and Ice Pikmin/Otachi in 4, which allow other Pikmin types to traverse across water.

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