Video Game / Pikmin 4

Pikmin 4 is the fourth main installment of the Pikmin series, first announced during the September 13, 2022 Nintendo Direct, released on July 21, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch.

Serving as a Continuity Reboot of the franchise, the game opens with Captain Olimar recounting the story of Pikmin (2001)... except halfway through, he encounters a space dog. One thing leads to another, and this time around, Olimar is able to get out a distress signal to get help in the event that he's unable to find all his ship parts. Enter the Rescue Corps, an interstellar humanitarian organization who, after receiving that distress signal, immediately journey to the uncharted planet of PNF-404 to rescue the cargo pilot. However, as they approach the planet's orbit, their ship experiences a mysterious malfunction, causing the group to crash land on the planet and scatter most of the corps across it. Now, it's up to you, the rookie who stayed behind to look after headquarters, to step up and save the day. With the help of the Rescue Corps' own space dog, Oatchi, you must take command of the Pikmin, rescue your allies — and countless other unfortunate castaways who have found themselves stranded on the planet for one reason or another — and hopefully rescue Captain Olimar.

Trailers: Announcement Trailer, February 2023 Direct Trailer, Venture Forth, Brave Explorer Trailer, June 2023 Direct Trailer, Overview Trailer

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Pikmin 4 contains examples of:

Tropes A-B

• Ability Required to Proceed: Frozen Inferno's entrance is surrounded by flames that cannot be put out, so both the Rookie and Oatchi need the Scorch Guard in order to enter. This is the only cave that requires an upgrade to go inside.
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Leaflings regularly refuse to let you have Castaways unless you best them in Dandori Battles.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Seeing as this is an alternate timeline of the first game, all returning enemies, characters, and Pikmin types that debuted after the first game fall under this.
• Adaptational Villainy: In all of the previous games he was in, Louie was a troublemaker who caused grief for those around him, but it was mostly due to his appetite or a misunderstanding. Though 2 suggests he may have been controlling the final boss, it doesn't give a definite answer on whether he actually was. All that was known definitively about him was that he was a lazy, incompetent glutton at worst. In this new continuity, Louie is shown to be actively malicious and dangerously impulsive, abandoning his mission to find Olimar in favor of dining on the local wildlife as well as trying to turn more castaways into Leaflings after Olimar is cured, and straight-up attempts to murder our heroes for following him into the Cavern for a King in search of the giant dog whose cells can cure Oatchi.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Cavern for a King takes after the Wistful Wild caves in 2 by having its theme change over the course of its many floors. Most floors are the standard dirt cave, but it has some metal sublevels, some toybox sublevels, some "swamp" sublevels otherwise exclusive to the Mud Pit, and so on.
• Ambiguously Related: Nelle the veterinarian from Koppai is mentioned to be related to a famous botanist, who is heavily implied to be Brittany from Pikmin 3. It's pretty likely that she is related, considering that her co-worker Yorke is stated to be Dr. Drake's grandson and mentions his thirteenth younger brother who is adept with machines (meaning he's Alph's older brother) and she also resembles Brittany a fair bit. Don Bergman slightly resembles Charlie, at that, but he isn't directly mentioned to be related to him. However it is mentioned how he had a rivalry with someone who went by the nickname "Ducky", which could have been Charlie (considering his love of rubber ducks and general duck motif).
• Animal Theme Naming: The characters are all named after dog breeds: Collin (Collie), Erma Shepherd (German Shepherd), Russ (Russell Terrier), and the list goes on. The S.S. Beagle is also in the same boat as everyone else.
• Another Side, Another Story: The "Olimar's Shipwreck Tale" mode, unlocked after rescuing Olimar and reaching the credits for the first time, focuses on Olimar's journey to repair his Dolphin after he crashed, prior to sending out his SOS signal. It features only the original three Pikmin species and focuses on collecting 30 ship parts with a 15-day time limit, essentially making it a truncated remake of Pikmin (2001).
• Anti-Frustration Features: This game introduces several new helpful additions:
  • Once you recover functionality to the S.S. Shepherd, it will always be used as a base of operations where time doesn't pass before every expedition. The base has a few pellets that can be used to build up a bit of the desired Pikmin color to be better prepared in case of a shortage of Pikmin at the beginning of an area.
  • Whistling at Pikmin that are not idle and working on some kind of task will have them briefly pause what they're doing instead of immediately rejoining your squad like in previous games. Continuing to whistle will call them back, but letting go of the whistle will have them resume their current task. This helps players call idle Pikmin back to their squad without accidentally interrupting nearby working Pikmin. Additionally, quickly whistling on an object that has more Pikmin working on it than the minimum number needed to carry it will call back only the excess Pikmin.
  • If you use Button Mashing to throw Pikmin at something they can carry, push, or pull down, once the minimum number needed to do so has been thrown, the game will temporarily stop you from throwing any more until you stop mashing so you can more easily conserve Pikmin for other tasks.
  • Similar to Pikmin 3, if Pikmin are ordered to retrieve a pile of items, they will automatically return to it to carry more after bringing it to the ship; but now, if the item runs out and doesn't respawn, the Pikmin will stay at the ship instead of returning to the now empty pile. If there are Pikmin on the way back when the task is finished, they'll double back and return to the ship as well.
  • The Pikmin move much faster when following you, to the point where they actually speed up if they start to fall behind.
  • After the Pikmin complete a task, they'll automatically rejoin you if you're nearby, but if there are items they can carry close to them, the minimum needed to carry them will do so while the rest will join you.
  • Just getting close to a Pikmin will get it to follow you instead of having to physically touch it like in previous games. Additionally, this won't happen for a few seconds if you just disbanded the Pikmin, as that would defeat the purpose of disbanding them to begin with.
  • In addition to the version of dismiss in Pikmin 3 Deluxe, which disbands every Pikmin but the type you're currently using in your squad, the original version that disbands every Pikmin at once is available as a button shortcut, saving you the trouble of disbanding Pikmin twice if you're a player that frequently goes solo.
  • Drowning Pikmin can jump much higher onto solid ground than before, and will also attempt to swim to the closest shore on their own, making it easier for them to survive. Pikmin that cannot swim will also no longer follow you into water, even if you whistle for them.
  • Maps (both on the overworld and in large caves) now have multiple spots that can serve as bases which the player can move the ship and Onion to after discovering them — and, in some cases, clearing them of enemies — making it easier to return any treasure or defeated foe. Moving base will also automatically bring over any Pikmin who were resting at the previous location, and your most recently used overworld base location in a given area will serve as your landing site when you next visit.
  • You are able to select what Pikmin you can bring into a cave right before you enter it, when in Pikmin 2 you needed to travel back to the Onion and do so manually if you believed your current squad wasn't up for the task. By extension, you can choose the Pikmin who'll exit with you upon leaving.
  • Caves now have fixed layouts instead of being randomly generated, making it easier to devise the best strategy to clear them. Obstacles also remain cleared on repeat visits, and enemies won't respawn in caves until every treasure and castaway is retrieved.
  • After reaching a sublevel in a cave, you have the option to skip to that floor if you revisit the cave. You can also return to the surface at any point if things go sour, taking any treasures, materials and Pikmin you've found with you instead of abandoning them like in Pikmin 2.
  • The maximum Pikmin limit reduction introduced in this game (where you start off only able to have 20 Pikmin out on the field and increase it by finding Flarlic) does not apply in caves, allowing you to add any wild Pikmin to your party without concern. They will also be automatically added to the Onions when you return to the surface. Likewise, the three Pikmin type limit is also lifted if you encounter wild Pikmin in the caves.
  • If you go into a cave without a Pikmin type that is needed for it and isn't found as wild Pikmin inside of it, the game will spawn a Candypop Bud in order to convert some of the Pikmin you have to the needed color.
  • You are now able to use a Rewind Time feature to return back a set amount of time — determined by when the player last completed a significant task such as collecting treasure or rescuing someone — if they make a mistake or lose any Pikmin, rather than needing to restart the entire day.
  • Pellet Posies will freeze to the color they were on when Pikmin first begin attacking them, preventing them from cycling and dying in a color you don't want, a common problem with the larger Pellet Posies in previous games. They also will only cycle if a Pikmin of a specific color is out on the field and they have an Onion. Example: If you only have Yellow Pikmin out, the Pellet Posies will remain Yellow.
  • When a task is completed, the game will inform you on what happened, making it easier to know when an important one is done. The map also adds icons showing a new path is available until you reach it.
  • Time is automatically paused while you're using the Survey Drone, allowing you to scout an unknown area at your leisure before entering it. You also have the option to resume time, which is helpful if you want to see when Pikmin are done carrying something to the ship or Onion before moving them to a new base. Any objects you see with the Survey Drone will show how many Pikmin are needed for it, making it easier to know how many you'll need when entering a new area. The Treasure Sensor will also react based on how close the Survey Drone's cursor is to the treasure, which is handy for finding treasure that's completely buried.
  • Just encountering a creature will add it to the Piklopedia, when previous games required you to either kill it or bring its body back to the Onion/ship first, especially since it's possible to freeze and shatter enemies with Ice Pikmin which leaves nothing to bring back. The Piklopedia also allows the player to trial a fight with any enemy registered in the compendium with unlimited health, Pikmin, and items, making it easier to learn how an enemy fights and how to engage it in battle.
  • Should any Pikmin get left behind at the end of the day, you're given the option to rewind time just before sunset in order to try and get all of them to safety.
  • Once the player has completed Olimar's Shipwreck Challenge, and complete the Trial of the Sage Leaf that unlocks afterwards White and Purple Onions can be unlocked for the first time in the series, meaning that the number of Purple and White Pikmin can be easily increased without visiting caves to use Candypop Buds or collect wild Pikmin.
  • Bomb Rocks are now a collectible item, which means they can be stored for whenever they're needed. They're also handled and thrown by the captain, rather than the Pikmin, reducing the potential for accidents caused by unruly AI.
  • Should you close the game while playing Olimar's Shipwreck Tale, you'll spawn right in front of Olimar the next time you start the game, allowing you to pick right back up where you left off.
  • When locking on to a blob of nectar and throwing Pikmin at it, the game will automatically prioritize Leaf Pikmin, then Bud Pikmin, preventing any unnecessary Flower Pikmin being thrown at it (unless they are the only maturity of that color in the squad at the time) and speeding up the process slightly.
  • The Ultra Spicy Spray will now affect all Pikmin (and Oatchi) regardless of distance. They also prevent Pikmin from losing their flowers while it's active.
  • If Oatchi falls into a Bottomless Pit, he'll just warp back onto solid ground unharmed. Any Pikmin that were riding on Oatchi will also be safe.
  • One unlockable item is the Idler's Alert, which calls all idle Pikmin to the spot where it was used. This can save you the trouble of having someone go back to base to gather idle Pikmin.
  • The Homesick Signal will cause all Pikmin outside of your squad to return to base, similar to the S.S. Drake's "Assemble All" feature in Pikmin 3 Deluxe, except while that one required you to be next to the S.S. Drake to activate it, the Homesick Signal can be used anywhere.
  • After you save Dingo, if you fail a Dandori Battle, Dandori Challenge, or Night Expedition, you have the option to have him do it for you instead, although you will miss out on some rewards like raw materials from Dandori Challenges or glow seeds from Night Expeditions. It will also be marked with a picture of Dingo's face instead of a gold flower until you complete it yourself.
  • When the Pikmin scatter around Hero's Hideaway during Olimar's Shipwreck Tale, any Pikmin that aren't retrieved and added to your squad won't count towards idle Pikmin on the map, which prevents them from becoming sunset casualties should you fail to retrieve them.
  • The Final Boss has multiple phases that make it a lengthy and challenging fight, but the game does offer some leniency:
    • The Rewind Time feature allows you to start from a previous phase instead of restarting the whole fight.
    • The Pikmin will never lose their flowers if the boss shakes them off.
    • Pikmin that are holding onto the boss's tail will not let go until the boss is pulled down, even if you whistle at them. This is especially helpful in the last phase of the fight where the boss spreads a hazard that instantly kills Pikmin.
  • In Pikmin 2, the Onionless types (Purple and White Pikmin) would pick a random Onion to deliver Pellets and corpses to if there are no Red, Yellow, or Blue Pikmin carrying it. In Pikmin 4, Onionless types (and Oatchi) will instead always deliver to the color that has the lowest number of Pikmin if only Onionless Pikmin/Oatchi are carrying something, making it easier to even out numbers and allowing the player to predict what color the Pikmin will deliver something to.
  • Collecting every treasure will automatically unlock every Voyage Log entry, preventing the need to do anything out of the way to unlock some a player might have missed. One in particular is only normally unlocked when all Pikmin of a certain color are wiped out, so this will let the player unlock it without having go through losing a certain type (through either death or Candypop Bud conversion).
  • Unlike in Pikmin 2, Candypop Buds respawn every time you visit a cave. That, alongside how you can select which specific floor to enter, makes the process of obtaining 100 Purple Pikmin for the Golden Vaulting Table much less painful than the similar grind for the Doomsday Apparatus in Pikmin 2.
• Anti-Hoarding: Failing a Dandori Challenge will still give you 10 raw materials for trying, so your effort isn't wasted. Trying to abuse this by intentionally failing will eventually give you a single raw material instead.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: A norm for the franchise, but the limit is different than other games. You start out able to pull a scant 20 Pikmin from Onions in the overworld, but collecting an item called Flarlic increases that limit by 10. Also, you can only have three different types of Pikmin out at a time. Both limits can be broken by wild Pikmin found in caves, who add to your squad despite its count and makeup, but you are still limited to bringing in up to three types and up to the number you can bring via Flarlic. 100 Pikmin remains the maximum cap, however; upon reaching 100, all future collected Flarlic are just converted into nectar and Ultra-Spicy Nectar, while Wild Pikmin will no longer spawn if you already have a full party. Caves are still limited to having six types of Pikmin (seven counting Glow Pikmin), as Candypop Buds are programmed so that they will change color if they would normally result in there being more than six daytime types, but this can normally only be observed by taking Rock and/or Winged Pikmin in to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Arc Words: The Rescue Team loves to work word around the term "Dandori", which is a real Japanese word roughly meaning "procedure". The concept of Dandori is efficiently organizing your tasks so that you can complete them as fast as possible, and can roughly be considered analogous to "proper planning". The Leaflings are also completely obsessed with the idea to the point that it's the only thing that most of them can even talk or think about.
• Art Evolution: The Onion takes on a more biological look akin to the pre-3 titles, looking more like a garlic bulb, as opposed to the more biomechanical look they took on in 3.
• Artificial Outdoors Display: Seafloor Resort is a cave set in a series of aquariums that have wallpapers showing a sunny beach across one of its walls, giving the slight illusion of being an oceanic area. The Mud Pit and certain floors of Cavern for a King repeat this, except with a wallpaper of a thick forest background and huge pools of mud rather than water, making the floors resemble mud puddles in the middle of a swamp.
• Ascended Extra:
  • The Man-at-Legs was just another boss in the second game. Here, it replaces Emperor Bulblax as Olimar's last opponent in his quest to repair the Dolphin.
  • The Smoky Progg returns as a boss in the Cavern for a King, but this time, it's not an optional battle - you must defeat it to progress through the cave. Additional Smoky Proggs can also be found in night missions, as opposed to the lone hidden one from the first game.
• A Taste of Power: The prologue as Olimar features three Onions of the original three types fused together, a green Rescue Pup at full size, and a large enemy of complex physiology who you can more-or-less easily defeat. None of the Pikmin are needed for their specific types, but the Yellow and Blue Pikmin aren't discovered by the player character until way later. (Way later can mean the first area, as a Blue Onion is in fact obtainable with sufficient Ice Pikmin and clever puzzle solving. A Yellow Onion is far easier to obtain, being behind a crushable bag.)
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The fight with the Ancient Sirehound is set to metal music, the first time we hear electric guitars in any Pikmin game.
• Background Music Override: When the Waterwraith appears in Engulfed Castle prior to the final floor, the chase theme will override any usual jingle that plays when a treasure is collected or a task is finished. This is so that the jingle would not break the tense atmosphere.
• Balance Buff:
  • After punching was nerfed to near uselessness in Pikmin 3, it's now closer to how it was in the earlier games where it's much easier to hit enemies. There's even an upgrade that grants a 3-hit combo like the Rocket Fist in Pikmin 2, although its range and power isn't as impressive.
  • Yellow Pikmin are even better at digging than they were in 3, as they now dig 4x faster than the other types instead of 2x.
  • Purple Pikmin can once again damage enemies with their Ground Pound after it was removed in 3, although the stunning effect is still absent. This can happen even if the Ground Pound doesn't occur if the Purple Pikmin is thrown straight onto the enemy.
• Banana Peel: Bananas are treasures, and are referred to as the "Slapstick Crescent" as a reference to the gag of somebody slipping on banana peels. Olimar even mentions that such a thing happened to him once.
• Big Bad: The Red Leafling (actually Olimar) serves as the primary antagonist in the main game, while Louie takes over for the post-game.
• Big Friendly Dog: While small on a human scale, this game introduces a friendly doglike creature called Oatchi that can be used to cart around the main character and some of their Pikmin across water, carry objects with the strength of multiple Pikmin, and sniff out castaways, treasures, and other objectives. He can even be controlled independently like a second captain when he's separated from the player character.
• Blackout Basement: Some caves are exceptionally dark, with only a small space of light around the Rookie or Oatchi. The Headlamp upgrade can be used to increase this range of light, and the game will warn the player in advance if the cave in question requires it before the Headlamp is purchased. The earliest cave that has this mechanic is Sightless Passage, which Olimar even names after its lack of light.
• Boss Rush:
  • The Cavern for a King has you fight almost every boss in succession en route to the Final Boss, with the occasional rest or puzzle floor to break up the action.
  • The ninth Trial of the Sage Leaf Story, Turf Turmoil, requires fighting four bosses/minibosses^note A Porquillion, Foolix, Burrowing Snagret, and Emperor Bulblax and two Mama Sheargrubs within five minutes.
• Bottomless Pit: Olimar's notes conclude that the machine-type cave levels take place above bottomless pits after he threw a screw over the edge to test the depths, yet never heard a sound afterwards.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Oatchi's ultimate skill, the Infinite Rush, can only be learned after learning every other skill in Oatchi's arsenal, and the amount of Pup Drive required to learn it requires you to have rescued every single Castaway and Leafling, as well as completed every single Night Exploration in order to finish curing every Leafling. By the time you've done all of this, you will have completed every single cave in every area. It does help you traverse long distances for free, which is useful if you're running around the overworld maps trying to find whatever few pieces of treasure you're missing, but you've most likely cleared at least 95% of the game by this point. Downplayed in the case of Olimar's Shipwreck Tale, because unlocking Infinite Rush also gives the ability to Moss, which has allowed players to finish the entire mode within 4 days.
  • Taken up to an extreme with The Extra Hand, a suit upgrade for your captain. This item is obtained not only after beating the game and rescuing Louie, but also by doing all of Louie's tasks which require you to enter cleared caves and bring back the bodies of various creatures so he can eat them. What does the item do? Why it lets your captain assist in carrying objects. How strong is your captain? ONE pikmin strong.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • This is the first Pikmin game that actively lets you make your own captain.
  • The player can now explore at night instead of having to return to their spaceship as in previous games, though your usual group of Pikmin won't accompany you, with the player instead making use of the new nocturnal Glow Pikmin.
  • Previous numbered Pikmin entries took place in the grassy outdoors, with the only hints of human civilization being the various objects scattered about. 4 has the player exploring actual locations of human civilization, from gardens, to backyards, to the interior of a house.
  • The red Leafling is the first clearly sapient antagonist confronted in the series, complete with dialogue. All the prior enemies Pikmin protagonists had to directly face on PNF-404 were animalistic creatures that were, at most, only ambiguously sapient. Louie also serves as an antagonist later in the game, marking the first time a former player character has served such a role.
  • Pikmin in the first three mainline games were always encountered in a linear order^note Red, Yellow, and Blue in 1; Red, Purple, White, Yellow, and Blue in 2, with all caves with Bulbmin in them requiring Blue Pikmin; Red, Rock, Yellow, Winged, and Blue in 3, with the only exceptions being Sequence Breaking glitches. 4 continues the trend of Red Pikmin being found first, but otherwise the types can be obtained in nearly any order, although the game heavily leans on getting Yellow and/or Ice Pikmin next. Another first for the mainline series is that Blue Pikmin are not found last^note excluding the temporary Bulbmin from 2, and due to how the caves are arranged, it is very likely that they will be encountered before Purple and Winged Pikmin in any given playthrough. In fact, unlike in previous games, even the Onions themselves (except the Red Onion) are completely optional.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Clearing Olimar's Shipwreck Tale unlocks a new cave in the hub area known as the Trials of the Sage. In it is a series of ten brutal Dandori challenges each with its own special gimmick. Clearing the first five awards you the White Onion, while fully conquering it nets you the Purple Onion.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: Primordial Thicket, the final area of the game, is a swampy forest featuring several areas of mud that even Blue Pikmin can't survive in, but it can be frozen with a certain amount of Ice Pikmin, which is necessary to reach some treasures. One of its caves, The Mud Pit, is also swampy and has plenty of mud, hence the name.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • The underground caverns return from Pikmin 2, along with enemies like the Empress Bulblax and the Bulborb Larva.
  • This game marks the return of many enemies that last appeared in Pikmin 2 like Dweevils, the Emperor & Empress Bulblax, the Man-at-Legs, and the Waterwraith, and even a few that haven't been seen since the first game such as Pearly Clamclamps, adult Cannon Beetles, Puffstool, and the Smoky Progg, making this their first appearance in the series in over 22 years.
  • After being delegated to the side modes in Pikmin 3 and being completely absent from Hey! Pikmin, Purple and White Pikmin make a return to the main story mode for the first time since Pikmin 2 in 2004.
• But Thou Must!: Cutscenes occasionally give the player one of two options to pick as a response for the player character. These choices never have an impact on gameplay, either they are two different ways of responding the same thing (usually whether or not it would be appropriate to respond "Copy that!") or the protagonist making one of two guesses at a situation.

Tropes C-F

• Canine Companion: The Rescue Corps' Oatchi and Olimar's dog Moss, who functionally work like captains with added abilities to make exploration easier in other areas a normal captain can't do.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Oatchi and Moss are referred to as dogs despite the fact that they look quite different from any Earth dog in real life, instead being bipedal Waddling Head creatures. Muddling this further is that the Ancient Sirehound is explicitly a native dog of PNF-404 and resembles a real dog the most, but shares the same bipedal body plan of Oatchi and Moss despite a majority of the Treasures depicting dogs as quadrupedal.
• Call to Adventure: Olimar's SOS signal was not only picked up by the Rescue Corps, but it was also picked up by many other people of different vocations who saw an interest in scavenging the planet for their own ends, be it scientific research, wealth, or just plain curiosity. They all crash land as well and have to be rescued one by one by the player.
• Canon Immigrant: Sparklium, an element introduced in the 3DS Spin-Off Hey! Pikmin, makes its appearance in the mainline games, with the same role of being extracted from treasures (and small amounts from the wildlife) to power up your ship.
• Central Theme: Dogs are given a heavy emphasis here with Oatchi and Moss being prominent characters, the Animal Theme Naming of virtually every character with a dog breed, the shopping bag ramp obstacles are from pet stores and certain treasures (most notably the Buddy Display) explicitly feature dogs. The final boss is the Ancient Sirehound, which is a giant scraggly dog that's heavily implied to have previously been under the ownership of humans given its aged collar.
• Character Customization: This is the first Pikmin game that actually allows you to customize your own captain to play as. Picking the color for your captain's suit also decides the color of the rest of the Rescue Corps' suits, as well as the designated accent color for anything related to the Rescue Corps.
• Chekhov's Gun: Right before exploring the fourth area to rescue Olimar, Oatchi is shown to have grown a leaf tail, just like Moss. After rescuing Olimar, the Rescue Corps attempt to return to HQ, only to find Oatchi ill for some reason. Olimar orders the Rescue Corps to return to PNF-404, and upon landing, Oatchi becomes fine again. The Rescue Corps soon learn that the leaf tail is making Oatchi unable to survive outside PNF-404, thus beginning the corps' mission to find a cure.
• Chest Monster: Cracking open an egg may cause a Downy Snagret or Sunsquish to appear instead of Nectar. The Foolix also disguises itself as a blob of Nectar in the open as well.
• Clock King: All Leaflings, including the red one actively transforming Castaways into them, all have a heavy fixation on good Dandori skills and constantly spout efficiency tactics. Olimar laments that he would've been home safe if he was just a bit more efficient with his life support system's time before having to send an SOS signal.
• Console Cameo: Various Nintendo systems, controllers, and game discs/cartridges are scattered throughout the game as collectible treasures in the "Newly Nostalgic" series.
• Company Cross References:
  • Nintendo consoles and controllers are present as treasures part of the "Newly Nostalgic" series, in addition to a few games^{Specifically...}the Micromanagement Station (a Game Boy Micro), the Glinty Circular Disc (the game disc for Wave Race: Blue Storm), the Life Controller (an NES control pad), the Spinning Memories Plank (the cartridge for Kuru Kuru Kururin), the Masterpiece Plank (the cartridge for Famicom Mukashibanashi: Shin Oni Ga Shima), the Telekinesis Detector (a left Joy-Con), the Connection Detector (a right Joy-Con), the Creativity Conduit (an SNES Mouse), the Stone of Advancement (a Game Boy Advance SP), and the Winged Freedom Sculpture (a WaveBird wireless GameCube controller). Completing the "Newly Nostalgic Series" set will have the Kuru Kuru Kururin and Famicom Mukashibanashi: Shin Oni Ga Shima Game Paks inserted into the Game Boy Advance SP and Micro (respectively) when viewing the entire collection, and both will display their respective title screens complete with music.
  • The "Memory Fragment" series are puzzle pieces that, when completed, form the cover of Nintendogs: Dachshund & Friends.
  • There are three music box treasures in the "Soulful Musician" series: while one plays the title theme to Pikmin 3, the other two play the Song of Storms and Piranha Plant's Lullaby when carried to the Beagle.
  • The unique damage type that the Smoky Progg and the Ancient Sirehound can both use is a glowing-red substance that instantly kills any and all Pikmin that touch it. The name of this damage type? Gloom.
  • The Glow Pellets that are used to propagate the Lumiknolls to create more Glow Pikmin look an awful lot like Star Bits from the Super Mario Galaxy games.
  • Some treasures, such as the items in the Recreation Recollection series, bear the "Marufuku" ("丸福" in Japanese) brand. Marufuku Co., Ltd. was the hanafuda and playing card distribution company that would later become Nintendo Co., Ltd.
  • Giya, the home planet of several Rescue Corps members, is named after "Kagiya-cho", the location of Nintendo's original headquarters in Kyoto and the current location of the Marufukuro Hotel.
  • The Rookie's home planet, Karut, is named after "karuta", a type of Japanese playing card that was one of Nintendo's most successful products before entering the toy and video game industries.
  • The five cookies in the Sweet Tooth Series have the same designs as the ones from Yoshi's Cookie. In addition, the heart-shaped cookie is called the "Hearty Container".
  • One of the civilian castaways, Beaux, is an actor who has previously played the roles of "a cheerful yet sprightly plumber, an adventurer who can ingest anything, and even a hero with a traumatic past."
  • The Final Boss, the Ancient Sirehound, is practically a Bowser fight with different elemental effects, from grabbing the tail to make the boss vulnerable to two different breath attacks and Shockwave Stomps, with the spiked collar and guitar-heavy battle music bringing the comparisons home even further.
  • The cards containing the code to open the bunker in Hero's Hideaway are called the Power Emblem, Wisdom Emblem, and Courage Emblem.
• Continuity Reboot: This game takes place in a completely new timeline. It becomes more clear as Olimar's notes are unlocked, and it is all but outright stated in Olimar's Shipwreck Tale that this is his first time on the planet. In addition, the premise of 2 only exists as a nightmare Olimar has one night and something that Louie one day hopes to have the opportunity to do, and the Koppai food crisis from 3 is mentioned offhand as being imminent, but not having happened yet in the game's second half.
• Darkness Equals Death: Night expeditions are dangerous with enemies gaining red eyes and moving faster than during the day. Even worse, some expeditions even feature boss enemies such as Emperor Bulblaxes, Baldy Long Legs, and Smoky Proggs.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The ending shows the Ancient Sirehound, despite trying to kill the Pikmin earlier, socializing with them. Justified as it's implied Louie was controlling it during its fight.
• Delayed Explosion: It doesn't matter how long a creature's eating animation is when they are tricked into eating a bomb rock. The bomb rock will patiently wait for the creature to completely ingest it, and then explode.
• Delicious Distraction: Pikpik carrots in this game are items which you can throw at enemies who proceed to eat them as a distraction... only for the 'delicious' part to be subverted as they literally get paralyzed by the bitter taste. Russ admits that these are actually inedible dud carrots he had to weed out from the Rescue Corps' food supply and figured they'd be more useful as field items instead of throwing them out.
• Demo Bonus: Completing the demo allows you to transfer your progress to the full game as well as a bonus five bomb rocks, in addition to being able to send completion data to your My Nintendo account in order to redeem a free code that gives your player character in the spin-off mobile game Pikmin Bloom a "riding Oatchi" costume.
• Denser and Wackier: Between castaways being turned in to leafy creatures that sing about Dandori/organization, a disco ball-esque Arachnorb that can make airhorn noises and get Pikmin to "dance" around it, and small space dogs capable of holding whole watermelons in their mouths, this is the goofiest mainline Pikmin game as of its release. It is especially a contrast from the relatively "realistic" direction Pikmin 3 had taken the series prior.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If your custom character has the same appearance as one of the castaways, they will comment on it and will have a different suit color from you so they won't look exactly identical.
  • If you reach the bottom of the Engulfed Castle without encountering the Waterwraith even once, Collin's dialogue when it appears says there must be a way to beat it instead of telling you to run away.
  • The Olfactory Sculpture is a lit candle that can actually burn Pikmin if you throw them at the flame.
  • If you try to leave a sublevel without collecting all of its treasures, the game will throw a warning and give you the option to stay. But if you have collected every treasure, yet there are Gildemandwees and/or Gildemanders hanging around, the game will still show the warning because the treasure radar is being messed up by those enemies.
  • Fire starters are usually maintained by throwing them at bonfire altars, but you can also reset them by hitting a Fiery Bulblax, as its skin is naturally lit aflame.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The mysterious leafling. Upon unlocking the password safe in Hero's Hideout, the Rescue Corps discovers the leafling, who challenges the player to one final Dandori Battle. After defeating him, the leafling admits defeat and reveals his true identity as Captain Olimar before passing out. After Olimar's pup Moss runs away, the Rescue Corps brings Olimar back to their base and cures his leafling state, completing their stated mission to rescue him and allowing them to leave PNF-404. However, right before they can return to HQ, the Rescue Corps discovers that Oatchi has fallen severely ill, causing Olimar to command the ship back to PNF-404. He explains that he suspects that the leaf that Oatchi has sprouted on his tail is preventing him from surviving outside of the planet's atmosphere, and the leafling cure that the Corps currently has is unable to cure him. Furthermore, after leaving PNF-404's atmosphere, the Corps received a delayed message from Rescue Corps HQ requesting them to extend their mission to pick up a large number of other stranded survivors on the planet, which not only includes Olimar's co-worker Louie but also several Koppaites in undiscovered locales. The Rescue Corps decide to continue their quest on PNF-404 to not only save the missing survivors but to develop a cure for Oatchi so they can return home together.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • Despite the "bad ending" from the first Pikmin game coming to pass, Olimar is freed from his mutation. Additionally, since Louie has been present on the planet after being tasked to find Olimar himself, the incident that caused Hocotate Freight to go into debt will not occur in this timeline, meaning he'll actually be able to go home to his family instead of being immediately forced to go on a return trip.
  • The Rescue Corps not only complete their mission, they also recover enough treasure to keep them afloat from their money troubles according to their logs.
  • The Pikmin also get one as Moss becomes their new permanent captain with her ability to whistle, and the Ancient Sirehound also joins them, ensuring their species' protection and propagation.
• Easter Egg:
  • You can get unique dialogue from the Rescue Corps and castaways if you talk to them while playing as Oatchi.
  • The Soulful Artist collection, which is a series of paint tubes of multiple colors, all correspond to a type of Pikmin. They're often found in the same cave you're likely to first discover their associated type (I.E. the Refreshing Goo (Cyan) is found in Last-Frost Cavern, alongside Ice Pikmin), and their state of use even corresponds to the age of the Pikmin types, with Red, Yellow and Blue being almost empty, while Cyan and Neon are still full.
• Eternal Engine: Several caves have an industrial theme and feature conveyor belts, floating platforms, and bottomless pits. These stages appear to take place inside a giant construction site, if the backgrounds are anything to go by.
• Everything Fades: All enemies killed during night expeditions will fade away, as opposed to enemies in caves and in the day leaving behind remains. Larger night enemies will leave behind piles of Glow Pellets, but most of them simply turn to nothing.
• Evil Counterpart: A recurring antagonist that looks like a cross between Olimar and a Red Pikmin challenges the player to a "Dandori Battle" in order to rescue one of the castaways whom they also turn into Leaflings. They also have their own Pikmin-esque Oatchi, who looks exactly like Olimar's own Canine Companion. Later on, it's subverted as the creature really is Olimar and is simply trying to protect the castaways. The second half of the game plays it straight with Louie, who takes Olimar's companion Moss and becomes an actual antagonist.
• Evolving Title Screen: After unlocking Hero's Hideaway, the title screen has a chance to start out showing the scenery of Sun-Speckled Terrace before the camera zooms out. The original forest setting is revealed to be a display on a television, and the title sequence shows some Pikmin and Oatchi on a kitchten table.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter how fast you complete Olimar's story, the end result remains the same as if he doesn't get all the parts in time: he ends up back on PNF-404 with his life support failing, and becomes the red Leafling. The only difference is that he canonically returned to the planet out of concern for a stowaway Moss, as opposed to a last ditch escape attempt.
• Festering Fungus: Several enemies are covered in mold that is capable of poisoning Pikmin. "Sticky mold" is also a recurring obstacle that prevents Pikmin from grabbing objects it covers until they destroy every mushroom on the mold's surface, which can also come in poison varieties.
• Fisher Kingdom: While the castaways need to be put through an Onion to be transformed into Leaflings, Moss and Oatchi only needed extended time on the planet to experience a similar but more subtle transformation that likewise renders them incapable of leaving it.
• Forced Transformation: The red Leafling is shown using an Onion to transform castaways into Leaflings like him. The ending of Olimar's story shows that this is how he became a Leafling in the first place.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In one of the voyage logs, Olimar muses that the only other way to survive in the planet, theoretically speaking, would be to become part of the plant life by assimilating into it, which he laughs off. This comes to pass to castaways who end up being kidnapped by the Dandori battle rival and their Canine Companion. When brought back to the ship, the Rescue Corps members note that they're still very much alive despite their suits lacking life support.
  • Looking at Oatchi in the earliest levels will show that he has a puffball at the end of his tail. After advancing in the story the puffballs become a Pikmin-like leaf similar to Moss' tail. This signifies a plot point after the recovery of the ship's crew and rescue of Olimar is complete, that he has adapted to the planets atmosphere and grows sicker the further he's taken from it. This begins the game's second story arc of searching for a cure for his condition.
  • In the Primordial Thicket, the final level of the game, you're likely to come across a suspiciously placed giant boulder in a specific corner of the map, savvy players may attempt to have Pikmin pick it up or just destory it to no avail. Players have every reason to be suspicious however, as later on it's revealed to have been blocking The Very Definitely Final Dungeon the whole time.
  • One of the Mechanical Harps plays the main theme of Pikmin 3. In his notes, Olimar mentions that the melody is sending him an omen for troubles in the future.
  • In his entry for Winged Pikmin, Louie mentions he had a dream where he was abducted by a flying creature, which happens in Pikmin 3.
  • In the cutscene for finding a Blue Onion, Collin wonders if there is an Onion for every Pikmin type — despite Olimar's notes on Purple and White Pikmin saying that those types only seem to come from Candypop Buds. Collin turns out to be correct, there are Purple and White Onions as well, they're just hidden in a Brutal Bonus Level.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: The Rookie is given the mission to rescue a total of fifty people on PNF-404, including the Rescue Corps. Fortunately for them, they run into Collin within the first minute of gameplay, and Captain Shepherd shortly after, both in the tutorial area. They are also the only two rescues who do not need to be carried back to the S.S. Beagle, and Collin is the only one found on the surface.

Tropes G-Y

• Gender-Inclusive Writing: The character creator has no gender options and the player character is referred to only with they/them pronouns.
• Giant Mook: This game introduces several giant sized versions of specific enemies, like the Titan Blowhog and the Masterhop. They're mostly just bigger and beefier versions of their smaller counterparts, who have achieved their impressive sizes through a variety of environmental factors.
• Gone Horribly Right: Downplayed example. The SOS signal Olimar sent with his Interstellar Radio does bring the Rescue Corps to his aid, but also lures a number of other space travelers, who end up shipwrecked and needing rescuing themselves.
• Gotta Rescue Them All: One of the major collectibles of the game are castaways that have found themselves stranded on PNF-404, being scientists, treasure seekers, and even tourists who heard that Olimar's SOS signal, followed it to PNF-404, and crash-landed in the process.
• Hailfire Peaks: Frozen Inferno is a cave that starts out fire-themed, accessed from a burning stove and keeping fire throughout, but all sublevels after the first are freezing and have several ice hazards. One of the main mechanics in the cave is using fire-starters to warm up torches so that the Pikmin do not freeze on the ground in colder areas. Unsurprisingly, the cave makes heavy use of Red and Ice Pikmin.
• Harmless Freezing: Being frozen doesn't kill enemies or Pikmin, but it does leave them vulnerable. Subverted in that if you finish them off in that state, they completely break apart with no corpse to retrieve.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Olimar's Shipwrecked Tale ends with this. Fail to get the ship parts? Olimar can't get off the planet in time and almost dies, having to be turned into a Leafling to save his life. Get all of the parts? Olimar successfully leaves the planet's surface, but Moss stows away on the ship and gets sick outside of the planet's atmosphere, forcing Olimar to turn around and let his life support fail him either way. Given Olimar was already revealed to have become the Red Leafling, this is inevitable.
• Hub Level: The Rescue Base Camp. You can interact with members of the Rescue Corps and Castaways you've retrieved, with them providing upgrades, side-quests, and other miscellaneous features for you to peruse before going on an expedition.
• Humanity's Wake: While it was always present in the previous games, with treasures and other manmade objects being present in stages, Pikmin 4 makes it incredibly obvious that PNF-404 is Earth after humanity disappears, with the game taking place in the outskirts of a small neighborhood with tons of manmade structures still recognizable:
  • Sun-Speckled Terrace takes place in someone's backyard, with gardening equipment scattered around the area, and even having a bench as a landmark. The owner's house is visible in the background.
  • Blossoming Arcadia is a school playground with toys and playground equipment scattered around. A playground slide is visible in the distance, alongside what appears to be a schoolhouse.
  • Serene Shores is further away from the town, being near the sea in an area with several tide-pools, but there's still a big sandcastle built on the beach.
  • Hero's Hideaway foregoes all subtelty by taking place in an intact house, specifically in its living room and dining area.
  • Giant's Hearth takes place right outside a campsite, with the titular hearth acting as a major landmark for the stage.
• An Ice Person:
  • This game introduces Ice Pikmin, who can not only freeze enemies but also freeze bodies of water depending on the size and are immune to ice-based attacks.
  • Several new enemies in this game can also utilize ice powers, many of whom are icy variants of recurring enemies, such as the Snowy Blowhog, its giant counterpart the Blizzarding Blowhog, their floating cousin the Icy Blowhog, the Chillyhop (a Wollyhop who can create pools of ice upon landing), and Frosty Bulborbs and their juveniles (Bulborbs with ice crystals on their backs). Two new bosses are also ice-themed — the Snowflake Fluttertail, a Moth Menace who can freeze Pikmin by beating frozen air at them, and the Arctic Cannon Beetle, a fully grown version of the Artic Cannon Larva. Furthermore, the Ancient Sirehound uses ice attacks in its second phase.
• Instant-Win Condition: During Night Expeditions, defeating all enemies will instantly end the mission. This is because protecting Lumiknolls from the enemies is the main objective, and so without any enemies, it would become impossible to lose the missions anyway.
• Interface Screw: In caves with dry ice lying around, frost will form on the sides of the camera until you destroy it. Collin's remarks that it's frosting up the lens implies that the Rescue Corps are watching Rookie's actions through an In-Universe Camera.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • When loading into a Night Expedition, you may get a tip for dealing with the Smoky Progg a while before you see it.
  • The area completion percentage in the Primordial Thicket doesn't reach 100% even after you collect every treasure and castaway and the Treasure Sensor shuts off, indicating there's still more to do there that isn't visible yet.
  • It's pretty obvious that finding Olimar isn't the true end of the game when there are still quest objectives that can't be completed in the areas you have up until that point. Even more so if you 100% every area before getting Olimar, where you get a quest that tells you to 100% another area.
  • The existence of the White and Purple Onions is implied through Pitunia's quests even if you haven't been shown the Onions yet. Even after you find Onions for the five types that have had them in the past plus Ice, she still has quests asking you to fuse the Onion two more times.
• Left Hanging: The mystery of what's causing all the ships to crash onto the planet is left unresolved by the end of the game.
• Leitmotif: Just about every non-boss enemy in the game has a short instrumental melody associated with them that will begin playing whenever the player draws near, and become even more intense when the enemy attacks.
• Level of Tedious Enemies: The seventh Trial of the Sage Leaf, One Fell Jump, consists of nothing but a room with nine Shearfleas and a whopping ninety Bulborb Larvae. The goal of this challenge is to kill them all in a tight time limit, taking advantage of Purple Pikmin shockwaves to do so. In this case, the difficulty comes from their sheer numbers, and not the nature of the enemies themselves.
• Lighting Bug: The Glow Pikmin, Pikmin who can glow in the dark.
• Lilliputians: While the series as a whole uses this trope, the shift in camera perspective really plays up this trope in comparison to past Pikmin games. There are some truly huge set pieces this time around, such as benches, playgrounds, and an actual house that can be explored to really hammer home just how small the protagonist and Pikmin are compared to everything else.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • You cannot drive Pikmin extinct in this game. Their Onions will always yield one Pikmin seed if you completely run out of Pikmin. You can run out of certain Wild Pikmin types for a time, but they can be re-gathered in some areas.
  • While the planet you're on is still heavily implied to be Earth, The implications that humanity is extinct^note the heavy radiation and very scant traces of humanity in 1 and 2, and the continent layout in 3 resembling how Earth would look in 250 million years are massively toned down. This is addressed in the prologue as Olimar, which is in a giant house that has children's drawings.
  • The game's art style as a whole is more colorful and cartoony than the previous games, especially the relatively dark and realism-leaning style of 3.
• Literally Shattered Lives: The Ice Pikmin can subject most monsters to this, where frozen monsters shatter into nothing when their health is depleted. Although this leaves you with nothing to carry, this instead leaves you a blob of nectar. Pikmin can also be victim to this themselves if they get shattered.
• Macro Zone: While this has always been the case throughout the series, this is especially notable in Hero's Hideaway, where the normal-sized furniture is enormous compared to the player character and their Pikmin. So large, in fact, that portal fans and holes in the walls and floor are used to travel the area.
• Mercy Mode: Failing a Dandori challenge or night expedition gives you the option to have Dingo do it for you, which is essentially a "Skip Level" button.
• Mini Mook:
  • Pikmin 4 introduces Downy Snagrets, which are basically fledgling Burrowing Snagrets that live aboveground.
  • Aristocrab Offsprings are, as the name implies, younger Peckish Aristocrabs. They function as smaller versions of their older counterparts from Pikmin 3, largely behaving the same, with the additional ability of hiding in the ground.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The version history on the tablets used by Olimar and the player character, when combined, reference the release date of the first game, with Olimar's being 10.2.6 (October 26) while the player's is 20.0.1 (the year 2001). The Internal-Clock Measurer also reads 2001.
  • Way back in the first game, Olimar makes mention of how the Grub-Dog Family (encompassing the Bulborbs of the series) resemble his dog, Bulbie. This game introduces the dog-like aliens Oatchi and Moss, and we can now see where the inspiration comes from, as they have the same body-plan as a Bulborb.
  • The Leaflings seen (including Olimar, the Red Leafling) are Pikmin-castaway hybrids created by putting a castaway's body through an Onion. In the first Pikmin game, the bad ending shows the Pikmin bringing Olimar to an Onion to be reborn as a Pikmin with a Pikmin leaf sticking out of his head.
  • Olimar's notes on the Yellow Pikmin mention he's glad he didn't call them Ear Pikmin. In Pikmin 2, the Hocotate ship says it would've called them Ear Pikmin if it got to name them.
  • The plot of the game is set in motion by one of Olimar's ship parts, the Interstellar Radio, which he mentioned back in the first game he could use to send out an SOS Signal.
  • The final area has a treasure with a weight of one thousand, requiring a full squad of 100 Purple Pikmin to lift since it's in an area that's off-limits to Oatchi. This is a pretty obvious nod to the Doomsday Apparatus from Pikmin 2 which fits almost the exact same description, down to the environment it's found in.
  • Many of the cave sublevels are built from same-shaped units as the ones used for random generation in Pikmin 2. A few even directly copy some of the unique cave rooms/floors, such as the boss sublevels in Kingdom of Beasts and Ultimate Testing Range, the entirety of the Engulfed Castle, and the fifth Sage Leaf challenge.
  • The themes of Sunspeckled Terrace, Blossoming Arcadia, and Serene Shores in Olimar's Shipwreck Tale incorporate the themes of the Impact Site, Forest of Hope, and Distant Spring from Pikmin 1.
  • One of Olimar's logs mentions a dream where Hocotate freight got into severe debt, so much debt that it could never be repaid, which is the basis for the plot of Pikmin 2.
  • The Koppaites mention that Koppai is going to have a food crisis, and they are going to find fruit to stop it. The food crisis happening is the basis for the plot of Pikmin 3. They also mention that getting fruit only slows the food crisis down. This is mentioned as a possible outcome in endings where only some of the fruit is gathered.
  • The three Koppaites you rescue, Yorke, Nelle, and Don Bergman, each bear striking resemblences to the three Koppaite protagonists of Pikmin 3 Alph, Brittany, and Charlie, respectively.
  • A Red Bulborb and some of its young are encountered in the Engulfed Castle, which are standing in for Bulbmin.
  • Louie notes that the Memory Song Mechanical Harp is best accompanied with a cup of fruit juice.
  • The opera singer Vonda mentions one of the pieces she performs being called Song of Love, the English translation of the Strawberry Flower song (Ai no Uta) created to promote the first Pikmin game.
• Nerf:
  • Previous Pikmin titles had a headcount limit at 100 right from the start, with Pikmin 3 Deluxe's Ultra-Spicy Mode being the only exception (capping it at 60). In Pikmin 4, the limit is reduced to 20 by the start, and has to be upgraded in increments of 10 by collecting Onion-like pickups called Flarlic. Apparently, the in-game explanation is that the Pikmin are now less courageous when not commanded by a captain.
  • While previous games allowed you to use every available Pikmin type at once, this game only allows three types of Pikmin to be on the field at a time, barring wild Pikmin and using Candypop Buds in caves.
  • In Pikmin 2, it was possible to duck in to a cave in the last seconds of daylight and spend as much time as needed clearing out that particular cave, with no need to worry about rounding up Pikmin as they would return to their Onions/ship automatically. In this game, the player is not allowed to enter a cave during the final sunset countdown, and time still passes at 1/6 the rate while inside a cave instead of freezing entirely. However, the game will also not progress past the start of the countdown until the player emerges, so as long as the player is willing to sacrifice that small amount of time, the exploit is still possible.
  • After being removed in Pikmin 3, Pikmin can once again lose their flowers if an enemy shakes them off, and they can also lose them if they get hit by a survivable hazard or panic. The game does use the more lenient system from the first Pikmin where they're downgraded to a bud first, instead of going straight to leaf like in Pikmin 2.
  • Rock Pikmin and Winged Pikmin were immune to nearly every form of crushing in the previous game, but this game makes both of them more vulnerable to it. Rock Pikmin will die if the ground beneath them is too hard, while Winged Pikmin will get squashed if they're on the ground, with some enemies even able to squish them while they're airborne.
  • Purple Pikmin are no longer immune to panicking.
  • Digging speed is no longer tied to attack strength. While this means White and Winged Pikmin are better at digging, it also means Red, Purple, and Rock Pikmin are worse at digging.
  • Electricity can kill Pikmin again after 3 had it merely stun them, but they can be still be rescued from it by whistling instead of dying instantly like in 2 like the fire and water hazards.
  • The ability to attack enemies' eyes to stun them that was introduced in Pikmin 3 is gone.
  • Pikmin that are left buried in the ground overnight will no longer grow into Flower Pikmin the next day.
  • Bomb Rocks are now a consumable item instead of respawning in the environment. While this allows the player to use them anywhere, finding them in the environment is very rare and it costs raw materials to make more. This means overusing them can deprive the player of materials needed for upgrades and traversal.
  • A new item is the Ice Blast, which can freeze enemies when it explodes, similar to the Ultra Bitter Spray from Pikmin 2. However, it takes time for the Ice Blast to explode compared to the Ultra Bitter Spray working instantly, making it more suited for ambushing an enemy than escaping a dire situation. They're also harder to replenish since they cost raw materials to make instead of renewable berries.
  • The map no longer shows the location of hidden enemies like Sheargrubs hidden underground or Skitterleaves disguised as leaves.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night: Though nighttime has always been considered more dangerous throughout the series, this game marks the first time you can actually go out on missions at night and experience the danger firsthand. Because the native creatures are more active and hostile, night expeditions become tower defense-esque missions where you have to use a special kind of Pikmin called Glow Pikmin to continuously fight off advancing creatures. Some of the later areas even have stronger enemies that never appear in said areas during the daytime, such as Emperor Bulbaxes and even Smoky Proggs.
• No-Sell: Whenever Louie tries to enact a Forced Transformation on the Koppai castaways, they aren't turned into Leaflings by the Onion since they had been drinking juice made from Glow Sap, which is the key ingredient to the Leafling antidote.
• Noob Cave:
  • The Burrow of Beginnings is the first cave explored in the game, consisting of a simple linear path leading to Captain Shepherd. The only enemies present are three Bulborb Larvae, weak enough to be taken out in one hit even by the player character. Part of the low difficulty is because this cave is entered before obtaining any Pikmin.
  • The caves found in Sun-Speckled Terrace count as well. They never go past two sublevels, and feature very few enemies that can pose a legitimate threat to your Pikmin, as well as not having any full boss dedicated sublevels. The closest thing to a "boss" is a Tusked Blowhog in one of the farther caves, and even that is barely more threatening than the Bulborbs prior and becomes a standard enemy later on in the game. Once you enter the next area, the sublevels become longer and more involved with more dangerous enemies.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • The Kingdom of Beasts' name is a combination of the Hole of Beasts and Bulblax Kingdom from the second game, but it is really more of a recreation of the Emperor's Realm from that game's Challenge Mode. The arenas for both the Empress and Emperor are taken wholesale from their first encounters in those two respective caves, however.
  • The Engulfed Castle is a love letter to the Submerged Castle from the second game, complete with being limited to Blue Pikmin and the return of the Waterwraith. The boss fight with it at the end is a recreation of its original fight, where you use Purple Candypop Buds to completely turn the tables on it after four floors of it being unkillable. To tie the bow on this nostalgic present to long time fans, this is also the earliest possible cave where you can get Purple Pikmin and the Waterwraith drops a Nintendo GameCube disc as a reference to the second game's debut console (although it's a copy of Wave Race: Blue Storm).
  • Plunder Palace is a reference to Glutton's Kitchen from the second game, as a cave with a toybox aesthetic with electrical hazards, Bulbears, and a heavy focus on Breadbugs. A pair of Giant Breadbugs mark the boss of the cave, and even have a remix of their unique theme from 2.
• Old Save Bonus: Completing the demo will give you five bomb rocks for the full game. Completing the demo or starting a Pikmin 4 save file will also allow you to earn a special costume for the Pikmin Bloom mobile game which is an inflatable costume making you look like one of the Rescue Corps riding Oatchi.
• Once More, with Clarity: At the start of the game, you go through a tutorial with Olimar leading up to when he finds his radio. Once you finally unlock the final level of Olimar's Story, the first day in that area is a repeat of the tutorial, but is expanded to explain why the Pikmin acted how they did; a Gildemander was in the Hero's Hideaway and its electromagnetic waves were confusing the Pikmin.
• Only You Can Repopulate My Race: A G-Rated version is implied by the Pikmin, who may or may not have infected Oatchi, Moss, and the Leaflings out of an instinct to secure a permanent leader after seeing how much their numbers grew with their guidance.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: Lumiknolls are usually given a blue beam of light to indicate their location from the map, and they appear as blue sillhouettes when seen behind walls. On night missions with two Lumiknolls, the second one is instead color-coded with orange, to easily tell them apart.
• Palmtree Panic: The Serene Shores is a sandy beach area with water that lowers midday and also features a giant sand castle (relatively speaking). A large body of water is present regardless of the time and some of the treasures are found underwater. Several aquatic enemies are also present, such as clams (Pearly Clamclamps), mollusks (Toady Bloysters), pufferfishes (Pricklepuffs), and crabs (Peckish Aristocrabs and their newly introduced offspring). When Olimar travels to this area during his Shipwreck Tale, a mix of this area's theme and the theme that played in the Distant Spring (another beach level) plays.
• Protection Mission: Pikmin 4 introduces Lumiknolls, which are special structures that erupt from the ground in places your Onions have touched down during Night Missions. They are the only way to propagate the Glow Pikmin as well asglow sap which can cure Leaflings. However, the Lumiknolls have to last until morning intact before they can produce it and on PNF-404 the various organisms grow even more ferocious. Not only that, but the Lumiknoll itself glows brightly to lure these creatures so they can (hopefully) be defeated and reduced to glow pellets to procreate the Glow Pikmin. Thus, the player is frequently tasked with using Oatchi and the Glow Pikmin to guard the Luminknoll from the vicious, nocturnal fauna long enough for the glow sap to be produced.
• Plant Person: Leaflings are space explorers who've been put through an Onion and turned into half-Pikmin hybrids.
• Playable Epilogue: It is possible to resume playing the game after getting the true ending, which effectively rewinds time to just before the S.S. Shepherd's launch with some reason given as to why the Rescue Corps. have not taken off yet. If the player had not obtained all treasures and castaways, the launch is said to be delayed until they have done so; if they have, the launch is delayed until HQ is ready to accept all the rescues. Playing after the ending also grants access to Louie's sidequests, since the game otherwise ends immediately after rescuing him.
• Power Up Letdown: The Extra Hand upgrade, which lets a Captain carry items for the first time in a Pikmin game... with the carrying strength of a singular Pikmin, albeit it with movement speed almost as fast as a White Pikmin. For added insult to injury, it is effectively post-game content, as it is rewarded for clearing all of Louie's sidequests, rendering it that much more useless.
• Pre-Ending Credits: The first part is about the Rescue Corp trying to rescue Olimar as well as collect treasure to get enough sparklium to power the S.S. Beagle in order to get home. Once Olimar is rescued and cured of being a leafling, the Rescue Corp and Olimar travel home and the credits roll, but they show that Louie has tamed Moss, hinting more to come. Indeed, right after the credits, it's revealed that, somewhere along the lines, Oatchi has mutated and now has a leaf on his tail like Moss. This means that he cannot leave PNF-404 without getting horribly sick. The second part is then about trying to find a cure for Oatchi and rescuing remaining castaways as well as collecting the rest of the treasure.
• Pressure Point: Oatchi's Health Upgrades work around this as he has no space suit to upgrade like the Rookie, so Russ develops a gentle static electricity stimulation for his nervous system and eventually learns all of Oatchi's pressure points to use for the highest upgrade.
• Promoted to Playable: Shepherd and Collin are NPC's in the main campaign, but are available as Player One options for the Dandori Battle mode.
• Quicksand Sucks: Deep patches of mud function as quicksand in lategame levels. Pikmin sinking in to it is treated like them "drowning," with the major difference being that not even the Rookie, Oatchi, or Blue Pikmin can survive in it. Ice Pikmin can still freeze it.
• Ragnarök Proofing: PNF-404 is still implied to be Earth in the future, but due to being a soft reboot it's unclear how far in the future it is; much less of the geography is visible in this game. Human technology, on the other hand, is everywhere, compared to previous games, and not only is much of it still fully-powered and functional but certain areas aren't even dusty. If it isn't all just inexplicably preserved against the apocalypse, it raises further questions about how all the humans vanished so suddenly - and why the rest of the ecosystem is so unfamiliar.
• Rapid Aging: At the very beginning of the game, Oatchi is about the same size as the explorers. However, after one of the first nights, Oatchi grows twice his size overnight. According to Shepherd, this is quite common for his breed, as it's a sign that he's fully grown.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The boss battle music in Olimar's Shipwreck Tale is lifted directly from Pikmin 3.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: At certain points during night expeditions, the enemies' eyes glow red when they head towards the Luminkolls.
• Respawning Enemies:
  • Notable in that this doesn't happen anymore on the surface. Once an enemy is killed, it's never coming back.
  • Enemies won't respawn in caves until they're 100% cleared. The in-game explanation is that new creatures entered them after noticing they were uninhabited.
• Revisiting the Roots:
  • After Pikmin 3 removed many of the enemies and mechanics of the second title, cut caves entirely, and downplayed the "household area" aesthetic from Pikmin 2 in favor of a more "wild nature" theme, Pikmin 4 is more of a return to the format of 2. The overworld areas are smaller on average but contain caves again, more man-made settings appear to put more emphasis on the tiny nature of the playable character and their army, several enemies from the first two titles return, and the bosses are closer in style to the ones from the first two games (and the "minibosses" of 3) than the fewer but large-scale cinematic main bosses of the third. According to an interview, this was done to address the popularity of certain traits from the second game over the third.
  • Downplayed case: Pikmin 4 is the first title since Pikmin 1 where unlocking new areas is based on the amount of collectables picked up, rather than obtaining key items or progressing the plot in some way^note The closest exception was Wistful Wild in 2, which was unlocked by repaying the debt with any treasures. The other two unlockable areas in 2 required globe halves.
• Schrödinger's Gun:
  • The order in which you rescue castaways is largely predetermined, regardless of which caves you retrieve them from - the first one you find will always be Russ, the second one will always be Schnauz, etc.
  • Dandori Battles and Challenges are determined by the order of the cave they are entered, not the location. This means that the first Challenge will always be Dandori Day Care, whether it is entered from the cave in Sun-Speckled Terrace or one of the caves in Primordial Thicket. For Dandori Battles, this technically only applies for the first half of the game, as past a certain point an area's Dandori Battle is needed to be cleared to unlock the next area, meaning that the last three Battles will always be located in the same spots.
• Sequel Escalation: In terms of content, Pikmin 4 is easily the biggest game in the series.
  • The previous games had four fully-fledged areas at most, with the fifth being a Boss-Only Level, if it has one. Pikmin 4 has six areas of equal size.
  • Story Mode in the previous games had six usable types of Pikmin at max, with Pikmin 2 having the Bulbmin serve as a Guest-Star Party Member. Pikmin 4 has nine kinds of Pikmin with the Glow Pikmin as a Guest-Star Party Member in Story Mode.
  • Pikmin 2 had a total of 201 treasures to collect, while Pikmin 4 has 239 unique treasures. If you count the duplicates, then Pikmin 4 has more collectible items than all the previous games combined.
  • The previous record holder for most enemies in the series was Pikmin 2 at 64 enemies. Pikmin 4 has 113 enemies.
• Serial Escalation: The first game had Olimar crash landing on PNF-404. The third game had three Koppaites. This game? Several dozen castaways and an entire rescue team have found themselves stranded on the planet, and it's up to you to rescue all of them.
• Sequel Hook: Olimar's closing monologue in the true ending ends with him saying "I finally found my way home," and, right after the "The End" screen, he adds "Until my next adventure..." implying that the game is not the end of Olimar's story.
• Serious Business: The Leaflings are obsessed with the concept of dandori - while dandori is a common theme throughout the game, almost every line the Leaflings say revolve around dandori.
• Shut Up and Save Me!: When the player and Collin see Shepherd clinging to a wall to avoid some Bulborb Larvae, Collin starts talking about Shepherd's background until she tells him to stop talking and help her.
• Shout-Out:
  • One reply that you can say instead of "Copy that!" is "Roger roger!".
  • The castaway Sammy comes from a planet where the weather is almost perpetually stormy, only receiving about a day of sunlight a year. This may be a reference to the short story All Summer in a Day.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Some caves are so frigid that non-Ice Pikmin will periodically be too cold to move until you whistle for them. This can be avoided by having them ride Oatchi, destroying whatever's causing the cold, being near a Red Pikmin holding a burning pinecone, or lighting pyres to warm up the room.
• Social Media Before Reason: One of the castaways is an influencer who travelled to PNF-404 simply for social media clout, which she is still looking for even after being rescued, wanting to do a video with Oatchie.
• Stalked by the Bell: The Waterwraith returns in the Engulfed Castle cave, which itself is heavily based on 2's Submerged Castle, with one level loadout being identical to the original. The music of the Submerged Castle returns and is the player's only warning of its arrival once enough time passes on a sublevel, and they have to dodge a nigh-invulnerable monster.
• Studio Audience: Collin and Shepherd respond to a variety of sounds the player character's suit picks up, and will thus comment on Pikmin getting injured and/or dying if they're not on-screen; this can be handy, since the Pikmin counters are off to the side.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option:
  • A downplayed variant. Oatchi is initially unable to swim, but the quickest way to unlock that ability is... to lead him into the water and cause him to start drowning. Only then will Shephard teach him how to swim, now viewing it as a necessity if the player is going to put the pooch in such scenarios, with him being able to doggy paddle two in-game days later. Downplayed as Oatchi being able to swim isn't outright required for the first two areas of the game, and if Oatchi does not get exposed to deep water within the first 9-10 in-game days, Shephard will automatically teach him how to swim.
  • Gear that grants immunity to certain hazards will only become available after you or Oatchi get injured by it.
• Sudden Name Change:
  • The frog-like enemies now use their British names, Wollyhop and Wolpole, in both English translations; they were previously called Wollywog and Wogpole in the North American English versions of prior titles. This is due to "wog" — which is derived from "polliwog", an American slang term for frogs — being a racial slur in British and Australian English.
  • The blue Dweevil enemy was originally called a Caustic Dweevil, but it has been changed to Hydro Dweevil in this game and the Switch re-release of 2. The notes still mention that it is acidic, but the rename downplays this to put more emphasis on being the Dweevil associated with the aquatic Blue Pikmin.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The logo seen has the "4" made up of golden flowers to represent the new Ice and Glow Pikmin, who have golden flowers.
• Tide Level: The Serene Shores start out as an area mostly comprised of water, which requires Oatchi learning to swim and Blue Pikmin to get many of the treasures, but the water lowers at the halfway point of each day, making more areas accessible to other Pikmin.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • The Pikmin as a species have taken another one. While you still have to recover dormant Onions, you can find plenty of members of the species wandering around in caves as Wild Pikmin, either planted in the ground or duking it out with the local wildlife.
  • After being a Distressed Dude in the third game, Louie becomes an incredibly effective antagonist in this game, with his Dandori Battle AI exceeding Leafling Olimar's final bout by several leaps and bounds and personally commanding the Ancient Sirehound to attack as the Final Boss.
• Toy Time: The living room in Hero's Hideaway has some areas made of wooden blocks.
• Transmutation: The game has bluish-white crystal-like objects simply called "raw material" which Olimar found to be astonishingly versatile. For instance, heating them transmutes them into clay which can be used to build bridges and he speculates that other stimuli yields different results. The Rescue Corp's scientist Russ finds other uses after studying them such as building upgrades, medkits, and doggy treats meaning that they can be converted to metal, chemicals, and edible matter.
• Underground Level: The game sees the return of the caves, which were last seen in Pikmin 2, though they now properly designed levels as opposed to being randomly generated.
• Useless Useful Non-Combat Abilities: The Lineup Trumpet, an optional upgrade that allows the player access to the "swarm" mechanic of previous Pikmin games, is unlocked in the main game by completing a sidequest that involves collecting a series of musical treasures. You can't get all of them until very late in the game, however, as two of these are only found in the last postgame area, with one of them being located in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. While still useful for certain combat scenarios, albeit made slightly redundant with the Charge Horn, there are no puzzles where the swarm mechanic is mandatory, mostly making this gear serve as The Artifact. Subverted in the case of Olimar's Shipwreck Tale, where the Lineup Trumpet is one of the first gear items you obtain in that mode and Olimar doesn't gain access to the Charge Horn until later, making it more useful early on, but there still aren't any puzzles dedicated to using it in that mode and the improved Pikmin AI means it isn't needed to make up for any awkward pathfinding.
• Vent Physics: Air vents replace the geysers from 2 as the main way you exit caves, which helps avoid the Fridge Logic invoked of why Pikmin types that are weak to water aren't harmed by geysers.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The cave unlocked by rescuing the Koppaites, the Cavern for a King. Savvy players will be able to tell right away it's 20 floors deep by looking at the completion rate. The cave mainly consists of fighting bosses in extra-challenging environments, and it combines several different cave styles.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Dual Boss with the two Emperor Bulblaxes at the bottom of the Kingdom of Beasts is the point where the game stops playing around. Both can kill massive amounts of Pikmin at their leisure, whether that be through eating them or squishing them. While you can try to make the fight easier by only waking up one at a time, they have a roar that will not only wake up the other, but also cause all your Pikmin and Oatchi to panic, making it even easy for both to cut your army down.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The red Leafling encountered in the first Dandori Battle is trying to help the castaways survive on PNF-404... by turning them into Leaflings.
• Wham Shot:
  • If the name of the cave didn't tip you off, the Engulfed Castle reveals the main threat via Olimar's log entry-The Waterwraith's rollers dropping from the sky.
  • After the Rescue Corps had located Olimar's signal in the Hero's Hideaway, they hold a morning meeting planning his rescue. The camera then pans over to Oatchi, who had been mostly offscreen every other meeting, revealing his tail now has a leaf growing out of it like Moss. This causes a problem later on as he can't leave PNF-404 as a Leafling pup.
  • As the credits roll with the Pikmin undergoing various shenanigans, Louie suddenly approaches from behind as his first appearance in the game, with Moss then finding him and letting him hitch a ride on her back. It's a clear sign that the game is actually far from over.
  • The true ending cutscene features the Master Onion accompanied by Purple and White Onions, unambiguously confirming that those two Pikmin types had corresponding Onions all along, though this is only a shock if you didn't partake in the Sage Leaf's trials, which is how the player receives them.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: As Collin notes the first time you exit a cave, any time you spend in a cave translates to only about 1/6 of that time on the surface. This also means that you aren't allowed to enter caves when the day is close to ending and if you spend too long in the cave, the sunset countdown will begin the moment you exit it. This differs from cave exploration in 2, where no time would pass on the surface no matter how long you spend in a cave.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The game seemingly ends like normal after rescuing and curing Olimar, with a credits sequence and end report detailing your Pikmin handling... only for Shepherd to call off the jump home since Oatchi is sick, so they have to return to PNF-404 for the time being. They then get a late transmission with a full list of castaways, including one of Olimar's coworkers and a veterinarian who could help them with Oatchi's condition.

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