Pikmin Bloom is an augmented-reality location-based phone game and a spinoff of the Pikmin series. It was co-developed by Niantic Labs, creators of Pokémon GO, and released on October 27, 2021 for iOS and Android.
In it, you grow Pikmin by walking around with their seedlings, and send them out on various tasks throughout the world, such as doing expeditions and delivering postcards to friends.
Pikmin Bloom has the following tropes:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Non-Blue Pikmin have no problem traveling across water across long distances without drowning in this game, unlike what other games established. In fact, they walk on it.
- Achievement System: The game has a few badges that are earned from certain milestone tasks such as walking distance, Pikmin grown, and total flowers bloomed.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: The reward for leveling up a Pikmin to four hearts is them obtaining a themed accessory, which varies depending on the real-world area from where they were found.
- Anti-Frustration Features: While Pikmin on Expeditions to faraway locations take a long time, sending postcards to friends takes considerably less time since you're often sending them to someone who lives in a different country. Prior to an update in 2022, Pikmin would hilariously take mere minutes to deliver a postcard even if the recipient is in a different country, but this was changed to take 12 hours max.
- Anti Poop-Socking: It takes 5 minutes to plant more flowers in the same place on the map, so it is encouraged to keep moving for the counter to keep going up, otherwise it's just a waste of petals.
- Augmented Reality: The game has a feature where players can view Pikmin in the real world through their phone's camera.
- Bizarre Beverage Use: Blue Burger Shop Pikmin wear soda cups for outfits, with the liquid still inside.
- Call-Back:
- The pot design of the seedlings heavily resemble the original Onion design from the main games until their sci-fi redesign in Pikmin 3.
- The coffee cups worn by Café Decor Pikmin have designs based on enemies from the series. note
- Cap: The player level limit is 100, and they can store 30 seedlings (can be upgraded to 100), 300 Pikmin (can be upgraded to 2,000), 300 petals (upgraded to 1,200), 200 nectar (upgraded to 1,000), and 100 postcards (also to 2,000).
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The color of the Pikmin is determined by what color seedling is found and obtained.
- Com Mons:
- Roadside Pikmin are by far the most common decor types most players will find, being found by anywhere else that the game doesn't recognize as one of the other establishments, so usually streets and rural areas.
- Forest Pikmin are also very common, due to the sheer number of forested areas that can occupy rural and suburban areas.
- Company Cross References: Linking a Nintendo account will give the player a blue decor Pikmin wearing a Mario hat keychain. Interacting with them on close-up will have them do a unique Mario jump animation.
- Demo Bonus: Playing the demo version of Pikmin 4 rewards players with the Oatchi-Rider costume.
- Digital Avatar: The player is represented using a Mii.
- Easter Egg: If you have a full set of white and black chess piece Pikmin in your squad, the chess Pikmin will occasionally line up on opposite sides like a chessboard.
- Edible Theme Clothing: Some Decor Pikmin wear scraps of food as accessories:
- Pikmin found by supermarkets wear either mushroom caps or banana pieces.
- Ones found by bakeries wear pieces of bread.
- Sweetshop Pikmin wear colored macarons as hats or donuts as costumes.
- Movie Theater Pikmin have Popcorn stuck to their heads.
- Hamburger Shop Pikmin wear burgers or fries. (Blue Pikmin wear soft drink cups.)
- Café Decor Pikmin wear cups of coffee filled with coffee beans for outfits. The yellow and rock Pikmin even have whip cream on top of their heads.
- Sushi Restaurant Pikmin (unsurprisingly) wear various sushi costumes.
- Italian Restaurant Pikmin wear pizza slices.
- Endless Daytime: It's always day on Pikmin Bloom's map.
- Exergaming: Pikmin Bloom encourages players to decorate the in-game map with flowers by walking in the real world. Pikmin themselves are also grown by the number of steps taken.
- Eye-Obscuring Hat:
- The red and blue Park Decor Pikmin have parts of the vines they wear cover their right eyes.
- The banana peel for the Super Market rock Pikmin covers its left eye.
- The "Station" white Pikmin wears a paper train costume that covers their whole body, except for their stem.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: A few of the decor cosmetics aren't symmetrical, such as the Park Decor Pikmin.
- Fertile Feet: When blooming, flowers spawn around the player's feet as they walk, leaving a trail wherever they go.
- Fill It with Flowers: One of the main focuses of the game is to populate the (at first) barren in-app map with trails of flowers by walking in the real world. The flowers disappear after a week, encouraging players to keep going out.
- Fungus Humongous: Some landmarks are represented by clusters of massive mushrooms that the player must send their Pikmin to destroy for rewards.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The game can be really bad at recognizing certain establishments; maybe you can be right in the middle of a supermarket and only luck will decide if Pikmin Bloom registers it as that or as a roadside.
- Garden Garment: Park Decor Pikmin wear vines as a cosmetic.
- Guide Dang It!: The Weather Decor Pikmin can only be encountered if the weather in real-life is rainy, which isn't stated ingame and is the only Decor type not tied to a location.
- Highly Specific Counterplay: Mushrooms that are on fire, covered in water, or encased in crystal can only respectively be destroyed by red, blue, and gray Pikmin. Any other time, matching the Pikmin to the mushroom's color just provides an attack bonus.
- Improvised Clothes: Some of the "accessories" for the decor Pikmin include wearing things like acorns, popcorn, and toothpaste on their heads.
- Mushroom Man: Park Decor Pikmin get different mushroom caps as hats, making them look like this.
- Lighter and Softer: The mainline Pikmin games present a dangerous environment where Pikmin are constantly at risk of being eaten or killed, and the protagonists are stranded in this harsh environment they know nothing about, often with only a limited amount of time to find what they need in order to survive. Bloom on the other hand, has you play as a Mii who has no trouble leisurely exploring this world, and none of the predatory wildlife that threatens your Pikmin makes any appearance. The most combat these Pikmin will be seeing is against large, but inanimate mushrooms.
- Luck-Based Mission: Getting a Big Flower to spawn as a pansy or a rosenote is possible, but it mostly depends on luck.
- No Antagonist: So far, there are no enemies for the Pikmin to fight or defend themselves against, with the only "battles" available being against inanimate mushrooms.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The game itself doesn't have a real story, but as a fitness app where the purpose is to go out to bring some color into a blank and grassy world, it doesn't really need one.
- Old Save Bonus:
- During the 2022 Pikmin 3 Anniversary event, players could obtain an Onion-themed Planter Pack via the "My Nintendo" service provided that their linked account had play data from Pikmin 3 or the free demo version.
- Any linked account for a completion of Pikmin 4's demo (or having the game itself) provides a costume of the Rookie riding on Oatchi.
- Photo Mode: The AR mode lets you see Pikmin in the real world with your phone.
- Pictorial Letter Substitution: The "O"'s in "Bloom" are replaced by flower symbols.
- Play Every Day: Players get one free Detector and a chance to earn up to 60 coins every day.
- Relationship Values: Leveling up Pikmin hearts makes their attacks for expeditions stronger, leveling them to four hearts makes them go on an expedition to obtain a cosmetic.
- Something about a Rose: Pikmin can be fed rose nectars to replace their normal flower with a colored rose, which is not only difficult to obtain but is the strongest of the main flower types.
- Sticks to the Back: Some Decor apparel, such as the fishing lures for the "Waterside" Pikmin, or combs/scissors for "Hair Salon", just cling to the backs of the Pikmin.
- Temporary Online Content: The "Pikmin 3 Deluxe Anniversary Event" had a special Onion-themed Planter Pack available for players who had connected to their Nintendo Account and had either finished the Pikmin 3 Deluxe demo on the Nintendo Switch or had the full game's save data, which ended distribution on December 9th, 2022.
- Thematic Sequel Logo Change: Bloom has a single walking Red Pikmin in its logo to represent its emphasis on walking around in order to gain new content.
- Towering Flower: Some landmarks are represented by giant flowers many times the player figure's height, starting with generic daisy-like flowers to real-world flower types.
- Underground Monkey:
- Some Decor Pikmin, such as Sweetshop and Supermarket, have more than one variant. Present Stickers and Chef Hats also have a rare variant.
- Red, blue, yellow, and gray normal or large mushrooms have a chance to be covered in fire, water, electricity, or crystal, respectively. These mushrooms can only be attacked by Pikmin that are the same color.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
- Pikmin travel at real-world time, so if the player found a Pikmin when they were traveling several miles away, and they're ready to get their 4-heart cosmetic, it could take days or even weeks for that one Pikmin to travel back and return.
- Winged Pikmin are noted to be faster than the other types, but if they're paired with at least 1 non-Winged Pikmin on an Expedition, the ETA increases since they have to move at the same speed as the slower walking Pikmin.
- Visual Pun: Decor Pikmin found near zoos wear dandelions around their heads that look vaguely like manes. Because lions.
- Walk on Water: No bodies of water, including the oceans, will stop the Pikmin from carrying their fruit and pods back to the player. It's best not to think too seriously about this one.
- Whole Costume Reference:
- The Mario Hat Decor Pikmin wears Mario's red cap.
- The three Koppaite Space Suit Pikmin wear the helmets of Pikmin 3's protagonists.
- The Oatchi-Rider Mii costume tied to Pikmin 4's demo gives the player the Rookie's space suit while sitting on Oatchi. Closer inspection reveals that it's an inflatable costume with fake legs attached to the space suit and the Mii's legs are dressed as Oatchi's to sell the illusion.
- Spaceship Decor Pikmin wear the S.S. Beagle from Pikmin 4. Purple and Rock Pikmin wear a replica of the S.S. Shepherd itself.
- Your Size May Vary: Pikmin in the main games are about an inch tall. They're slightly bigger when feeding them nectar and in AR mode, yet their stems reach to the player's torso when following them in the overworld.
