Pikmin Preview
Developed by Miyamotyo himself, Pikmin features innovative controls that make for deep gameplay. The basic storyline is you gather Pikmin for an army, and they follow you until you command them to do certain tasks. The ultimate goal is to find pieces of your crashed spaceship and leave the area you’ve crashed into.
The main gameplay surprisingly consists of only two buttons, the left analogue stick to control your character, and the A button which calls the Pikmin to you. The only other main button is B, which you use to perform tasks with your Pikmin. You can also highlight groups of Pikmin and order them around with the touch of the C buttons.
Graphics are completely what you had expected, and everything that you had hoped for. Everything is in detail, from the finest blade of grass to cracks in tree roots; it’s mesmerizing and you could spend hours just looking around. The shocking thing is the framerate, which chugs along at 60 fps. This is all the time, even with individual Pikmin AI, even if there are 100 Pikmin on your screen, it’s always at 60 fps. Always.
The main reason why I want the GameCube is to see what Miyamotyo could do with a system that has virtually unlimited power. If you’re a hardcore RTS fan, look no further: Pikmin is here.
