Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy Review – Room to Bloom

Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy Review

Landing on the Nintendo Switch in 2023, Pikmin 4 was considered an instant classic by fans and critics alike. After a ten-year wait, the fourth entry in the famed franchise introduced a larger world to explore, a companion mechanic and much more. Three years later, Nintendo has given the game a fresh coat of paint and added a new mode, Dandori Academy, for its Switch 2 release. Will these additions help the game sprout new life, or has its delicious fruit started to sour over the last few years?

You play as a tiny rookie rescue officer, whom you can customise, on your journey to save the Rescue Corps. After losing its way in search of the legendary Captain Olimar, it crashes on a planet, with its crewmates scattered across the region. Your goal is to track down each member of the team and complete the intended mission. While the story is typical, it serves as a sufficient premise, leading to a wonderful gameplay loop that quickly gets its hooks in you.

Familiar Roots

Your objective is simple: explore the area and use Pikmin to collect resources so that you can go further afield. Each coloured Pikmin has unique skills. Some can swim, others fly and each will help you collect the delicious-looking food that lies in the environment. Combining these with your cute companion, Oatchi, is an absolute joy. Together, you can take out bugs by throwing Pikmin as you ride your mutt-like pal and even charge, full steam ahead, to send foes into a daze. This helps to separate the entry from its predecessors, giving more options to explore and new environmental puzzles.

The scope has grown with Pikmin 4. Levels now include verticality, split paths and dungeons which flesh out the adventure. Caves are a breath of fresh air, allowing you to delve through various sub-levels to complete your objective. These smaller missions counter the larger, open areas on the surface to provide a more varied experience. Together, these aspects build a more diverse experience, balancing the freedom of exploration with shorter, more focused challenges that keep the gameplay fresh.

Moving on to the Switch 2 edition, similar to Nintendo’s recent ports, the game gets a little polish, features that take advantage of the hardware, and a new mode to round out the package. Dandori Academy is the highlight, combining its strategic gameplay with online competition in timed challenges. Prior to the Weekly Exam window, you can practice scenarios to perfect your score and earn medals based on your performance.

Coming Back for Seconds

There are three difficulty levels and a range of stages to tackle. The ones available during the review period were well designed, requiring you to use all of your abilities to shave off valuable seconds from your time. As these are quite short, it becomes quite addictive to replay stages to beat your previous score. Once you’re ready, you have a strict time period to sit the exam. With only one attempt available, you must nail each action to sit atop the leaderboard. You can earn extra retries through the Practice mode, but these are limited so players don’t rely on them too heavily and ensure every attempt counts.

There are 72 stages which will roll out over time with six challenges to be available per month. The continuous dropping of content is a great way to keep players coming back to the game. Providing rewards develop and are meaningful, it will help to keep the game fresh for the duration of challenges. While this mode is a great addition, the other new features are underwhelming. Voice commands can now be used, which feel like an unnecessary addition. Although some younger players may enjoy this for 5 minutes, it adds nothing to the experience.

Feeding Off Scraps

Visually, the game gets a polish, but nothing too noticeable. The resolution has improved, and textures have more detail than in the original Switch version. It remains at a locked 30 frames per second, which is disappointing. Although it’s not a fast, action-based game, an upgrade to 60 FPS would have felt like a real upgrade. Instead, the improvements feel relatively minor, offering a cleaner presentation without making the most of the additional power of the Switch 2.

Pikmin 4 remains one of the best entries in the franchise. The new mode adds a fresh, addictive online component that will keep players coming back for new content drops. Although the Upgrade Pack doesn’t cost much, minimal effort has gone into improving the visuals and performance. With the game still locked at 30 FPS and only slight improvements to resolution, Dandori Academy is the main reason to return.

***A Nintendo Switch 2 code was provided by the publisher***