We are a little under a month away from the release of Pikmin 4 on 21st July and we were recently able to go hands-on with the game to see what Nintendo has been cooking up over the past eight years. In short, we had a great time with it and were particularly enamoured by the new features that have been introduced this time around.
There are too many additions to discuss here (you can find our full thoughts in the hands-on preview at the bottom of this article), but one that we feel deserves a little fanfare of its own is the new ability to rewind time, perfect for if your day is going awry and too many of your Pikmin troop have suffered because of it.
This feature was specifically mentioned prior to us getting to play the game, and while the need to use the mechanic did not pop up in our journey through the early stages, we can see it becoming a handy one to fall back on as the difficulty steps up.
From what we saw, Pikmin 4 is borrowing more from Pikmin 2 than it is from the third entry in the series (the return of multi-layered caverns is an obvious comparison), and if playing the new HD remaster of that game has taught us anything, it's that those difficulty spikes can be a real nuisance, particularly later on. We all remember the Submerged Castle and the Waterwraith within — what we would have given for a rewind mechanic then...
Thoughtful additions like lessened time constraints, the ability to move the Onion and your new pup companion, Oatchi (a certified good boy), accompany the time rewind feature to make for a game that feels like a strong entry point for the series. Or one that's a little more forgiving, at least.