For a series with numerous entries developed and published by Nintendo, Pikmin has never sold as well as you might expect. In a recent Ask the Developer interview from Nintendo, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto shared his thoughts on why that might be.
The main Pikmin series has only sold a little over five million copies in its lifetime, which is half of what The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom managed to sell in its first three days. In the recent interview, Miyamoto asked himself about the series, “‘Why haven’t they exploded more in sales even though they’re so much fun to play? Why do people think they’re so difficult?'”
The iconic developer goes on to explain that he thinks it’s because players struggle with how much death factors into the games. “I get that people find it more difficult when death is a factor,” Miyamoto said in response to a comment from the interviewer about players being afraid of Pikmin dying because they’re cute. “But I think the franchise’s strength lies in its relationship with mortality.
“If something is irreversible, you need to figure out a way to prevent undesired things from happening. To try to prevent Pikmin from dying, you need to practice ‘Dandori.’ To me, that’s what makes this game unique. I think people find Pikmin difficult for two reasons: the controls and the depth of gameplay. I spent a long time mulling over how we could convey these points as ‘interesting’ rather than ‘difficult.'”
As a note, the post explains the meaning of the word dandori, saying that it’s a “Japanese word that means ‘to think about planning and efficiency in advance to get things done smoothly.'”
Miyamoto went on to talk about how the team wanted to let as many people as possible play Pikmin 4, while still making sure it still felt like Pikmin. “The first game provided a deeper challenge, while the second game was broader in terms of content, and we went back to something closer to the first one in Pikmin 3. But after thinking about it, I realized that we could do both. We could retain the depth of gameplay that makes Pikmin so interesting, while providing the functional support to address the challenges around controls.”
Pikmin 4 just released today, and across the board it looks like critics are really enjoying the game. GameSpot’s Pikmin 4 review gave the game a 7/10, giving praise to the environmental puzzles, though writer Steve Watts felt that the Dandori Challenges and Battles felt discordant with the rest of the game.
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