As a central figure in the creation of the PS4, PS5, and PlayStation Vita, and credited on numerous classic series, including Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, you’d expect Mark Cerny to have pretty discerning taste. This is exemplified by his experience with Pikmin, a game he reveals changed his life.
Cerny spoke about what those tiny multi-coloured aliens meant to him during an interview on My Perfect Console. "I thought it was such an emotionally involving story," he says. "Poor Captain Olimar, he crash lands and he's got 30 days to reassemble his ship or he'll run out of oxygen and die and he's sending letters home every day. And for me that was just transformative."
He encountered Pikmin at a time when he was playing "smaller, lighter games," generally, specifications Olimar and his lemming-like creatures excel at. But he’s quite specific in pointing out, it's the narrative of the first, where you're finding a way for the captain to get home, that drew him in. The sequel didn't resonate quite as much.
"I'm a sucker when it comes to story, right?” he explains. “But then for Pikmin 2, it's totally different. So they're on Earth, they're running around picking up trash on Earth. That's the storyline, if you recall. Literally, you're running around somebody's bathroom floor in Pikmin 2. And in one of those, you're running from debt collectors, if I have that right."
That's a slightly unflattering recollection of Pikmin 2, as the game does go back to the homeworld of those adorable little plant-like companions. But I get his point: the first is tight, with a narrative thrust that resonates more genuinely.
His comments come right as Olimar's friends have made a comeback. Pikmin 4 arrived in 2023, a decade after the third, introducing a whole other generation of wanna-be spacefarers to the joys of leading around anthropomorphic sprouts. Though hints otherwise haven't yielded a new entry yet, I'm always ready for more Pikmin, regardless of what planet it's set on.
