[DISCLAIMER: I LIKE PIKMIN A LOT]

From the outside, Pikmin seems like an innocent enough game. It’s colorful and you have cute little buddies that follow you around. Said buddies assist you in fighting large fauna and collecting parts for your spaceship. Seems tame enough, right? You’d be wrong. Allow me to break down for you why Pikmin is a dark, malicious journey.

The story begins with Captain Olimar crash-landing on an unidentified planet. Entry through the planet’s atmosphere causes Olimar’s ship to break apart into roughly thirty pieces. Upon landing, Olimar discovers that he only has thirty days to collect all of the parts for his ship before his life support systems give out. The situation seems dire, until he discovers the Pikmin. Pikmin are a native species to the planet that are NEARLY EXTINCT. Olimar determines that he can essentially command the Pikmin to do his bidding with a whistle that is built into his helmet. Thus begins Olimar’s journey into brutal slavery and murder.



Pikmin marching to certain death

For the rest of the game, Olimar uses the Pikmin for whatever task he needs done. Whether that is carrying his shit, as he can’t lift anything on his own, or battling giant monsters. Olimar uses the Pikmin as unwitting labor to repair his spacecraft. The Pikmin become so dependent on him for survival, that if he abandons them, which happens often, they wither and die. When you take off in your spaceship, you get to watch the Pikmin that are left behind get brutally murdered by the nocturnal creatures. Olimar doesn’t care. He will also use the Pikmin as cannon fodder. He will throw dozens of them at giant creatures, and watches his charges as they are eaten alive, burned, crushed, or drowned. Then, when the giant creature is finally dead, with dozens of dead Pikmin surrounding it’s corpse, Olimar continues the savagery. Whatever Pikmin are left after these battles are then charged with carrying the corpse of the fallen creature back to their base, where it is immediately consumed. This then creates more Pikmin. And the cycle continues.



Wake up and smell the genocide

This cycle of slavery, murder, and consumption goes on for a full thirty days. Beyond this, if you get the “happy” ending, it is only assumed that this continues in perpetuity wherever Olimar winds up. In summation, Olimar is a murderer and a war criminal for using indigenous life for his own gain. This blatant disregard of life shows us that Captain Olimar is a sociopath and does not deserve to be the leader of an indigenous and simple band of creatures.