Pikmin

The series' gameplay has elements of Real-time strategy gameplay, with an explorable over world and a directly controllable character in a third person semi isometric view. The Pikmin games focus on exploring an Earth-like planet named PNF-404, and controlling a crowd of the titular Pikmin. Pikmin are intelligent, loyal, multicolored, plant-animal hybrids that follow the orders of their leader. There have been multiple leaders throughout the series, with the first and most notable being Captain Olimar, a tiny alien from the planet Hocotate introduced in the original Pikmin.

Pikmin 2 features Olimar's co-worker Louie and their boss The President who are also playable leaders. Pikmin 3 features leaders from a new alien species. They are Alph, Brittany and Charlie, who come from the planet Koppai and are similar to the Hocotatians, but possess some different features, notably rounded ears instead of pointed ones. Pikmin 4 features a customizable character who is part of an interplanetary rescue team, assisted by Oatchi, a space dog creature with unique abilities.

==== Protagonists ====

The main protagonist of the series is Captain Olimar, an employee of the Hocotate Freight Company, who flies a rocket ship known as the S.S. Dolphin, a reference to the GameCube's developmental code name. He has a wife, son and daughter. Pikmin 2 introduces Louie, a co-worker of Olimar, who places the Hocotate Freight Company in debt after losing a shipment of gold "Pikpik" brand carrots to a "ravenous space bunny". The character's Japanese name, Orimā (オリマー), functions as a direct syllabic anagram of Mario (マリオ), another iconic character created by Shigeru Miyamoto.

Pikmin is the first game in the series, released on October 26, 2001. The game's plot focuses on Captain Olimar's predicament of having crash-landed on an unknown planet and befriending plant-animal creatures that he dubs Pikmin because of their similarity to the brand of carrots called "Pikpik carrots". Olimar has to gather the missing pieces of his broken spaceship to escape before his air supply completely runs out and he succumbs to the planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere, which is poisonous to his species. Pikmin features three endings, which are dependent on the number of spaceship parts reclaimed.

Reclaiming all thirty parts by the final day results in the best ending: Olimar waves goodbye to the Pikmin, who proceed to defend themselves on their own at nighttime, while Onions of various colors observe his departure as he looks back on the unknown planet before returning home. Reclaiming at least the twenty-five required parts by the final day results in the normal ending: Olimar quickly departs, while one of each type of Pikmin runs toward his ship to watch him depart. Lastly, failing to reclaim the twenty-five required parts by the final day results in the worst ending: Olimar crash-lands back onto the planet, succumbs to oxygen poisoning, and is taken by several Pikmin to be placed into an Onion, which converts him into a Pikmin-Hocotatian hybrid.

The Pikmin series has received generally positive reviews. The series has been praised for its strategic gameplay based on time and resource management, as well as its graphics; Philip Kollar of Polygon described Pikmin 3 as "one of those rare pieces of evidence that a modern Nintendo can still produce something wholly unique."

In a positive review for Pikmin 4, IGN's Jada Griffin wrote that the co-op feature was "more of an assist mode... rather than an actual co-op mode," in contrast to the series' second and third iterations.

Olimar was introduced as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series beginning with 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and has appeared in every subsequent entry. He commands the Pikmin in battle and, like in the Pikmin series, he is almost entirely dependent on them.

Olimar can pluck new Pikmin from the ground at any time unless he has the maximum number of Pikmin allowed; he can command up to six in Brawl, and three in subsequent games. The Pikmin, as in the Pikmin series, are fragile and can be trounced, but new ones can be plucked from the stage immediately after. Olimar's Final Smash, a signature one-use technique, shows him getting into his Hocotate Spaceship and flying off into the sky, while Red Bulborbs attack the other players on the ground. The ship then plummets to the ground and causes an explosion, dealing damage and knockback to opposing players as Olimar is ejected from it.