Nintendo handed the Pikmin series to a studio with no history on it and asked for a handheld spin-off. Hey! Pikmin arrived in July 2017 for the Nintendo 3DS, developed by Arzest and published by Nintendo, the same month the New Nintendo 2DS XL — the sixth and final hardware revision of the 3DS — hit shelves. It is the first Pikmin game on a handheld. It is also the thinnest one.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
Captain Olimar Crashes the S.S. Dolphin II
The setup is pure Pikmin. Olimar is flying through space in his new ship, the S.S. Dolphin II, when he hits an asteroid and crash-lands on an unknown planet. To get the ship working again, he needs 30,000 units of Sparklium. That is the whole engine of the game: land, gather fuel, leave.
What changes is how you gather it. Hey! Pikmin is a 2D side-scrolling platformer, not the top-down strategy game the series built its name on. Olimar walks left to right. You tap the touchscreen with the stylus to pick Pikmin and toss them at objects or enemies. That is the core verb, and it never really changes.
The treasures you collect are ordinary household objects — glasses, toothpaste — treated as alien artifacts. It is a good joke, and Hey! Pikmin tells it well. The problem is how little it does with it.
No Choosing Your Pikmin
In the mainline games, the choice of which Pikmin to bring is the strategy. Here, that choice is gone. Players enter a level and use whatever Pikmin they find while exploring. Red, Yellow, Blue, Rock and Winged Pikmin all show up as Olimar moves through the planet’s sectors, and each does its job: Blue Pikmin swim, Winged Pikmin carry Olimar through the air, Rock Pikmin break what needs breaking.
It works. It is also shallow. Olimar cannot attack on his own — he relies on the Pikmin for defense — and since you never decide what to carry, every encounter has roughly one answer. Find the Pikmin the level wants. Toss it at the thing. Move on.
Olimar can swim and use a jetpack to reach new areas. As you collect Sparklium, you upgrade the space suit: more jetpack fuel, more hits it can take. After clearing a level, recruited Pikmin go to the Pikmin Park, where they hunt for more Sparklium-bearing objects. Colored pellets increase the number of Pikmin in the park, and clearing a section opens more sections. It is a tidy loop. It is not a deep one.
A Running Order for the Sparklium Grind
The structure is fixed, and it is worth laying out plainly, because Hey! Pikmin never deviates from it:
| Stage | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Crash landing | Olimar hits an asteroid, lands on an unknown planet | The 30,000 Sparklium goal |
| First sector | Re-encounters Red Pikmin | Treasures and acorn-like seeds |
| Later sectors | Finds Yellow Pikmin | New throw options |
| Later sectors | Finds Blue Pikmin | Swimming routes |
| Later sectors | Finds Rock Pikmin | Heavy-object breaking |
| Later sectors | Finds Winged Pikmin | Flight with Olimar |
| 30,000 Sparklium | Learns the Sparklium Converter is missing | The final hunt |
| Berserk Leech Hydroe | Converter was eaten by a Leech Hydroe and turned it into a giant plant-like monster | The converter, and the trip home to Hocotate |
That table is the game. Eight beats, in order, every time. The Pikmin arrive one type at a time, each with its own verb, and the levels are built to use exactly that verb and nothing else.
The Berserk Leech Hydroe Is the Only Surprise
The one real turn comes at the end. Once you have gathered 30,000 Sparklium, Olimar learns he needs an essential component to repair the ship: the Sparklium Converter. It turns out a Leech Hydroe accidentally ate it, and the converter’s power turned the creature into the Berserk Leech Hydroe, a giant plant-like monster. You fight it, return it to normal, take the converter, and head home to Hocotate.
It is a fine boss. It is also the only moment in Hey! Pikmin where the game asks you to think about what the Pikmin can do rather than which Pikmin the level has handed you. One good idea, saved for the last hour.
Amiibo Support and the 2DS XL Launch
Hey! Pikmin is compatible with every Amiibo released before launch, and those figures give in-game bonuses. A Pikmin-themed Amiibo shipped alongside the game. The timing was deliberate: Hey! Pikmin launched worldwide in July 2017 next to the New Nintendo 2DS XL, the last hardware revision Nintendo made for the 3DS line.
That context matters more than it looks. This was a game built to fill a slot in a hardware launch window, on a handheld that was already at the end of its life. It reads that way. The stylus controls are the best argument for the 3DS version existing — tapping the touchscreen to throw Pikmin is genuinely pleasant — but pleasant controls do not make a game.
Where Hey! Pikmin Lands
Hey! Pikmin received mixed reviews, with criticism focused on its simplicity and its lack of depth next to the mainline console games. That criticism is correct, and it is not a close call.
The game is not broken. Arzest built a clean 2D platformer with a working touchscreen hook, a charming premise, and a genuinely good final boss. The household-object treasures are a smart bit of world-building, and Olimar’s half-pint scramble to save himself gives the whole thing a modest, likeable spine. The Pikmin Park loop is competent.
But competence is the ceiling here. The mainline Pikmin games are about planning under pressure — deciding what to bring, what to risk, what to leave behind. Hey! Pikmin removes the deciding. You enter a level, the level tells you which Pikmin it wants, and you throw them. There is no tension in that, and no reason to replay it. The suit upgrades are numbers going up, not choices. The Pikmin types arrive like keys for locks rather than tools you learn to combine.
The comparison that matters is not Hey! Pikmin against other 3DS platformers. It is Hey! Pikmin against what the series already was. On that measure, this is a spin-off that keeps the characters and drops the idea. Olimar is still a hero on a personal mission to save himself, and the Pikmin are still adorably fierce. The game just never asks you to be smart about either.
Worth playing if you want a gentle, short platformer with a stylus and a soft spot for the series. Skip it if you came for Pikmin. 6.7 of 10.
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