These blooms were made for walkin’.
While fans of Nintendo’s delightful Real-Time Strategy series patiently await the long-rumoured next mainline entry, Niantic has served up a new mobile Pikmin experience to while away the time, an application that looks suspiciously similar to the company’s previous project involving Nintendo (or a Nintendo-aligned property, at least). 2016’s Pokémon GO became a worldwide phenomenon and a colossal money-spinner for all parties involved, so you’d be forgiven for thinking the makers have similar ambitions this time around. Just looking at screens of this latest collaboration — which similarly uses Google’s map tech to build a game from the world around you — it certainly looks like ‘another’ Pokémon GO. Pikmin Bloom is a very different beast, though; an app that’s more ‘pedometer with benefits’ than all-encompassing time sink, but one that we’ve enjoyed our time with.
It’s best to set expectations from the off. Predictably, Bloom isn’t going to satisfy fans jonesing for Pikmin 4, and despite the underlying mechanics and systems, it is only superficially similar to GO. Niantic’s all-conquering sister title has grown and expanded almost beyond recognition since launch, of course, but although Pikmin Bloom encourages you to get out and sow seeds or cause giant Poké Stop-style flowers to bloom, the interactions and the challenges contained within are far less demanding than catching and training Pocket Monsters, battling at gyms, and trading and raiding with friends. It’s a far more sedate experience by design.
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