Back in July 2016, Pokemon GO broke the world. For a good few months, everyone and their mom were logging in daily, walking around their neighborhood catching Rattatas, Pidgeys, Squirtles and more. Pokemon GO was a true, rare phenomenon, and for a while, it remained one of the most popular games of all time. But it's been over six years, and while Pokemon GO is still alive and breathing, there's room for a successor. It's just a shame that Pikmin Bloom probably isn't that successor.
Released fully in November 2021, Pikmin Bloom is another Niantic-developed mobile game that uses AR and GPS technology to track the player's movements, and let them interact with a virtual world. Trading in Pokemon GO's collect-a-thon gameplay for a more streamlined, exercise-focused approach, Pikmin Bloom isn't a bad game, but its core gameplay loop just isn't as fun or engaging as Pokemon GO's.
Pikmin Bloom Just Isn't as Engaging as Pokemon GO
Despite both being developed by Niantic, and both featuring very similar UI layouts, Pikmin Bloom's gameplay is very different from Pokemon GO's, and it's easy to see why some fans believe it's worse. Pikmin Bloom emphasizes exercise over actual gameplay. The whole premise of Pikmin Bloom is that while the player is exercising out of their house, their Pikmin automatically gather fruit and other resources along the way, and the player's seedlings grow. This is all done automatically, with the player simply needing to turn the game on and leave their phone locked in their pocket while they exercise.
On the other end of the spectrum, Pokemon GO encourages exercise, but puts its gameplay first and foremost. While players walk around their neighborhood, they're required to check their phone on a constant basis in order to catch any Pokemon that appear along the way. Players need to pay close attention to any PokeStops or Gyms that they pass on their walk, too. They are also able to check their inventory, access quests, hatch eggs, and level up their Pokemon while exercising, and all of these activities require the player to keep their phone in hand.
On a base level, Pikmin Bloom is essentially just a glorified pedometer with some very simple game mechanics, while Pokemon GO is a full game that just encourages the player to leave the house. Since its release in 2016, Pokemon GO has also had countless updates, some of which have added even more complex mechanics and systems to the game. For instance, Pokemon GO now allows players to trade and battle one another, which is a whole system of its own.
A key difference between Pikmin Bloom and Pokemon GO is that the latter is much more competitive than the former. Trainer battles and gym battles play a large part in Pokemon GO's gameplay and social features, with the whole premise being that players are leveling their Pokemon to be able to defeat nearby gym leaders. Instead, Pikmin Bloom focuses on a more cooperative approach, allowing players to team up to grow large plants together and reap the rewards. Pikmin Bloom's more cooperative approach isn't necessarily worse than Pokemon GO's more competitive nature, but it is a lot less complex, with barely any actual gameplay mechanics going into it. When all is said and done, Pikmin Bloom just isn't as mechanically complex as Pokemon GO, and because of that, it's just not as engaging and its gameplay loop isn't as fun.
Pikmin Bloom is available on mobile.