Pikmin Bloom is the latest Nintendo game-turned-app, following in the hugely successful shoes of Pokemon GO and Mario Kart Tour. This time, though, the focus is on chilling out and collecting some new friends more than winning a race or a battle.
In premise, Pikmin Bloom is a bit like a less stressful Tamagotchi. You check in to see how your Pikmin are doing, pluck seedlings, and walk a lot to grow new ones and find them in the wild. The concept is cute, but the execution is lacking. Realistically, there isn't too much to do in the app, and some features have fallen a little flat. Here are some suggestions - maybe Nintendo will get some ideas!
6 More Rewards For Mushroom Challenges
At the moment, when gangs of Pikmin return from head-bashing a mushroom into smithereens, there are two rewards: fruit and a postcard. This is all very well and good, but there could be even more of an incentive. Especially since fruit is not rare or hard to get a hold of. Postcards are also cute but serve little to no purpose other than being a collectible.
Pokemon GO had this a little better - the Gym Battles and Raids would give players coins, XP, or a special Pokemon at the end of it. Maybe a potential update to Bloom could be some coins, a clothing item, or a special seed being added as better prizes? Time will tell.
5 Better Ways To Earn Coins
For now, the only way to earn coins in Pikmin Bloom is by walking. And it takes a lot of steps to get any sort of money. Every 500 steps earn one coin - which may not seem like a lot, but as someone with a job, or at school, or not much spare time, it can be very hard to fit in a substantial amount of steps every day.
The items in the shop are disproportionately priced. Gift boxes cost up to 1,480 coins each, and planters can be between 150 - 600 coins. The rewards just aren't worth the price due to the effort needed to earn enough coins. Earning 1,000 coins by walking would take 740,000 steps!
4 A Use For Flower Stops
Like its' predecessor Pokemon GO,Pikmin Bloom uses real-life points of interest to be an in-game landmark. These appear as large, green buds, which will eventually blossom into a flower if enough other flowers are planted around it by players.
But that is unfortunately it. As far as this writer is aware, there is no other interaction with these places. It seems a little lacking. Even if Bloom is just an interactive pedometer, there should be something to do at these 'stops'. For instance, if you have a matching postcard - there could be a stamp feature. Or a Pikmin could retrieve a random nectar type. The options are numerous.
3 Better Menu Systems
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While the design of the app and its menus is sleek and natural-looking, they aren't the easiest to navigate. For instance: the 'Pikmindex' of all the different, dressed-up Pikmin that players have collected. To get to this screen, players must click any of the corresponding medals, which brings up the 'My Decor Collections' section below the medal information.
It makes sense that this should have its own section, not being hidden behind an experience-locked medal. This, and other fairly essential screens, should be easy to find in a different section - maybe as a filter option, or another tab, where Pikmin are listed for the squad.
2 Interaction With Friends
In Pikmin Bloom, players can add each other as friends, which is cute, right? It is, but the only available action is to send each other postcards. This is great if you're wanting to collect some more, but there's no real reason to collect any of them as they don't do anything.
Therefore, why not something more interesting: like perhaps, Pikmin trading? Or sending seedlings to other players? Even letting Pikmin visit each other, or pick up fruit from different players. There are many possibilities for things to take root here, and hopefully, Niantic will implement something a little more worthwhile.
1 Pikmin Monsters
Now, this could be a hard feature to add given the calming and relaxed nature of Bloom, but a key part of the Pikmin franchise is the quirky and fearsome enemies that players must defeat. Every game in the series so far has had a colorful cast of foes that block the progress of Pikmin and add an element of difficulty to the game.
The rotund, mushroom-looking Bulborbs are nearly as recognizable as the Pikmin themselves, and it seems rude to leave them out of the game. Maybe it wouldn't be direct combat, but a challenge feature - where the defeated monsters could become some sort of collectible like the Postcards. Please, we ask for justice in the name of Mockiwis.
Pikmin Bloom is available now on iOS and Android.