Editing Portal: Pikmin

|games=[[C|List of all games]],

'''Pikmin''' is a strategy series that started on the [[Nintendo Gamecube]] in 2001. It has had four main installments over the years and two spin-off games.

The series was created by [[Shigeru Miyamoto]], who was inspired by observations of his garden. The first two games star Captain [[Olimar]], an employee of Hocotate Freight who is also intrigued with scientific studies. He travels through space and ends up stranded on a planet (implied to be a version of Earth itself, but with Olimar being at a miniature scale), where he has to rely on the aid of tiny creatures known as Pikmin for survival. Playing as Olimar, the player must strategically gather and deploy Pikmin to accomplish objectives while trying to lose as few Pikmin as possible.

In the original ''Pikmin'', Olimar recruited the Pikmin to find the missing pieces of his ship and escape the planet before his limited life support runs out. Though the Pikmin started the game at the bottom of the planet's food chain, Olimar ultimately left them able to take on the monstrous creatures of the planet on their own. The second game was ''[[Pikmin 2]]'', released in 2004. This added second character, Olimar's coworked [[Louie]], and with it a two-player mode, along with various modifications of the gameplay. In this installment, Olimar and Louie were sent back to the strange planet to collect treasure to help Hocotate Freight get out of debt, while once more helping the Pikmin to rise up against predators.

Afterwards, the later games of the ''Pikmin'' series have had staggered releases over the years. The third ''Pikmin'' game was originally planned for the [[Wii]] (which did receive enhanced versions of the first two ''Pikmin'' games) and announced in 2008, but ''[[Pikmin 3]]'' was not released until 2013 for the [[Wii U]]. This game featured three new playable leaders: [[Alph]], [[Brittany]] and [[Charlie]], who crash-landed on the planet from the first games (now known as [[PNF-404]]) while looking for food. They had to repair their ship and also seek out the characters from the first games while working with the Pikmin.

In 2017, a handheld side-scrolling spin-off called ''[[Hey! Pikmin]]'' was released for the [[Nintendo 3DS]], marking the series' first handheld installment and the first spin-off into another genre. ''Pikmin 3'' would later receive an enhanced [[Nintendo Switch|Switch]] port known as ''[[Pikmin 3 Deluxe]]'' in 2020, and a mobile game called ''[[Pikmin Bloom]]'' was launched in 2021. A decade after the release of ''Pikmin 3'', ''[[Pikmin 4]]'' was released for the Switch.

The ''Pikmin'' series has had representation in the ''[[Portal: Super Smash Bros.|Super Smash Bros.]]'' series. Initially, trophies for the Pikmin and Olimar appeared in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]''. Starting in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'', Olimar was brought in as a playable fighter, with a stage based on the ''Pikmin'' world. He returned in ''[[Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U]]'' and ''[[Super Smash Bros. Ultimate]]'', with Alph being available as an alternate costume for him. These games also featured items, trophies, enemies and musical tracks based on the ''Pikmin'' series.