With the heightened accuracy and control provided by the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers, it should be easy to get all 30 items within 30 days in NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin, right? Yeah, right.

Read our game tips to help you make the most of the Pikmin under your command and secure safe passage off the planet of the Pikmin before it's too late!

Strength in smaller numbers
Have you been wasting time either waiting for your 100 Pikmin to catch up with you or looking for wayward Pikmin who got trapped or confused by bridges? In many cases, it’s the quality of your Pikmin that is more important than the quantity of Pikmin you have. Having 100 Pikmin is more important when you’re attempting to multitask (such as carrying items back to the Dolphin, building bridges, demolishing gates) than when you attack beasts. Plus, the fewer Pikmin you have in your posse, the easier it is to turn them all to flower Pikmin when you find nectar. When you start a day, only take about 40 Pikmin out of an Onion to serve as your scout team. Until you know you need a lot of Pikmin, keep them in the Onions.

The value of replay
Days 2 and 3 at The Forest of Hope are critical for your long-term survival. The lower difficulty level of these days makes them excellent places to pick up time. By the end of Day 3, you should have recovered five ship parts. For this, you’ll need to grow a red Pikmin army and use them to ‘clear the area’ of Bulborbs. You’ll also use the new-found yellow Pikmin for their Bomb Rock throwing expertise. Throwing Bomb Rocks at both wooden and stone gates will save your Pikmin crew valuable demolition time.

You don’t need to grab two parts each day in the Forest of Hope, but if you don’t have five parts total by the end of Day 3, use the new feature of NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin that lets you go back to replay an earlier day. Go back to the start of Day 2 and try again. Down the road, you’ll be thankful that you did.

Don’t let the sun go down
Sure, it’s nice to see a sunset sometimes, to enjoy its wonderful colours as the sun sinks below the horizon – but not when your life is depending on it! If no items are within your grasp, don’t use the ‘Go to Sunset’ option to end the day. Instead, grow Pikmin, kill enemies, cut grass to get nectar, knock down gates, build bridges – do anything but merely end the day.

Repopulating a colour
If Olimar’s supplies of one colour of Pikmin get critically low, he can use another colour of Pikmin to help them multiply – as in, do 95% of the work while the suffering breed cleans up. If disaster strikes and Olimar has five yellow Pikmin remaining, he can use another breed of Pikmin (hopefully red) to go hunting, be it for beasts or pellets. When the red Pikmin bring the spoils of the hunt back to the Onions, use Olimar’s whistle to make these red Pikmin stop what they’re doing and come to him. Then, Olimar can take the yellow Pikmin under his control and order them to carry the beasts or pellets the last few steps to their Onion. The Onion will spit out yellow seeds, and the red Pikmin can be proud of the fact that they saved their brethren from extinction.

Quick recovery
All items weigh different amounts and need a certain number of Pikmin to lift them off the ground and carry them back to the Dolphin. When he can afford to spare the resources, Olimar should make as many Pikmin as possible carry the item back to the ship. The more Pikmin carrying, the faster the item is retrieved. The faster the item is retrieved, the sooner the Pikmin can get back to work. But should Olimar make a special trip back to the Onion just to gather more Pikmin for this task? Probably not.
 
The clock is ticking
The keys to surviving the planet of the Pikmin are persistence and practice. Don’t be afraid to go back in time and replay a day and don’t let those Pikmin get lazy on you. There’s plenty of time for them to rest after sunset.