Pikmin Bloom Quick Thoughts

Pikmin Bloom, the next game from Niantic, is starting to roll out across the world. At first glance it's little more than a fancy pedometer. If you were hoping for a Pokémon Go like game where you collect up Pikmin you may be disappointed.

The game starts you off with just two Pikmin and so far the gameplay loop goes like this. As you walk your Pikmin will pick up nectar and Pikmin pots. Plant the pots in your bag, walk a certain amount of steps, and the Pikmin will sprout allowing you to pluck it and add it to your menagerie. Your Pikmin capacity is limited at first so you'll need to level up, by walking, to increase how many can follow you. Once you have a Pikmin, you can feed it the various nectars you've been collecting to then pick up some petals from them. The petal colors are determined by the Pikmin's petal colors which in turn is based on what nectar you feed them. The petals are then used to sprout flowers on the screen while you travel.

And that's about it currently. There are microtransactions where you can buy more petals or planters and the like, but that's it. It's definitely a more relaxed game than Pokémon Go so it won't necessarily take up a lot of your time, but in the same vein, there might not be a lot of reasons for people to keep coming back at the moment. It's early yet so let's see how it goes and what they've got planned.