The S.S. Dolphin, a space ship, accidentally collides with a comet and needs to make an emergency landing on a toxic planet. As a result the captain has 30 days before he's all out of oxygen and in that time he has to find back all the pieces of his ship in order to return to where he came from. This is also where the biggest downpoint of the game lays as the makers decided to keep the original time limits.

Although this time pressure offers a welcome challenge it's frustrating to at the end come short of one of two reserve parts. Also this denies you from taking your time or free exploration, something a lot of Wii owners like to do in my opinion. Luckily the available time is nicely displayed and levels are short enough to replay if you don't get your goals for that day. It's clear the captain can't do his job alone and luckily he quickly gets help from the local fauna and flora. Most suitable are the Pikmin, small animals with the appearance of a plant.

Not surpring there are different types of Pikmin with all having their own strong points and advantages. Yellow ones can transport trees and be thrown away, blue ones feel good in water and red ones can handle fire. Isn't it weird that the colors always handily show what the animals are good at!

The gameplay logically follows from those possibilities. You'll have to use groups of animals to take on enemies, blow up walls and other obstacles and search a way through all the puzzles on the planet. In total you'll have about a hundred of them which can be replaced with backup units. Just like with the old Lemmings the cuteness of the animals is often used as well as the fact that they're not all that smart. You don't only have to give them the right commands but also make sure they don't put themselves in danger with their tiny brain.

Those that have played the Gamecube version will rarely find new things, even the colorful and cute (but technically slightly disappointing) graphics and sound seems largely unaltered. Of course the controls have been adjusted to the remote and nunchuck, something that is clear from the title. The innovative controls of the Wii seem invented for this type of games and I can't imagine that the original ones were better or faster. Everything is very intuitive and logical, even for beginners.