Pikuniku from Devolver Digital is a colorful, charming, relaxing and fun 2D platforming exploration puzzle game you have to play on Nintendo Switch. Learn more about this one in our Pikuniku review!
Pikuniku is a colorful, charming and weird 2D puzzle exploration adventure that feels right at home on Nintendo Switch. Your journey will begin after a bizarre cloud-shaped pink character in a top hat decides to give you some money for free… which means that something is up. He will say that he’s sending his robots to collect the junk around town that is just sitting around being useless and taking a lot of space, and all you have to do to get your free money is do nothing.
After this sequence, you will be inside if s dark, gloomy and leaky cave, all casually sleeping next to a ghost, and it is here that you will need to complete your first objective. Are you ready for it? Your first task is to wake up! The game will even do this for you since the aforementioned ghost will wake you up, so that’s one objective completed to perfection! You be promoted to move, and once your legs grow up you’ll be ready to run and somersault around. This short section is the game’s way of presenting you with tutorial.
You will move your character around with the left analog stick or the D-Pad , and you can make it jump by pressing the B button. The A button is for rolling, and the Y button is for kicking, which will be useful during the tutorial to kick around some stones and to tear down a fragile porous rock blocking your way. The Y button is also used for performing an action, but that is something I’ll go over in a bit. The X button is for reading the dialogue, and the L button will give you access to your inventory. Pressing the + button will pause the action, and you can access the settings and objectives sections from there. In the objectives you will get to see a map of the area, as well as the objective that you’re currently working on.
There are some hidden secret things here and there. For example, once I had exited the tutorial section of the game I started to make my way down a hill when I noticed something weird about a small wall to my left. I walked straight to said wall and kept going until I was inside the mountain. I found a small area in there and used a mushroom to jump and spring from it to the ledge above since it was shinning. When I got there I pressed the Y button and this made my character kneel a bit to see what was going on. It turns out there was a dancing bug in that platform, and once it did its dance it flew away.
Once you play for a bit, and after talking to some very polite and chatty birds, you will run into some townsfolk who seem to believe that you’re some type of beast. They trap you and lock you in a cage suspended high from the ground, which means that your next objective will be to find a way to escape from said contraption. Maybe you could talk your way out of this predicament and promise to help the townsfolk to repair the bridge that you accidentally broke when you walked over it?
Along with the main story objectives that you need to complete, there are also other extra objectives for you to work on as you play. You could, for instance, have to find a rock that decided to play hide and seek. You’ll also need to find items as you search here, there, and everywhere, so that you can use then to solve puzzles. What will you do if you find an apple on top of a tree? Well, you will search for the interesting structure that is hidden inside of the well below the town so that you can give it not one, not two, but three apples! And what will happen once all three apples have been offered? Well, that is a surprise! There are also some mini-games to complete, which I’m not going to spoil here, but they’re fun and will make you smile.
You can also run into challenge sections that will test your platforming skills as you try to overcome the hazards at hand. There are several checkpoints in each challenge section, which is great since if you’re hit you will be transported back to the last checkpoint you reached so that you can immediately carry on. And if, for some reason, you’re feeling a tad overwhelmed by what a challenge section is throwing at you, you’ll be able to enlist the help of one of the green frogs you find to take you out of there – but this will mean losing your progress and having to start the section over if you reenter it.
There are also some hidden trophies you will find inside of boxes, so if you want to 100% the game you will need to really search everywhere! Once you find your first trophy you will be able to pause the game to go into the trophies section where you’ll be able to move around each trophy you’ve collected to get a better view. You will be using your kick to swing from open hooks not only to complete puzzles but also so that you can find one of the different hats up for grabs. That’s right, this one has collectible hats for you!
I had been looking forward to playing Pikuniku since it was revealed as a Nintendo Switch release, and I’m happy to report that it’s certainly a colorfully charming, relaxing and fun 2D platforming exploration puzzle game that I highly recommend you buy on Nintendo Switch. You’ll be able to take on this adventure on your own or with a friend or loved one thanks to its local co-op, so be sure to grab the game!
Disclaimer
This Pikuniku review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Devolver Digital.
