Pikuniku definitely doesn't try to stand out by offering memorable presentation. You can also compete in a sort of basketball, which comes with the whacky physics that are expected in a minigame of this sort. Local two-player coop offers some custom made levels, such as puzzles and races, which are amusing to get through with a friend. You can add some runtime to the game by playing cooperatively. With more than half the optional content done, the game lasts under 4 hours. It's worth doing, as they provide more amusing dialogue, and you get more bang for your buck. The few character-given optional quests usually require thorough exploration of an area and a few trips back and forth.
You can go around collecting gold coins, but again you only need a couple to progress, and the rest are just to buy some collectibles from a shop. Hidden pathways can be found here and there, and often contain a collectible or an optional quest. There are optional minigames and challenge levels, too, that reward you with more collectibles. A few easy and short boss fights try to add variety, but everything is rather simplistic. In a town, you can enter a few homes and chat with NPCs, but again there's not much to do and the dialogue is just a line or two that repeats. You'll eventually find a few hats to wear, which are needed for story progress, and also unlock a few optional paths you can re-visit.
For the main story quest, you'll go through a couple of different environments, that can be either linear levels or small hubs with vertical exploration. There's not much jumping or kicking to do, as you'll mostly traverse the environment and solve occasional easy puzzles. There's the typical loose physics engine that applies to a few specific objects, but your interactive options remain fairly limited throughout. You can play with keyboard or controller, but the key layout is a bit odd on both. The controls are basic and fairly imprecise, but the game doesn't ask much of the player. You can walk around, jump and kick you can roll yourself up into a ball for faster traversal and to sink in water. With the story and dialogue unfortunately unable to carry the entire experience, you're left with the underwhelming gameplay. The story mostly focuses on the corporation conspiracy, and we never get any follow-up on why the locals thought you were a monster, which - in a game thin on story - feels like a gap. Some jokes work, others fall with a thud and veer into cringy territory. However, the dialogue becomes infrequent later in the game, and once you've gotten to know each character's source of humor, the writing can feel stale. To that end, the game succeeds at times, offering some amusing moments. Instead, it hopes to charm the players by offering quirky dialogue, complete with whacky characters. But as you explore the game world, events begin to unravel and a heinous plan by the corporation comes to light.Īs you might expect, Pikuniku isn't a unique narrative thrill ride. Giant robots descend on the village and harvest resources, in exchange for "free money". The villagers seem to have bigger issues at hand - their town and nearby forest are seemingly involved in some shady business with the Sunshine Corporation. They quickly realize though that the legends were not true, and take kindly to your presence. It turns out the locals think you're some sort of monster, as you've been locked away for quite some time. After leaving said cave, you soon arrive at a village. Pikuniku has players take control of a red "thing", as others in the game world refer to it, who awakens from some sort of slumber in a cave.