Early this morning, Nintendo uploaded an animated short to YouTube and social media and um… no one really knows what it’s about. While some of the first guesses were that this was a new Baby Rosalina design for the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy Movie, that doesn’t seem to be the case. As fans began digging into some of the references and musical cues contained in the short, it actually seems to be a stealth teaser for a new Pikmin project.
The video begins with a mother and child playing in her room before a knock on the door interrupts their play session. The mother gives the child a binky and leaves, but then some mysterious force begins to move the infant’s toys. The baby is initially excited by her rattle, but then is surprised when her binky moves by itself. As she chases it, the animation seems to be telling the viewer that these items are being carried rather than floating magically, which makes more sense when viewed through a Pikmin lens. All sorts of mayhem ensues before the mother returns, who finds the child is now walking for the first time. It’s saccharine, though effective.
The first hint towards such a conclusion is that Nintendo did produce animated shorts for Pikmin 4. Another hint comes from a musical cue around the 3:13 mark in the video. It shares a similar chord progression to “Pikmin Tune 1” from Pikmin 4’s OST. The color scheme of the short is also comparable to how the newer Pikmin games look, which sport more saturation than the GameCube original.
What seems to be throwing a wrench into things is that you don’t ever see any actual creatures here. The child’s blocks appear to be carried by small forces in the child’s room, though no prior Pikmin game has featured invisible Pikmin. I suppose that could be some new gimmick for Pikmin 5, but then how does that even play into things? If we go the Rosalina route, this could be when she discovered Lumas, but then aren’t they more celestial? They also have never been invisible before.
We’re not going to know for a bit, so I suppose we’ll just need to live with speculation. Either that or Nintendo is going about announcing an internal animated studio in the weirdest way possible.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
