Pikmin 5: Apex Predator

Pikmin 5: Apex Predator is a fanon game created by Green Crawbster. What makes this game unique is the presence of very large creatures, named apex predators, some the same size as or bigger than the Quaggled Mireclops. The game also features a difficulty system.

Plot
Decades have passed since the events of. The castaways and people from other planets have begun colonizing PNF-404 with minimal disruption. But one day...

The story begins with the player being woken up from their bed as they need to attend their final exams. As they get out of bed, the player is taught basic captain controls. Once they walk into the final exam area, a teacher explains that to become full cadets, they need to prove their mastery of Pikmin skills in a test. The player is a junior cadet in cadet school on a PNF-404 settlement. The player is given all of the types of Pikmin and is given a proper tutorial on how to use the different Pikmin and what each one has immunities to. They can select the easy, medium, or hard exam, which serves as difficulty selection and gives the player a basic idea of what each difficulty is like. Difficulties can be changed in this tutorial if the player is unsatisfied and wants to try another one. Each difficulty should be carefully considered because it can not be changed after completing the tutorial. Upon completing the exam difficulty of their choice, the player has passed the final exams. The teacher prepares to press a button to set off fireworks at the graduation ceremony to a massive earthquake. One student comments that the fireworks were incredibly loud, but the teacher comments that they never pressed the button. A massive shadow overtakes the sky to the panicked screams of everyone and the screen fades to black.

Immediately, the player is moved to a character customization screen to set the player they will be using for the whole game. Upon finishing customization, the story continues. The character works for emergency rescue services, visiting the city of Olimar after hearing of a major catastrophe there. The city serves as the main hub and was founded by and named after Olimar himself, with his family having moved there to be with him. Buildings are destroyed and people are missing. The main goal is to rescue the people and raise funds to rebuild the city by selling treasures encountered in the wild. A gray-haired Olimar is the mayor of his namesake city, and he explains the situation to the player in his office. The city is in ruins and he is concerned that the citizens of Olimar have taken shelter in the Underground Bunker, the cave under the city. The player's task is to take an emergency crew and explore the cave to rescue the people. At the end of the explanation, Olimar opens the emergency vault in his office, containing a Red Onion occupied by 100 Red Pikmin. Then, the player enters the Underground Bunker. Upon completing the Underground Bunker and rescuing the citizens, Rhea, a member of the rescue crew talks with Olimar, asking him if he knows what could have caused so much destruction. Olimar's educated guess is that an aggressive male of some kind from the Lover's Spring. It is a common mating ground for the fauna of the planet which makes males of all species very aggressive as they are competing for females. Thusly, the first location of the game is open, and the character visits to look for the aggressive male. As the story progresses, more buildings in the city and repaired or built, and in the city's center lies a statue of Captain Olimar, and the Rescue Crew's ship.

At the Lover's Spring, the rescue crew starts collecting DNA samples of all of the creatures to see that most closely resembles the DNA left by the beast. In addition, the Blue and Purple Onions are reunited with the central Red Onion. Once the player reaches the Purple Onion, they will encounter a paper bag requiring 500 Pikmin to weigh down. The player will start generating these Purple Pikmin, increasing the Trigger Number of the whole squad. Once the player generates enough Purple Pikmin to weigh down the wall, the Pauperesque Squallard lands, fights the player, and leaves after devouring a massive amount of Pikmin. The beast is so massive that when it hops on the 500 Pikmin paper bag, it immediately lowers to the ground, implying the creature is larger than 500 Pikmin. The day immediately ends as everyone is left in abject horror as to what they saw, and they regroup that night to plan what to do. The rescue crew starts talking to the higher ups about borrowing artillery or space lasers in an online meeting, but the meeting is joined by an unknown person with a black screen. They turn their camera on and it shows that many people are crowded in a single room. They are at the top of a giant sand structure and are fine, but the situation has become urgent as a bunch of enemies ran into their structure after a giant beast landed. They are scared one of the beasts will find them, and they desperately need the rescue crew's help. It means they cannot wait for the heavy weaponry and need to find the people ASAP. Still, the group needs to find a way to make sure the massive beast does not arrive again. Olimar thinks for a bit and connects the massive amounts of Purple Pikmin present and the beast, coming up with the trigger and stomach numbers. The player is then told they can go back on the beach, but cannot have too many Purples in their squadron or the massive beast will attack. They are sent back on the field.

=Content=

Pikmin
All nine Pikmin types from return, plus the new addition of Orange Pikmin.
 * Red Pikmin
 * Yellow Pikmin
 * Blue Pikmin
 * Purple Pikmin
 * White Pikmin
 * Rock Pikmin
 * Winged Pikmin
 * Ice Pikmin
 * Green Pikmin
 * Orange Pikmin have orange skin and orange petals, and appear to have molten shells on their backs. They move at 0.8x the speed of an average Pikmin due to their heavy shells. Orange Pikmin are immune to explosions, as they dig their heavy shells into the ground to absorb the resulting shockwaves. They can take non-Orange Pikmin and wrap them in their arms, using their shells to shield them as well and prevent those Pikmin from dying in an explosion.

Apex predators
Alongside the usual enemies are apex predators, the namesake of Pikmin 5: Apex Predator. They are massive beasts that have terrorized and destroyed the city of Olimar and must be vanquished for the safety of the people and Pikmin alike. Each apex predator has a trigger number, the collective weight of all Pikmin in the squad and in the vicinity of it, and a stomach capacity, the minimum amount of Pikmin, in weight, it will eat before being satiated for the day and fleeing. All Pikmin have a weight of 1, except for Purple Pikmin, which have a weight of 10. Because apex predators are large animals that need a large amount of food each day, they are attracted to large quantities of Pikmin, always numbering in the hundreds in terms of weight, and will attack when their territory is invaded by them. Fights against apex predators always last until the apex predator is killed, the day ends, or the only Pikmin type remaining on the squad are White Pikmin after having already fed a White Pikmin to it. Each apex predator yields a building treasure upon death, and their corpses are worth hundreds of Pikmin seeds. Because of this, they should be considered high investment, high reward enemies.
 * Bullwog
 * Pauperesque Squallard

Areas
Areas are listed in order of discovery.
 * Lover's Spring: a giant lake surrounded by sandy beaches and densely populated by a variety of enemies. The player character visits this area to search for the aggressive male creature that destroyed Olimar City in its hormone-induced rage. The Blue and Purple Onions are located here, and given that many smaller enemies and Pellet Posies are also found here, it is recommended to come here to replenish Pikmin populations. The name Lover's Spring has two meanings, as the world is a spring, and the season represented is Spring.

Caves
Caves are found in all areas and contain most of the needed treasures.
 * City of Olimar
 * Underground Bunker
 * Lover's Spring
 * Spawning Grounds
 * Giant's Gymnasium

Buildings
Buildings are previously destroyed structures in Olimar City that are rebuilt and even repurposed as the story progresses and more building treasures are claimed. Buildings sell goods that can be of major help if they are used.
 * Louie's Grub & Hub: can turn collected beasts into tasty goods. It requires the Bakery Oven, eaten by the Pauperesque Squallard in Lover's Spring.