Pikmin it's a cute wholesome little franchise where adorable little plant people help out a lost space man make his way home surely there's not an ounce of dark law to be found across the series right wrong you see Pikmin actually Harbors plenty of dark secrets that lurk just beneath its jovial surface from the lingering history of nuclear warfare that plagues the land you explore to the creepy Legend behind one of the franchise's key boss fights it's time to unveil the Dark Truth behind pikmin's disturbing lore let's start with a little history lesson to set the scene for the franchise's backstory pikmin's one two and three all take place on the same Planet which goes unnamed in the first two games but takes on the title of pnf404 when the copite people arrived during the events of the third game anyway this supposedly Uncharted planet is actually a post-apocalyptic Wasteland and potentially one that could actually be a future version of our own blue planet Earth as our Central protagonist Captain Olimar explores his new surroundings it's clear especially from the first two games that this is a world that humans have left their mark on you spend a good deal of pikmin's one and two hoarding and Scavenging old relics from a forgotten human past and by relics I mean um Duracell batteries but crucially Olimar never actually encounters any humans in his Expeditions and the one potential truth behind this points to a devastating conclusion Humanity has died out as the result of a worldwide nuclear Devastation okay so that's a pretty big extrapolation for this cutesy strategy series but there's one key piece of evidence that helps back it up and that's the presence of the geiger counter this innocuous little device is found in the forest of hope during the events of the first game and it's use completely confounds poor Olimar who admits he has no idea what it does well as we know in the real world a geiger counter is used to measure levels of radioactivity much like those found in the wake of a nuclear detonation the device will give off little clicks and noises to alert the user whenever they've discovered any radiation and this is exactly what the geiger counter in the first Pikmin game does the ship's log details that the noisy gauge is always letting off spontaneous clicks and buzzes it can be kind of annoying and so it's not too much of a jump to assume that this Uncharted Planet possibly Earth is still suffering from nuclear Devastation it sure does explain whatever the hell this thing is however pnf-404 goes through something of a drastic makeover in the third Pikmin game which sees the planet sporting a giant landmass a super continent that is actually based on the Pangea Proxima projections of what our Earth could look like in 250 million years time so with a little suspension of disbelief we can easily extrapolate that pnf404 is potentially the remnants of our own Planet just millions of years into the future and this devastating Revelation is the backdrop to the gentle Garden Vibes of the Pikmin franchise [Music] foreign the offshoot of our good pal ollymar in the bad ending of the original Pikmin you can trigger this Grim alternative ending if you fail to get the 25 necessary pieces of the SS dolphin before your allocated 30 days of Air Supply run out in this instance Olimar will attempt to take off and escape the planet with his half repaired spaceship which will inevitably crash land back down to the surface while this doesn't outright kill the poor Captain it still pretty much condemns him to a slow agonizing Suffocation on the planet's surface but that is only the beginning of this disturbing end to an otherwise jovial game you see olimar's loyal Pikmin carry him back to one of the onions tripod-like pollinators that produce Pikmin and he sucked up into the onion before being ejected as a seed which is affectionately termed the ollyman only here's the Grim part there's no one to pluck him from the ground so presumably he'll just gestate there in the ground forever not sure which one I'd prefer to be honest but I guess a straight death seems preferable to being buried half alive is a weird plant hybrid thing anyway do you finish the game normally you'll completely miss this ending so let's just pretend it's all some weird fever dream and move on to more pleasant pastures in the second game or then again maybe not okay here comes the big one the True Villain of Pikmin is actually the unassuming goofball that is Louis don't you fall for his ACT this lad is a stone cold sociopath let me explain all right so our lad Louis is introduced in Pikmin 2 as ollymar supposedly hapless and harmless teammate sent alongside the aforementioned Captain back to the planet from the original Pikmin to scavenge Treasures to bail their company hokitate Freight out of extreme debt you see while Olimar has been surviving the dangers of pnf404 Louis has been taking care of a critical mission for the Freight business in his first ever job for the company he's tasked with transporting an expensive shipment of rare golden picnic carrots only mid-delivery he supposedly ambushed by and I'm quoting in his own words here a ravenous space bunny who promptly gobbles up all the extremely valuable space carrots which as we've established throws the company into crippling debt and so that's the unassuming presence that kicks off Pikmin 2's Adventure back to pnf404 only here's the rub Louis is a grade A fiber as you'll learn if you complete all 30 challenge missions without killing a single Pikmin you'll unlock the ominous sounding cutscene Louise dark secret this little vignette actually showcases the full devious truth behind Louise Escapade with the quote-unquote ravenous space bunny you see our lad Louis has completely made up the fictional Rabbit and his proclivity for blingy vegetables and unsurprisingly has feasted on the carrots himself and without a care in the world for the dire consequences of his actions the lanky liar throws his company and as a result our Earnest hero Olimar right under the bus but in all honesty this is only really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Louie's crimes and misdemeanors within the Pikmin franchise yep that's because Louis goes through something of a character reinvention in the wake of Pikmin 2 which sees him double down on the hints of his strange Behavior at the end of Pikmin 2 as Olimar makes his way back to pay off the outstanding debt he realizes that His companion Louis isn't with him with the debt repaid Olimar and the president of the hockitate freight company returned to the planet to rescue their hapless co-worker they find him atop a horde of treasure that turns out to be the head of the intimidating Titan dweevel a large spider-like boss creature that rounds out the epilogue of Pikmin too during the boss fight as Olimar drastically uses any and all Pikmin in his disposal to destroy the Titan dweevel and save his colleague Louis just sits atop the giant bug smugly taking the epic fight in and here's the quirky little detail that turns Louis onto an even darker path you see after the Titan dweaver fight you can find records in both olimar's journals and the sales pitch for your horde of treasure that allude to the fact that Louis might have actually been controlling the Ferocious bug in a attempt to kill off poor Olimar olamar wonders could he have been controlling that Beast all along while the sales pitch states that Louis somehow managed to hijack a colossal insect's brain and even goes a little further ominously mentioning that nobody knows what thoughts lurk in his mind either way Louis returns a changed man or hokitay or whatever they are and this is reflected in two interesting little details the first is that Louis now insists that he's called the king of bugs which totally doesn't sound like the title of a lad that hijacked a giant killer spider whoa not at all no no no while the second has slightly more Sinister implications you see pre-tightened Weevil Louis has a weight of one unit or one Pikmin but following his strange encounter he now weighs five units as confirmed by his appearance in Pikmin 3. now we can only speculate here but as is established with Louie's character he has a ponchon for cooking and eating the bug-like creatures found in the games so one can reasonably extrapolate that Louis have feasted on the Titan dweevel in some capacity during his time with the giant bug and taking on bizarre new qualities that have changed in both physically and mentally obviously there's no way of confirming this short of getting inside Shakira mayamoto's head but it definitely provides some food for thought but it all goes a long way to explaining his erratic behavior in Pikmin 3 where he actively antagonizes the core Trio of alpha Britain Charlie despite their attempts to help and rescue him finally there's the Japanese legend of the Umi bozu that interweaves itself throughout the law of Pikmin and specifically with the third game's final boss The plasm Wraith The plasm Wraith makes its entrance in Pikmin 3 where it promptly kidnaps our good mate Captain Olimar who's back on pnf404 to scavenge some more Treasures while it's initially quite playful with Olimar The Wraith soon turns violent and becomes hostile to anyone that tries to rescue Olimar who it's fiercely protective over Olimar is eventually rescued by Alf Britain Charlie much to the annoyance of The Wraith anyway since Pikmin 3's release it has long been theorized that The plasm Wraith and its kidnapping of Olimar was inspired by the myth of the umibosu a monk-like spirit that lures seafaring ships off their course before shipwrecking them and kidnapping their captains and there are a handful of key pieces of evidence that point towards this being the unnerving truth while the behavior of The plasm Wraith is eerily similar to The Legend of the umabozu its connection to the mythical sea monk actually belies something even more Sinister you see across the original Three Pikmin game games there's a range of mysterious accidents that tie The plasm Wraith and more broadly pnf-404 closer to the Japanese Legend in each game in the franchise there are a number of instances where Ships coming into the orbit of pnf-404 suffer catastrophic crashes or shipwrecks if you will obviously there's olimar's original crash in the first Pikmin but more notably there are a handful of Crash Landings in Pikmin 3 under the watchful eye of The plasm Wraith the copites crash land at the beginning of the game but it's also revealed that olimar's ship has crashed upon arrival at pnf404 before he's kidnapped by The Wraith the ending of the game further alludes to the fact that the pattern of crashes on the planet is not a series of unfortunate accidents instead suggesting some intrinsic link between pnf404 and The plasm Wraith so there you have it Nintendo's wholesome strategy game has a deep dark core you just have to scratch a little bit beneath the surface to unveil it if you're a fan of video game lore please make sure to subscribe as we have new law base video every Monday thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you next time