Fruit



Fruits are the main collectible item in. There are 66 fruits scattered around 4 of the 5 areas of the game, and collecting them is necessary to complete the game. They are the reason for Alph, Brittany, and Charlie's journey to PNF-404, as the collection of seeds from fruits is necessary to solve the worldwide hunger crisis on their home planet of Koppai.

Fruits are found in specific locations of specific areas, usually accompanied by some sort of challenge which must be completed to access them. Some fruits are split into parts, where all parts must be recovered before the fruit is recognized as collected. On top of working towards the goal of kick-starting cultivation on Koppai, the fruits are directly useful to the explorers, as they provide bottles of juice, one of which is consumed every day. If the player runs out of juice, the game is over.

In total, there are 66 fruits, belonging to 30 different types, with some of them having appeared as treasures in, and all fruits later reappear as treasures in , bearing the same name. There is a grand total of 98 days' worth of juice, including the three bottles the explorers keep at the start as provisions. Day 99 can be played, but the Koppaites will have no juice at the end, causing a game over. In the Ultra-Spicy difficulty in Pikmin 3 Deluxe, there is only 49 bottles worth of juice, as the amount of juice provided from each fruit is halved. Interestingly, by highlighting day 1 on the day selection menu, it'll show that at the start of that day, the explorers had 7 bottles of juice. Given that at the end of the day, there are only three bottles on the inventory, this means that when the Drake crash-landed, four of the provisions got lost.

Golden fruit
In addition, special golden variants of some fruits can be found in the Mission Mode, Bingo Battle, and Side Stories of Pikmin 3 or Dandori Battles of Pikmin 4. They are collected for Pokos or instead of juice, and are worth several times the amount of their non-golden counterparts.
 * Pikmin 3
 * a golden Cupid's Grenade, often several are found in groups or dropped by enemies.
 * a golden Sunseed Berry, more valuable but less common than Golden Grenades.
 * Pikmin 4
 * a golden Tremendous Sniffer, only spawns once per match and often in places that Oatchi and Moss cannot reach.

Juice
The collection of fruits serves more than just completing the overall goal: fruit collected is juiced at the end of the day to provide rations for the explorers. The juice is stored in bottles, and a bottle is only closed and made available if it's filled to the top. If needed, the leaders will mix juice from different fruits to fill up a bottle. After all of the fruits of the day have been juiced, the crew gets the oldest bottle and consumes it, regardless of how many people there are to feed with it. As such, the amount of juice the player has will determine the number of days left they can explore. If a day ends and there are no more bottles of juice, the player is taken to the game over screen, although they are allowed to retry from a previous day.

Different fruits provide different amounts of juice, with the lowest possible being half a cup, the maximum being 3, and the average being 1.4. The bottles have some Koppaite text on them. On the glass, there is the text ("FJ"), which could mean "fruit juice". On the frame, the word ("survival") can be read.

Blending
When two different juices are placed on the same bottle, the resulting juice's color will end up as a blend between the two. This is purely aesthetic and affects only the color seen on the bottle. To determine the final color, the game averages the hue and value components of both the existing and the new juice. This works fine for most cases, but can have some oddities; in the case where the player collects a Juicy Gaggle and a Zest Bomb and their juices are combined, this results in the color #00FFE5, which is a vibrant blue. Although this color blend is correct, it does not look very natural; indeed, in the real world, combining raspberry and lime juice results in a grayish-brown mix.

That said, there is an exception for the first fruit of a saved game. When the player collects the first fruit, a cutscene plays showing said fruit being juiced. For unknown reasons, this cutscene affects the coloring calculations. If this fruit did not fill up a bottle, then when the player collects a second fruit, the resulting juice color will be more biased towards the first fruit collected. This can be seen easily with the aforementioned Juicy Gaggle and Zest Bomb – if the player collects one of these as their first fruit, the resulting "blue" juice will end up being greener or bluer than normal.

Fruit File


The Fruit File is one of the options available on the KopPad. It provides information on all collected pieces of fruit, and by tapping on fruit, the player can read Brittany's Notes on it.

Piktamin U
"Piktamin U" is a vitamin that the Koppaites claim is in some fruits. Its name is a portmanteau of Pikmin and vitamin, and the "U" in the vitamin's name is a reference to the Wii U. Even the Golden Sunseed and Golden Grenade are said in Mission Mode tips to contain large amounts of Piktamin U, despite their composition.

Treasures as fruits
Some treasures in Pikmin 2 are fruits, particularly those in the Succulent Series. Most of these returned in Pikmin 3 with the same name:


 * same as the Pikmin 3 fruit. It weighs 3 instead of 1.
 * same as the Pikmin 3 fruit. It weighs 5 instead of 3.
 * a larger strawberry.
 * a chestnut; botanically a fruit.
 * same as the Pikmin 3 fruit. However, it is only one slice and weighs 15 instead of 5.
 * same as the Pikmin 3 fruit. It weighs 15 instead of 10.
 * same as the Pikmin 3 fruit. It weighs 15 instead of 5.

Additionally, some treasures in other series are botanically fruits, but not considered as such for culinary purposes. None return in Pikmin 3, though the Love Nugget returned in Pikmin 4.
 * a tomato.
 * a bell pepper.
 * an acorn.
 * a larger acorn.

All 30 fruits from Pikmin 3 reappear in Pikmin 4 as treasures. They have the same name as in Pikmin 3, though some have different weights.
 * : a strawberry which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a cherry which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a Japanese apricot which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a loquat which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a grapefruit which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : a muskmelon which now weighs 50 instead of 20.
 * : a Japanese plum which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a peach which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : white muscat grapes which now weigh 15 instead of 20, or 1 per part.
 * : purple grapes which now weigh 15 instead of 20, or 1 per part.
 * : a watermelon which has now weighs 100 instead of 42, or 1, 5, 5, 8 and 15 in individual pieces.
 * : a raspberry which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a lime which now weighs 7 instead of 5.
 * : a fig which now weighs 10 instead of 8.
 * : a Japanese persimmon which now weighs 10 instead of 8.
 * : a pear which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : an Asian pear which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : a kiwifruit which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3. (For a piece)
 * : a golden kiwifruit which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3. (For a piece)
 * : a mandarin orange which now weighs 7 instead of 5.
 * : a lemon which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a dekopon which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : an apple which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : a mangosteen which now weighs 5 instead of 3.
 * : an avocado which now weighs 10 instead of 8.
 * : a papaya which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : a starfruit which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3. (For a piece)
 * : a mango which now weighs 12 instead of 10.
 * : a banana which has the same weight as in Pikmin 3.
 * : a dragon fruit/pitaya which now weighs 20 instead of 15.

Along with the, which now weighs 10 instead of 20, there are 5 new treasures in the Nature's Candy Series that are botanically fruits:
 * : a cherry tomato
 * : a zucchini
 * : a pumpkin
 * : a peanut
 * : an eggplant

Badges
In, there are five badges the player can gain from collecting fruits:
 * Bearing Fruit: Collecting a fruit in Story Mode.
 * Fruitful Endeavor: Collecting 20 fruits in Story Mode.
 * Fruit Force: Collecting 30 fruits in Story Mode.
 * Fruit Ballad: Collecting all 66 fruits in Story Mode.
 * Efficiency Expert: Having 30 days' worth of juice reserve.

Trivia

 * According to Brittany's notes, Alph is allergic to both the Heroine's Tear and the Scaly Custard, although the latter is only stated in the European version.
 * Including Mission Mode and Bingo Battle, the Cupid's Grenade is the most common normal fruit in Pikmin 3, appearing 20 times. The most common golden fruit is the Golden Grenade, appearing 23 times.
 * All the fruits in Pikmin 3 appear to be fresh and undamaged, which is odd, considering some of them are buried, underwater, not growing on any plant (except a few), and even ingested by creatures. This is likely to make them more easily recognizable.
 * Next to the Sunseed Berry in the Garden of Hope along the path to the Rock Onion, an unripe strawberry on a stem can be seen to the right of the ripe fruit. While this fruit never grows, it implies that more fruit can grow on PNF-404 over time.
 * The Fruit Files for Dawn Pustules and Dusk Pustules state 20 Pikmin are needed to carry them. While there are 20 grapes to carry in each, just one Pikmin can hypothetically handle the entire task by carrying one at a time.

Names in other languages
Juice

Piktamin U