Challenge run

Onionless

An Onionless playthrough is when the player must never withdraw Pikmin out of an Onion (including the Hocotate ship in Pikmin 2). This means that when Pikmin enter an Onion, they will never be seen again in the playthrough, and the player effectively starts with 0 Pikmin when landing in a new area. In the first 3 games, a handful of glitches are required in order to complete the challenge.

Pikmin

Early on in the challenge, an out of bounds glitch is required in The Forest of Hope in order to reach the Yellow Onion, since Red Pikmin cannot be withdrawn from the Red Onion. The player must complete the entire area with just Yellow Pikmin, which is possible with various glitches. In The Forest Navel, the player must approach the Blue Onion right away and grow an entire army from 1 blue sprout. Candypop Buds must be used to make other Pikmin types, and so that the player has 0 Blue Pikmin when arriving in The Distant Spring. This way, the Blue Onion will make a sprout in The Distant Spring, and the player can once again grow an army in order to complete this map. Lastly, the player must obtain 15 Pikmin in The Final Trial, but they only start with 1 Blue Pikmin sprout (if they arrive with 0 Blue Pikmin). The only way to obtain the required number of Pikmin is to throw the Blue Pikmin into a Candypop Bud of a different type, and repeat the process 15 times so that the Blue Onion makes a total of 15 sprouts. Then, the player can kill the Emperor Bulblax, and harvest its five 5-pellets in order to have 40 Pikmin to carry the Secret Safe (note that the Secret Safe weighs 85 in the Japanese version, so this challenge is not possible to complete in this version). In this game, Onionless playthroughs are considered more interesting with the additional rule that no Pikmin deaths are allowed.

A full playthrough has been completed by "Mokaygee" in 23 in-game days. 23 days is believed to be the lowest number of days needed to complete this challenge by a human, but "Mokaygee" has made a tool-assisted superplay completing The Forest of Hope in 1 day Onionless, and "TRR" has made a tool-assisted superplay completing The Forest Navel in 1 day Onionless, making 21 days theoretically possible.

Pikmin 2

There are a few obstacles in an Onionless playthrough in this game. First of all, the Red Onion must produce a sprout on day 2, and when arriving in Awakening Wood. Otherwise, the player will be unable to obtain Pikmin for the rest of the playthrough. In order to start day 2 with 0 Red Pikmin, a day 1 extinction is required. Also, in order to arrive in the Awakening Wood with 0 Red Pikmin, all of the player's Red Pikmin must be killed, or converted to Purple Pikmin. Lastly, the player must grow 100 Purple Pikmin in 1 day in order to collect Doomsday Apparatus. Doing this is not hard, it simply requires the player to visit Cavern of Chaos 20 times, which is tedious, but doable.

A full playthrough has been completed by "Grassdigger" in 7 in-game days. A handful of glitches were utilized in order to complete the challenge in just 7 days, including the "rest skip" glitch. Unfortunately, a 6 day run does not seem possible under Onionless restrictions, as Awakening Wood simply takes too much time to complete. Note that the player who completed the challenge had 1 death during the playthrough. However, it's actually possible to do a Deathless Onionless playthrough, thanks to a different glitch. Unfortunately, a Deathless Onionless playthrough currently requires 8 days to complete, as 1 more day is needed in Valley of Repose in order to obtain enough Pikmin to crush the 35-weight bag. No one has completed a deathless Onionless playthrough of Pikmin 2 yet.

Pikmin 3

In this game, a deathless Onionless run is impossible. There is no way to make progress in the Garden of Hope if there are Red Pikmin in the Onion. However, because "AshEevee" found a way to kill Pikmin on day 1, an Onionless playthrough is still possible. On day 1, the player can remove all obstacles to the ship, then kill all of their Pikmin. Unlike the 2 previous games, the Onion will make a sprout immediately, but the player must leave it behind so that they can have a red sprout in the Garden of Hope. Going forward, it's best to leave all Pikmin buried or left behind at the end of each day, so that the player can start each new area with 1 of each type of Pikmin sprout. The Formidable Oak proves to be a challenge, because the player starts with 5 Pikmin, and there is no way to grow more. However, if the player uses the Candypop Buds inside the oak, the player can cause extinctions for the different types of Pikmin, making the Onion produce more.

A full playthrough has been completed by "JHawk" in 10 in-game days. All fruits can still be collected in the optimal number of days under the Onionless restriction. "JHawk" uses various glitches to save time, mostly ones that also appear in speedruns of this game, such as clipping leaders through walls, or charging Winged Pikmin at fruits in high places. Regardless, Garden of Hope and Tropical Wilds were tight on time, he says. However, Formidable Oak was the most difficult day, as he only obtained 18 Pikmin from farming extinctions, and it takes about half of the day to even start the boss battle, leaving only the other half of the day to beat the boss with very few Pikmin. Technically, it's also possible to complete the game Onionless in 7 in-game days, though this follows from simply playing the first 6 days like in JHawk's playthrough, then completing Formidable Oak on day 7 in the same way as day 10 of the playthrough.

Pikmin 4

The following article or section is in need of assistance from someone who plays Pikmin 4. Particularly: Is such a run possible in Olimar's Shipwreck Tale?

Oatchi is heavily utilized here. Collecting Onions is recommended so when the day starts, the player can replenish Pikmin numbers quickly. Note that if Oatchi carries something to the Onion, it will always sprout Pikmin of the scarcest type that has an Onion integrated.