In Pikmin 2, Captain Olimar returns to the planet he was originally stranded on, to collect trinkets for his failing company to sell back at home. The game features a 2-character mechanic, which allows players to switch between two spacemen while collecting items. Two-player co-op challenge missions and a competitive mode are also available.
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GOAT x2
I first played this game in 2010 as a gift from my eldest cousin who teenagerly sat behind me arms crossed as I studied the behaviors of the local pikmin ecology with a child biologist's eye. Recommending me strategies with a war planner's attention to positioning and short vs long term cost calculation. Pikmin 2 feels alive. Each creature's disposition, personality, and behavioral quirks mesh with the delicate watch maker's level design, all perfectly scored by a organically dynamic yamaha keyboard filled soundtrack. Each graphical interface flourish, temperate rainforest ground texture, squash-stretching honey ball-bouncing animation, and gentle sway of digital foliage is humbly raised up to its just buried living architecture delving game-toucher. This is a game I have played after every single major move I've made, which I habitually make each 1-2 year period, since I moved out of my childhood home. Before this I had beaten Pikmin 2 twice already, once at age 12 (my initial playthrough was overly cautious, if I recall taking me 80 in-game days and multiple in-life months) and again at age 17. I will continue this ritual likely until I die, or lose access to any means of running this real time strategy ecology simulating dungeon delver, whichever comes first.
Pikmin is beloved for a reason: its a timeless nintendo classic, able to express so much charm and wonder in a lot of its aspects.
But most importantly, Pikmin 2 is a game that... betrays you. It gives you multpile times a high sense of security, only to crush your hopes with an unexpected danger that will make you paranoid for the rest of the adventure. Feeling like the road is clear? Too bad, here's a spider with an exploding head that come sat you while a boulder falls from the sky.
Remember that enemy that felt really easy? She is back with an army of bloodlust fetuses that will not hesitate at destroy you.
Remember the enemies that only appear only in the toughest dungeons? They are outside your house now: have fun!
Feel like the caves are too easy and repetitive? Here's a castle in the middle of the lake.... don't worry about it, just jump in.
The amount of shocking and even horrific moments Pikmin 2 for me are able to outshine the flaws the game have in terms of gameplay, and mixes with a sense of discovery and wonder that leads to one of the most interesting experiences in a Nintendo title. An high recommendation for me.
But most importantly, Pikmin 2 is a game that... betrays you. It gives you multpile times a high sense of security, only to crush your hopes with an unexpected danger that will make you paranoid for the rest of the adventure. Feeling like the road is clear? Too bad, here's a spider with an exploding head that come sat you while a boulder falls from the sky.
Remember that enemy that felt really easy? She is back with an army of bloodlust fetuses that will not hesitate at destroy you.
Remember the enemies that only appear only in the toughest dungeons? They are outside your house now: have fun!
Feel like the caves are too easy and repetitive? Here's a castle in the middle of the lake.... don't worry about it, just jump in.
The amount of shocking and even horrific moments Pikmin 2 for me are able to outshine the flaws the game have in terms of gameplay, and mixes with a sense of discovery and wonder that leads to one of the most interesting experiences in a Nintendo title. An high recommendation for me.
a peak gamecube game and contender for one of the greatest of all time
Gets away from time management and efficiency, I prefer the original and 3 over this one and 4
10th game I've completed in 2024
Pikmin 2: The Definitive Sequel
Pikmin 2, in my opinion, is the perfect example of what I call a "Definitive Sequal". Everything about Pikmin 2 is just better than anything done in Pikmin 1. Pikmin 1 was a great game, however, in contrast to Pikmin 2, Pikmin 1 just felt like somewhat of a tech demo compared to Pikmin 2. I'm glad as a newcomer to the Pikmin series that I played Pikmin 1 before Pikmin 2, I previously considered either trying out Pikmin 3 or 4 as my entry points into the series, but starting off with the first two games was the best choice I made. Pikmin 2 feels like a more, better-developed version of Pikmin 1, gameplay is expanded upon with the introduction of the Purple and White Pikmin, as well as the introduction of Louie as the second in command. Louie is kinda like the Luigi of Pikmin, while Olimar is the Mario of Pikmin, being the face of the series (outside of the Pikmin themselves).
Pikmin 2 does everything a sequel should do, improve on top of the first game, and introduce new inclusions. Pikmin 2's gameplay is the same at it's core compared to Pikmin 1, however, Pikmin 2 introduces two new Pikmin, The purple and white Pikmin, and they are fantastic additions, alongside the big three, Red, Blue, and Yellow. The purple Pikmin are heavier, compared to the other Pikmin in the game, they deal more damage to enemies and can carry items more easily than other Pikmin, but they are slower, and not immune to any hazards. White Pikmin can resist poison and can dig up treasures from the ground. I love the inclusion of these new Pikmin, the purple Pikmin quickly became my favorite Pikmin to have, due to it being one hell of a tank with damage onto enemies, as well as making it easier to carry treasures. However, I like the White Pikmin, but they were my least favorite Pikmin to use throughout my playthrough.
I didn't have a lot of them stored, so I limited my use of them, only bringing them out with I found a breakable wall with poison or needed to dig up a treasure underground. One of the differences between the two new Pikmin compared to the original three is the fact that getting new purple/white Pikmin in your party is quite limiting compared to getting any new Pikmin from the original three. You can get new Pikmin of the original three types by bringing items to each respective pod, but for the Purple/White Pikmin, you have to find rare flowers called Candypop Buds, and even then, you can only create 5 per flower, so it is quite limiting. I don't mind this, I found my supply of Purple Pikmin to be constant throughout my playthrough, but by the end of my playthrough, I had less than 10 White Pikmin. This would be a problem if Pikmin 2 kept Pikmin 1's limited day system, but thankful, Pikmin 2 has scrapped that feature from Pikmin 1, and you can now spend as much time, without worrying about wasting your day.
I love this, I liked the limited day system from Pikmin 1, and I think bringing it back, as some sort of optional game mode would have been cool to bring more of a challenge to Pikmin 2, but the exclusion for Pikmin 2's core gameplay was the best decision. Pikmin 2 has so much more replayability than Pikmin 1, even after beating the game, I want to go back and collect every single treasure, and replay it again. Of course, nobody plays Pikmin for the story, but there is a story here. After the events of Pikmin 1, Oilmar comes back home and meets with his boss, who tells Oilmar that the company is in massive debt, and now needs to pay $10,000 to get rid of it. Olimar has to go back on the planet from the first game, alongside Louie, to find treasure and repay the debt. The story doesn't do anything but serve as a reason for the gameplay to exist, and for this type of game, it works.
Olimar and Louie are charming characters to play as, and the Pikmin are cute as they were before. The OST continues the beautiful, nature-sounding OST from Pikmin 1, and it's as good as it was in Pikmin 1. Hajime Wakai's compositions add a scene of life to Pikmin 2, just as he did in Pikmin 1. Every song just sounds perfect within each area of the game they play in. As for any complaints, I found the Pikmin AI to be not too great sometimes, and this was also one of my complaints I had with Pikmin 1, but it's not as bad here as it was in Pikmin 1, so I'll give it that.
Overall, Pikmin 2 as a definitive sequel, it does everything better than Pikmin 1, improves on it, and adds new additions. I absolutely loved my time with Pikmin 2, and can't wait to play Pikmin 3 and 4 later on.
Stats:
Played on Nintendo Switch (played the HD remaster from Pikmin 1 + 2 and wrote my review here cuz backloggd's system for ports/remasters suck)
Hours into Game: 12 hours and 10 minutes
Score: 9/10 (4.5/5)
Last Statement: Pik(men)
Pikmin 2: The Definitive Sequel
Pikmin 2, in my opinion, is the perfect example of what I call a "Definitive Sequal". Everything about Pikmin 2 is just better than anything done in Pikmin 1. Pikmin 1 was a great game, however, in contrast to Pikmin 2, Pikmin 1 just felt like somewhat of a tech demo compared to Pikmin 2. I'm glad as a newcomer to the Pikmin series that I played Pikmin 1 before Pikmin 2, I previously considered either trying out Pikmin 3 or 4 as my entry points into the series, but starting off with the first two games was the best choice I made. Pikmin 2 feels like a more, better-developed version of Pikmin 1, gameplay is expanded upon with the introduction of the Purple and White Pikmin, as well as the introduction of Louie as the second in command. Louie is kinda like the Luigi of Pikmin, while Olimar is the Mario of Pikmin, being the face of the series (outside of the Pikmin themselves).
Pikmin 2 does everything a sequel should do, improve on top of the first game, and introduce new inclusions. Pikmin 2's gameplay is the same at it's core compared to Pikmin 1, however, Pikmin 2 introduces two new Pikmin, The purple and white Pikmin, and they are fantastic additions, alongside the big three, Red, Blue, and Yellow. The purple Pikmin are heavier, compared to the other Pikmin in the game, they deal more damage to enemies and can carry items more easily than other Pikmin, but they are slower, and not immune to any hazards. White Pikmin can resist poison and can dig up treasures from the ground. I love the inclusion of these new Pikmin, the purple Pikmin quickly became my favorite Pikmin to have, due to it being one hell of a tank with damage onto enemies, as well as making it easier to carry treasures. However, I like the White Pikmin, but they were my least favorite Pikmin to use throughout my playthrough.
I didn't have a lot of them stored, so I limited my use of them, only bringing them out with I found a breakable wall with poison or needed to dig up a treasure underground. One of the differences between the two new Pikmin compared to the original three is the fact that getting new purple/white Pikmin in your party is quite limiting compared to getting any new Pikmin from the original three. You can get new Pikmin of the original three types by bringing items to each respective pod, but for the Purple/White Pikmin, you have to find rare flowers called Candypop Buds, and even then, you can only create 5 per flower, so it is quite limiting. I don't mind this, I found my supply of Purple Pikmin to be constant throughout my playthrough, but by the end of my playthrough, I had less than 10 White Pikmin. This would be a problem if Pikmin 2 kept Pikmin 1's limited day system, but thankful, Pikmin 2 has scrapped that feature from Pikmin 1, and you can now spend as much time, without worrying about wasting your day.
I love this, I liked the limited day system from Pikmin 1, and I think bringing it back, as some sort of optional game mode would have been cool to bring more of a challenge to Pikmin 2, but the exclusion for Pikmin 2's core gameplay was the best decision. Pikmin 2 has so much more replayability than Pikmin 1, even after beating the game, I want to go back and collect every single treasure, and replay it again. Of course, nobody plays Pikmin for the story, but there is a story here. After the events of Pikmin 1, Oilmar comes back home and meets with his boss, who tells Oilmar that the company is in massive debt, and now needs to pay $10,000 to get rid of it. Olimar has to go back on the planet from the first game, alongside Louie, to find treasure and repay the debt. The story doesn't do anything but serve as a reason for the gameplay to exist, and for this type of game, it works.
Olimar and Louie are charming characters to play as, and the Pikmin are cute as they were before. The OST continues the beautiful, nature-sounding OST from Pikmin 1, and it's as good as it was in Pikmin 1. Hajime Wakai's compositions add a scene of life to Pikmin 2, just as he did in Pikmin 1. Every song just sounds perfect within each area of the game they play in. As for any complaints, I found the Pikmin AI to be not too great sometimes, and this was also one of my complaints I had with Pikmin 1, but it's not as bad here as it was in Pikmin 1, so I'll give it that.
Overall, Pikmin 2 as a definitive sequel, it does everything better than Pikmin 1, improves on it, and adds new additions. I absolutely loved my time with Pikmin 2, and can't wait to play Pikmin 3 and 4 later on.
Stats:
Played on Nintendo Switch (played the HD remaster from Pikmin 1 + 2 and wrote my review here cuz backloggd's system for ports/remasters suck)
Hours into Game: 12 hours and 10 minutes
Score: 9/10 (4.5/5)
Last Statement: Pik(men)