Pikmin 2 has been on my backlog for a long time and this felt like a good opportunity to finally get to it.
I remembered Pikmin 2 being a bit of a slog back in the day and spent a lot of time trying to build up a load of pikmin to make the game easier which led to me never actually bothering to finish it.
Years on this really hasn't changed much, I really do like 2, but it's a brutal game and I abused the ability to just quit and reload the cave level a lot because my god it's easy to stumble into a bad situation by the sheer number of fearsome critters the game just slams into every cave, especially late on.
But for all that I really did still enjoy my time with the game and found it a lot easier to enjoy the game if I accepted that sometimes I'd lose a lot of Pikmin, something I feel all the games try and gently teach you, you're supposed to care if they die but bear the burden of losing a good 80 in a day as long as you have the reserves to carry on.
After finally finishing 2 I felt it was only right to revisit the first game and found myself (not unpleasantly) surprised by how short it is, easily completed in a few sittings and full of interesting little niches, shortcuts and some optional bosses that I don't remember and wonder if I ever saw, overall its weird how much like a trial run the first game feels.
Overall I'm so glad that the first game has held up so much compared to my cherished memories of it and while I'm not sure I'll ever be eager to play 2 again I don't think I dislike it's sometimes brutal difficulty as much as I feared I would.
I remembered Pikmin 2 being a bit of a slog back in the day and spent a lot of time trying to build up a load of pikmin to make the game easier which led to me never actually bothering to finish it.
Years on this really hasn't changed much, I really do like 2, but it's a brutal game and I abused the ability to just quit and reload the cave level a lot because my god it's easy to stumble into a bad situation by the sheer number of fearsome critters the game just slams into every cave, especially late on.
But for all that I really did still enjoy my time with the game and found it a lot easier to enjoy the game if I accepted that sometimes I'd lose a lot of Pikmin, something I feel all the games try and gently teach you, you're supposed to care if they die but bear the burden of losing a good 80 in a day as long as you have the reserves to carry on.
After finally finishing 2 I felt it was only right to revisit the first game and found myself (not unpleasantly) surprised by how short it is, easily completed in a few sittings and full of interesting little niches, shortcuts and some optional bosses that I don't remember and wonder if I ever saw, overall its weird how much like a trial run the first game feels.
Overall I'm so glad that the first game has held up so much compared to my cherished memories of it and while I'm not sure I'll ever be eager to play 2 again I don't think I dislike it's sometimes brutal difficulty as much as I feared I would.