A sequel that improves upon the first game in every way

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great Gameplay Awesome Graphics Very Fun

Cons: Annoying Talking Spaceship Average Music

The Bottom Line: 
This is one of the best GameCube games ever. It is so good!

Author's Review
In October of 2001, Nintendo introduced us American gamers to their newest franchise, Pikmin. Pikmin was an RTS where you commanded an army of adorable little plant-animal hybrids. You collected ship parts and killed any enemies in your path. It was a very good game but it certainly had it's flaws, the most prominent being it's short length. Flash forward three years and Nintendo brings us the sequel to Pikmin, Pikmin 2.

This is one of the few video game sequels I've ever played that manages to keep everything that was done right in the first game, fix nearly every problem with the first game, add amazing new elements, and just manages to be the superior game in general. I really love this game and you'll find out in more detail why I love it so much as this review progresses.



Story: 7 out of 10

Like in the first game (and in nearly every game I review...) this game does not have much of a story. But I'll tell it anyway. Here we go:

In the opening cutscene, the game brings us up to speed about what happened in the first game. They tell us about a guy named Captain Olimar who flying a spaceship but crashed onto a distant planet (Earth) They explain that his ship got wrecked, but with the help of some loyal creatures called Pikmin, the creatures salvaged all of his ship parts and he is now returning to his home planet, Hocotate.

But while he is flying there, they explain that his company, Hocotate Freight, is going through some financial issues...
He arrives to his home planet and his boss explains that one of his employees, Louie, was flying a spaceship carrying some incredibly rare Golden Pipik Carrots in cargo when an evil space bunny (what!?) attacked Louie and ate all of the precious carrots. Because of this, the company took a loan and now they have to pay off 10,100 pokos (Pokos are the form of currency in this game) They have decided to sell Olimar's ship but that barely made a dent in their loan.

All hope seems to be lost until Olimar drops a bottle cap. He explains that the bottle cap was a souvenir for his kid. It rolls over to a talking ship that can somehow evaluate how much it's worth (What!? again) and it explains that it is worth 100 pokos which is more than a worker's yearly salary. Olimar's boss suddenly gets excited and decides to send Olimar and Louie to that planet to get more treasure! The man was stranded there for days and days and is finally returning home. I'm sure he wants to see his family again but nope! Time to go back! They fly over there on the talking ship and the adventure begins.


Now, the storyline is weird. It's just kind of odd, having a storyline about financial debt and evil space bunnies. I don't know why, but I just liked the idea of collecting ship parts which was in the first game over collecting treasures. But I guess this story is good enough to give us a reason as to why we're collecting random treasures so it's okay. Besides, this is one of those games that does not rely on story that much.


Gameplay: 10 out of 10

This game fixed everything that was wrong with Pikmin 1, before I give you the details, I'm going into more details as to what the Pikmin are.


For anyone who's reading this who played Pikmin 1 but has not played Pikmin 2 yet, the game is pretty much controlled in the same way as the original Pikmin. Except for a few minor changes, the gameplay is the exact same. But alas, for someone who may be reading this who hasn't played any of the Pikmin game, they may be wondering what I'm talking about throughout this review so I'm going to explain how this game works.


Anyway, in the game, you navigate through 3-D places from a top-down or behind view. You can not jump (it's an RTS after all) in the game.


So what are Pikmin? Aside from being the namesake of the series, the Pikmin are your army and are the only way you can do anything in this game. They are adorable plant-animal hybrids. They are capable of attacking enemies by headbutting them. If there is a wall in the Pikmin's path, they can work toghether to headbutt the wall down as well.
 Because of their small size, one Pikmin by itself is pretty helpless. A squad of 60 Pikmin can be lethal, however.
The Pikmin follow the captains anywhere they go. They can also be dismissed by pressing the X button and called back again with the B button.


The Pikmin reproduce by carrying either carrying things called pellets (which are these little circular objects which somehow can create new Pikmin) or carrying back the dead carcasses of enemies from earlier... to a place called an Onion. An Onion is basically a Pikmin's ''home''. It's another circular object that is somehow capable of flying into the air at night. There are three different onions for the three different types of Pikmin, but that's something I'll discuss in a little bit. When things like pellets and carcasses are brought near Onions, the Onion absorbs it and creates new Pikmin.


However, perhaps the Pikmin's most important ability is being able to carry back stuff. Depending on how much a treasure weighs, treasures require anywhere from four to 1,000 Pikmin to salvage and carry back to the ship. You can also only have 100 Pikmin out at once...

Like in Pikmin 1, this game does have a ''Day'' system going on. Each day lasts 15 minutes. However, days are'nt as important as they were in Pikmin 1. In this game you can take as many days as you want and in every area there are places called ''Underground Caves''. Basically, these places are holes where you spend about 85% of the game in. They usually have multiple floors where you collect numerous treasures and fight bosses. There are about 6 or 7 of them in each area. However, in the underground caves, time does not apply. That's right, you can take as much time as you want. This makes Days even less important.


Finally, there are five different breeds of Pikmin (there are technically six but I feel that the sixth breed is irrelevant for the sake of this reveiw.
The original trio of Pikmin types from the first game return to this one. Red, Yellow, and Blue Pikmin. All of them get their own Onion. The Red Pikmin are flame-resistant. The Yellow Pikmin are immune to electricity. The Blue Pikmin can go underwater without drowning.


As for the two new breeds of Pikmin, there are Purple and White Pikmin. They do not get their own onion... I'll explain in a bit. Purple Pikmin are by far the strongest (each individual Purple has the strength of three Pikmin!) and, when carrying things back, they actually are capable of carrying what normally takes 10 Pikmin to carry back (This is required with a lot of treasures including the one I mentioned earlier). The White Pikmin are immune to poison.
These Pikmin are actually stored in your ship. How do you acquire them? In the game, they has these plants called Candypop Flowers. When a Pikmin is thrown into them, they turn into a different kind of Pikmin. In the game, there are White and Purple Candypop Flowers. This is how you acquire these Pikmin types.

Okay, I might have gotten a little bit excessively detailed in this section. I just want you to understand how this game works if you're someone who has'nt played these games. They really are very strange. Anyhow, now let's actually REVIEW this aspect of the game.

I think that the mechanics of this game are pretty much near prefection. This game certainly fixed everything that was wrong with Pikmin 1. The controls are very responsive, I don't I've ever had any cheap Pikmin deaths because of the controls. Amongst the many other vast improvements over Pikmin 1, you now can now control two captains (Olimar & Louie) which makes getting things done much quicker as you can multi-task.

I love being able to switch between the two captains so much. It's a life-saver in so many situations in this game. It's very convenient. Another awesome improvement is that you can now throw Pikmin a lot faster than you could in Pikmin 1. This is especially useful when trying to throw a bunch of Pikmin on top of a ledge. In Pikmin 1, that would take about a minute. Here, those kinds of tasks take about thirty seconds.

Another improvement over Pikmin 1 is that walls that you have to headbutt down take A LOT quicker to destroy. In Pikmin 1, walls took forever to destroy. Here, they only take about a minute at tops and in caves, they take about 5 seconds.

I don't know how to describe it, but this game just feels more fun than Pikmin 1. I can't exactly give you a specific reason why. I don't what it is. I remember when I first put this game into my Wii in 2009, and started controlling Olimar, I just knew this game was going to be a lot better than Pikmin 1. It's probably because at that point, I had wanted this game for months. I don't what it is, but this game is 10x more fun than the original game.


I figure I'd have to write one of my two complaints about the game eventually. The first of the two, I don't know exactly where to put but I think it's best here. Do you remember how I mentioned the talking Spaceship from earlier? Well, it never shuts up! It goes on these annoying, long monologues about stuff that you probably know. I do think the ship would have been a nice addition if it did'nt talk so much. But than again this is only a minor complaint. I love the Gameplay so much.


Graphics: 9.5 out of 10

Other than a few improvements, I'd say this game's graphics are about on par with
Pikmin 1. But than again, Pikmin 1 had amazing graphics so Pikmin 2 has amazing graphics as well. They're not the best I've ever seen on the GameCube, but they're definitley up there. I especially like the water animations. Pikmin 2's graphics did improve upon the first one in some ways, though. For instance, this game has effects like snowflakes falling from the sky that look very good. They look very good for what the GameCube was capable of.


Music: 5 out of 10

Like in Pikmin 1, I do feel this game's music was sort of an afterthought. It doesn't have anything that will get stuck in your head, really. There are about 2 or 3 tracks that I sort of like in this game, but overall, I can't even remember half of them. This is the second, as well as my final complaint about this game, meaning that this does not take too much away from my love of this game, but still. I wish the music was better for Pikmin 1 & 2.


Longevity: 10 out of 10

I remember that when I was writing my reveiw of Pikmin 1, I wrote ''You're not going to get a long 30 hour adventure''. This is not the case at all for this one. In Pikmin 2, you ARE going to get a long thirty hour adventure. This is one of the numerous ways that Pikmin 2 is better. With all of the caves as well as the above-ground treasures, it's going to take you a long time to collect all of it.

This game also has unlimited days which only makes it better. There are 201 treasures for you to collect (I don't know why Nintendo had to ruin the perfect 200 but oh well) and it will take you a long time to collect all of them. At least it took me a long time. I had been playing this game for months before I finally collected every treasure. The game has a perfect length and will keep you playing for a couple of months, unlike Pikmin 1 which will take you a couple of days to complete.


Closing Comments

Over the past few days, I've been thinking ''Where does this game belong in my favorite games ever.'' After thinking about it for a little bit, I've decided that Pikmin 2 is my 4th favorite game ever (only behind Animal Crossing, Resident Evil 4, and EarthBound) This is an amazing game and it's certainly one of the best GameCube games I've ever played as well as one of the best games I've ever played in general. Pick it up now. They're getting increasingly rare as you read this so you should buy it now before it's prices are up there with EarthBound. Thank You For Reading!


Also, if you care to read about my thoughts on Pikmin 1, my reveiw of that game can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Nintendo_Pikmin__Console_Games_Pikmin/content_571378273924