Here's the second half of Pikmin 1 + 2! I was excited to get into this right after finishing the first game, and I'm just as excited to talk about it here and now. BACKGROUND:
I've already talked at length about my history with the Pikmin series in my entry for the first game, so I'll let the link to that do the heavy lifting. The only thing I can add here is that I only have a very rough idea of what's different about this game. PLOT: Bad news for Olimar: Hocotate Freight, the company he works for, is under serious debt! He's not even given much time to recover after his adventures in the first game, as his ship is sold to try and cover some of the losses. That still leaves them 10,000 Pokos short, but the AI of the last ship of the company appraises one of the trinkets Olimar found while exploring on the Distant Planet, and the AI finds that it is of considerable value. The company's president then cooks up a wild idea and sends Olimar and coworker Louie back to the planet in order to hunt more treasure to pay the debt. It's really cool that the game sends you back to the same planet in the first game, but in a completely different context. Instead of a scramble for survival after a crash landing, Olimar actually gets to come prepared, and he knows what to expect as he goes exploring this time around. There's no critical time limit to adhere to (even though there probably should be given debts typically have deadlines), and that's enough to change the vibe of the story to feel more light-hearted (not that the first one was deadly serious, of course). There were lots of clues in the environments in Pikmin 1 that the Distant Planet is actually Earth (or a version of it), and this game fully leans into that by littering the locations with literally hundreds of everyday objects. You're not going to get a whole thing on what happened on this planet, why it's the way it is now, and where the humans are, but it's still fun to see stuff we find familiar be viewed as completely alien by the characters. A lot of the character stuff is through the daily emails you get at the end of each day. Most of the mail you get is from Mr. President, who is a goofy take on the typical corporate executive, and his stories of evading debt collectors are amusing. You also get emails from the family members of Olimar and Louie, and you actually get a sense of Olimar's relationship with his wife and two children. In Louie's case, he mostly gets mail from his caring grandma, which actually makes how he's treated by the other characters kind of sad. Olimar himself only gets to talk through the entries (both for the treasures and the flora/fauna) this time around, and it's more of the same journal format from last game. Louie actually doesn't get any character at all until you complete a specific task and unlock his journal entries for the flora/fauna, and they reveal a hilarious aspect to his personality. Some of the dialogue from the other characters hint at something deeper going on within Louie's enigmatic mind, which comes with its own brand of humor. The ship AI who accompanies Olimar and Louie is itself a character, as it occasionally sasses the two and has plenty of comments on the treasure you find (including giving them wacky names). It also has special entries for the treasure you find if you complete a specific set of them, and they're all fun sales pitches for each object. This time around, there are two endings: one when you collect enough treasure to pay off the debt, and the other when you complete the game 100%. Unlike the usual approach for endings (where they're taken as possibilities for how things go), the former ending is actually more of a continuation of the story whereas the latter is the actual end of the story. It's a novel approach, and the endings themselves tell its own wild tale. I don't want to give too much away, but what happens in the first ending is kind of crazy in a "there's no way that just happened" way, and while the second ending is your usual happy true ending, the reveal before that is a similar kind of "what the hell?" I'd say the payoff for going for full completion was rewarding for me. PRESENTATION: The graphics of this game are largely the same to Pikmin 1, and what I said for that game holds true here. Where the sequel stands out visually is the greater prominence of manmade objects (which were fun to uncover alongside the characters interpreting what they are differently), a cavalcade of new creature designs, and more varied biomes to explore. Notably, the levels from the last game return, but with additions or changes to the overall environment that were enough for me to not notice until a few minutes into exploring. In a similar vein, the style of music is also mostly similar to the first game. Naturally, there are more tracks as well as new ones, but there are also some familiar ones mixed in. GAMEPLAY: Pikmin 2's strategy gameplay is largely the same as the first. Control and manage an army of various Pikmin types, leverage their abilities to solve puzzles and open up the environment, take on enemies by figuring out when and where to throw, and collect the key items by having Pikmin carry them back to the ship. A lot of what I described in the first game in terms of the core mechanics still stands, so I will focus largely on discussing the differences the sequel introduces. The game's controls are largely the same, but I felt like they could have taken some time to improve the aiming since there are more situations that demand accuracy than the first game. It was a bit frustrating at times to finagle a Pikmin onto an elevated spot, and I wish that something like a trajectory indicator existed to at least make aiming less of me eyeballing it and hoping my throw lands. The first thing that stands out when you first get into the game is the fact that you can control two characters at once. In addition to Olimar, you can control Louie by switching between the two leaders with a press of a button. Louie can do everything Olimar can do, but the real benefit is the ability to have the two leaders run around with their own squad of Pikmin and have them take on tasks across the map. It was tricky in the first game to go back and forth to switch Pikmin as just Olimar, and the simple addition of Louie allows you to make better use of your time by splitting completely different tasks between the two of them. Now, I'll talk about the updates to the Pikmin themselves. The only one that is substantially changed from Pikmin 1 is the yellow Pikmin. For one, the whole carrying bombs mechanic is now gone, which I was totally fine with given how cumbersome it was to juggle tasks involving it. In its place, yellow Pikmin now have an immunity to electricity, and with that come new obstacles that only they can take down. It's not a huge change, but the change in niche (in addition to the still useful longer throw range) makes them feel less situational to bring along on your team. In addition to the original three Pikmin types, we get two brand new Pikmin colors. First, we have the white Pikmin, who can dig up underground objects and have an immunity to poison-based hazards. Their most interesting trait by far is when they're eaten by enemies, they inflict poison damage, making it actually beneficial to sacrifice a few of them to deal damage. It's still better overall to deal damage the normal way, but it's cool to have a Pikmin type that can still provide a benefit even in a bad situation. The other new Pikmin type is the purple Pikmin. These big boys have the strength of 10 regular Pikmin, allowing them to carry heavy objects without having to deploy a whole army. Plus, these heavyweights pack quite a wallop when thrown, as well-placed throws can briefly stun enemies, creating safe openings to unleash an all-out assault. I really enjoyed how useful they were in two major aspects of the game, although part of me wishes there were more weight-based puzzles that made full use of them, as they also have the neat property of not being blown away by wind. While there were a fair number of distinct enemies in the first game (most if not all of which return here), Pikmin 2 ups the ante by adding a greater variety, so much so that there are too many to recall off the top of my head. Some of the additions are simply variations of existing enemies (like the various Bulborb varieties), but there are also a lot of completely new enemies with all sorts of unique behaviors you need to play around. On top of that, there are a lot more enemies where the respective elemental immunities of each Pikmin come into play, which made bringing a diverse team around actually worthwhile. Pikmin 1 only had a handful of bosses, so it was also great that they added more fights with unique gimmicks on top of bringing the bosses of the first game back. These encounters are where I really felt the lack of proper aiming UI (as some bosses have weak spots that are a bit hard to reach), but apart from that, each fight was engaging and satisfying to overcome. The game's overall structure is still largely the same, as you explore four main levels, use your Pikmin to deal with obstacles and enemies, and bring back the treasure you find back to the ship. While there's no longer a 30-day time limit, you still have to be out of the planet by sunset, so there's still a bit of time management to think about. There is, of course, less pressure to actually make a deadline, so you can actually enjoy the act of exploring and not feel a compelling need to make significant progress each day. In the first game, there were 30 things to find and bring back to the ship. Here, there are a whopping 201 pieces of treasure to collect, so there's way more to do if you're going for 100%. However, not all of them are just lying about in each of the levels; in fact, only a fraction of them can be found just by looking around. The most significant change in terms of the level structure is that each main level now has three or four underground sections. You can think of these as the game's equivalent to dungeons, and the goal is to explore each one floor at a time, get as much treasure as you can, and survive until you find an exit. Each floor layout has randomly generated elements, and while the general gist of each individual room is the same regardless, no two runs will end up quite the same. Unlocking each underground entrance in the overworld is a puzzle in itself, which I found just as if not more rewarding than unlocking the path to the actual treasure. Once you've opened up the entrance, you can check what kind of elemental hazards you can expect before you go in, allowing you to prepare the perfect Pikmin squad for a run. It's extremely important that you plan out who you bring in, as once you're in, you're stuck with that squad for the entire run, and there are extremely few opportunities to switch Pikmin colors or even create new ones. Thankfully, you don't have to collect all the treasure of an underground dungeon in one go, and you can just do multiple runs to get a few then beeline it for the exit. The tough part about that is that you actually have to make it to a proper exit (which is typically on the final floor of the dungeon), as you drop all the treasure you find if you use the quick escape option. I personally did not mind this, as most of the dungeons offered a respectable challenge on each floor, and it was truly satisfying to run the gauntlet and come out the other side with 100% dungeon completion. It's also important to note that the white and purple Pikmin can only be obtained underground, making them quite valuable (especially since there are certain puzzles in the overworld that you can only solve with these two Pikmin types). Thankfully, you can dedicate time to farming them by bringing the basic Pikmin and finding the flowers that will convert them to that color. Overall, I absolutely love the addition of the underground. While I liked the whole exploration + puzzle-solving aspect in the levels of Pikmin 1 (and enjoyed the fact that it's back here), there wasn't much to do after you've opened everything up, and the puzzles typically didn't demand you to switch between Pikmin types to solve problems or actually use your squad judiciously. Each floor of every dungeon offers the exact challenge I was looking for with this game, with plenty of situations where I needed to switch out which color Pikmin I was bringing in (whether that's because of enemies, hazards, or puzzles), many instances where simply using sheer numbers to solve a problem doesn't always work, and moments where the fact that you can switch between Olimar and Louie felt like a mechanic just as integral as the Pikmin themselves. Notably, the creatures you kill count as treasure underground, adding to your Poko count and getting you closer to paying off the debt when you collect them. However, they're a drop in the bucket in terms of value, so collecting treasure is still the best way to hit that 10k. As such, I didn't really see a point in this being a thing since you don't do anything with the extra funds anyway. Some of the treasure you find (usually boss treasures) actually gives Olimar and Louie special bonuses that add to the gameplay. The earliest examples of this are the treasure radar (self-explanatory) and the globes (which unlock new levels), but the more challenging ones to get actually give the captains additional abilities. These include immunity to certain elemental hazards, faster movement speed, better visibility underground, improvements to the whistle, better defense, and even the ability to punch. That last one was quite a surprise, and combined with other upgrades, you can have Olimar do the dirty work himself by taking out enemies without the risk of losing Pikmin (though the drawback is that the punch does not do a whole lot of damage). There's also a new mechanic where you can collect special liquids in order to create one of two special sprays. One spray improves your Pikmin squad's damage and speed, and the other briefly freezes enemies in their tracks. I saved these resources for boss fights, and it is incredible how useful they are (especially the enemy-freezing one). There are ways to farm them, but they take some effort, and I think that makes sense given how powerful they are. Once you're done with the main game, you can take on Challenge Mode, which offers 30 special underground levels each with special restrictions. These include starting with a very specific set and number of Pikmin, limited spray availability, as well as varied time limits per level. Unlike the first game's Challenge Mode, the objective is to get through each floor one by one as fast as you can while ensuring that you lose as few Pikmin as possible. It's basically more of the underground that I truly enjoyed, but with more... uh... challenging restrictions to play around. This game also has two-player modes (makes sense, since there are two playable characters), but I didn't look into it. It's definitely neat that it's here, though, as I can see Pikmin being a really fun co-op game and an interesting competitive game. VERDICT: For me, Pikmin 2 is a monumental improvement to the first game (which I already thought was pretty great). It takes everything that made Pikmin 1 enjoyable, improves upon many existing elements, and adds so much more in terms of the core strategy gameplay. The addition of the underground alone elevates this game miles above its predecessor, as it delivers exactly what I wanted in terms of Pikmin management challenges. At the same time, I loved that the more exploration-leaning style of the first game is still present, as that is enjoyable in a different, more chill way. Coupled with a wider variety of enemies to add to the strategic aspect, new power-ups to play around with, and just the delight of having a ton of collectibles to find after solving puzzles or beating tough enemies, I was blown away with how this feels like several steps above a game that I felt was already super well-done. You don't really need the context of the first game's story to enjoy Pikmin 2, so if your inclination is to check out which of the originals has more to offer in terms of gameplay, you can absolutely start with this one no problem. I still think there's merit in playing the first game beforehand, as I think one can really appreciate the improvements in this game after experiencing Pikmin 1 first. - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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