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Pikmin 2

It's a few minutes until sunset, the final rays of golden sunlight shining across the landscape. You've sent a squad of blue Pikmin through a pool of glistening water to retrieve a new treasure on the opposite bank. A couple of Purples are carrying pellets ten times their size. You send your companion off with a team of Reds to break down a wall, and you're heading back to your Onion with the rest of your miniature army. And that's when the giant bird bursts from the ground...

This is the world of the Pikmin - a sparkling, surreal, magical world teeming with all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures - from the tiniest Pikmin to the giant Bulborbs. It's a world of beauty, with gorgeous, expansive environments brimming with life. And it's a world of danger, with enemies waiting to devour your army lurking in seemingly empty spaces. If you've played the original Pikmin, chances are you'll feel right at home with Pikmin 2 - but although the changes made for the sequel are very subtle, after a few hours you won't know how you did without them the first time round. The game looks very similar on the outside - but start playing, and you'll discover a whole new adventure. And if you're new to the Pikmin world, may I be the first to welcome you. You're in for a gaming experience like no other - like only Nintendo can deliver.

 

Toy Soliders:

As mentioned, if you've played the original Pikmin, you'll know exactly how things work in Pikmin 2 - the controls are more or less exactly the same, as is the general aim of the game. However, if you haven't played Pikmin before, then the game works as follows: you control a squad of little plant men (predictably called Pikmin) and spend each day in the game finding treasure (which your Pikmin brings back to your ship), defeating enemies and collecting pellets (both of which can be brought back to the Pikmin's 'Onion', which creates new Pikmin). You can have up to 100 Pikmin in your squad at the same time, and you need to think carefully about how to accomplish each task. You see, there are five different types of Pikmin (two new to the sequel). Each has different abilities, and they are handily listed below:

Red Pikmin: Flame resistant, strong fighters.
Yellow Pikmin: Electricity resistant, lightweight, bomb carriers.
Blue Pikmin: Water resistant.
Purple Pikmin: Ten times stronger than other types, heavy enough to stun monsters.
White Pikmin: Immune to poison, poisonous, can dig for treasure!

 

All for One and One for All...:

During the course of the game as you discover these Pikmin and start building up your miniature battalion, you'll have to think about how best to exploit the character traits of your Pikmin. This element of the gameplay is helped by the huge (and stunning) levels, as most of each level is often hidden away by a poison gas cloud or a pool of water, and you'll need certain types of Pikmin to cross these barriers and discover new elements of the level. Indeed, discovery plays a huge part in the game, and there's a huge amount of fun to be had in exploring unknown territory, hunting for new treasures and discovering new enemies. What makes your adventure even more enjoyable are the Pikmin themselves. Though very small, each of them are wonderfully animated and seem to have their own personalities - some being clumsier than others, for example.

All the little traits of the Pikmin make you actually care about your army. You'll genuinely feel sadness when fifteen of your Pikmin are caught in the beak of a giant bird, or accidentally lead a few Red Pikmin into a pool. You'll watch helplessly as your little soldiers, who have followed you valiantly and without question, obeying your every command, are killed because you made a mistake. You'll feel you let them down. And in a game where you control 100 of these little guys at a time, to cause a player such emotion for a tiny vegetable man is quite an achievement by Nintendo.

 

Aside from the new Pikmin then, what other improvements can we find in Pikmin 2? Well, the introduction of Olimar's companion Louie means that with a simple tap of the Y button you can control your partner and send him off with a team of Pikmin to do another task. This opens up whole new possibilities, making the multitasking element more prominent than in the first games. For example, while Olimar and a group of your Pikmin are taking fallen enemies back to the Onion, you can send Louie with another squad to open up new pathways in the level. The addition of a second characters cleverly enables you to get more done in each day, allowing you to organise your time more effectively.

That said, time constraints are not much of a problem now. Remember in the first Pikmin where you had 30 days to complete your mission? You can kiss that goodbye, because this time round you have as many days as you want to collect your treasure, which increases the lifespan of the game (one of the complaints of the original). However, like in the previous game you cannot work at night, so you have to get as much done as you can before nightfall, lest any Pikmin you leave behind get eaten by the nocturnal enemies.