Pikmin 2 Review

As you explore, you will frequently come across holes in the ground which lead into underground mazes. While the thought of doing a little spelunking with your pikmin is intriguing, these mazes are simply more work than they are worth. Mazes are drab, repetitive, and cramped and are not anywhere near as interesting as the planet’s surface. Mazes appear in abundance, though, and it’d be nice if you didn’t have to do them all. But this is where most of the treasure is hidden, and the bosses on the final floor often carry special items you could really use (like faster shoes or a louder whistle to call your pikmin). But the biggest problem with the mazes is that you can’t go back and replenish your pikmin army if it gets wiped out, nor can you turn monsters into new sprouts. What you go in with, you have to keep. So what happens if you forgot to take some red pikmin with you and are now surrounded by fire creatures? Or what if you suddenly don’t have enough pikmin to beat the end boss? You can leave the maze at any time, but unless you leave through an official exit, all your work is lost. You have to come back another time and do it all over again. Yes, that’s right: all– over– again.

The most annoying part of Pikmin 2, however, is actually the pikmin themselves. These little critters may be cute, but they’re incredibly stupid. When pikmin carry an object, they will frequently take the long, dangerous route instead of the short path you already cleared for them. If you tell your pikmin to rest, you’d better hope there’s nothing nearby to distract them. They’ll want to carry a corpse or uproot grass or knock down a gate even if that gate is electrical and will kill them. And once they start doing something, it’s difficult getting them to stop. My pikmin died several times due to them refusing to retreat when I called. Sure, all of this gives the pikmin a unique personality, but it can easily start to feel more like you are babysitting 100 ADD third-graders than playing a game. And nobody wants that.

In the end, Pikmin 2 just doesn’t retain the same amount of fun throughout as its predecessor did. With only three major areas (plus a fourth once you’ve collected the debt, but then what’s the point of continuing?), there just isn’t enough variety to keep things fresh. Underground mazes wear thin very quickly. Regardless, this is a pretty lengthy adventure, and you can expect to put in 10-12 hours accumulating the necessary amount of treasure. Pikmin 2 goes a step further, however, and offers up a decent multiplayer mode. Two players can tackle a series of special mazes cooperatively or battle against each other. The co-op mode isn’t all that interesting since you are timed and have to play some pretty boring levels, but the battle mode is amusing. This is a race to either unearth and return four yellow marbles to your base or steal your opponent’s marble. Things can quickly turn in one player’s favor, but it’s hilarious to run into each other and let loose your battalion of pikmin.

Final Comments

I wish I could say, “If you enjoyed the original Pikmin, this one’s even better,” but obviously that didn’t ring true for me. All Nintendo needed to do for a good sequel was eliminate the 30-day timer and add a lot of new content. But instead of getting more imaginative, open areas, we ended up with a series of annoying and boring underground mazes that somehow manage to take up the majority of the game. Granted, the RTS nature of Pikmin in general is still fun, inventive, and charming, but, unless that 2-player mode really appeals to you, your best bet may be to wait for the inevitable third release on Wii and hope that Nintendo can finally find a happy medium with this franchise. And Nintendo? Please, please make the pikmin a little smarter!