Not content with dropping an HD port of the original Pikmin during the June 2023 Nintendo Direct, the platform holder also saw fit to furnish us with this slightly revamped version of its sequel, the very excellent Pikmin 2. Hooray!
Yes, Nintendo has planted us firmly in the Pikmin 4 hype zone prior to that game's launch and, if you've yet to play this 2004 GameCube gem, you're in for a great big treat. Pikmin 2 takes the wonderfully unique and inventive foundations of its timeless predecessor and gently adds more variety to the mix, resulting in a game that's arguably the pik (we are so clever) of this franchise thus far.
For those unfamiliar, Pikmin 2 sees Captain Olimar return to action, this time joined by his co-worker Louie, as they take off to collect a bunch of treasure from the very same Pikmin planet that he crash-landed on first time around. It turns out bottlecaps, batteries and other trash strewn around the landscape are worth quite a few Pokos back on Olimar's home planet, and he's going to need to gather 10,000 Pokos' worth of the stuff in order to get the Hocotate Freight Company out of debt. Exciting!
Pikmin 2 cleverly expands on the action found in the 2001 original by giving players a bigger playground in which to smash enemies, batter down obstacles, and solve wonderfully well-designed environmental puzzles. This time around the time limit from the first game has been removed — a plus or minus depending on your viewpoint — and Olimar, Louie, and the Pikmin can head underneath the surface of the planet to indulge in some good old-fashioned dungeon-crawling at their leisure. It's a carefully considered expansion of the core formula that makes for a longer adventure but one that remains thoroughly compelling thanks to more interesting and varied locales and enemies, alongside a handful of new Pikmin types to get to grips with.
Alongside your returning red, yellow, and blue Pikmin — yellow now capable of withstanding electric shocks — you've also got white and purple pals added to the mix. White Pikmin can withstand poisonous areas and enemies, will poison foes who gobble them up, and can also discover treasures hidden beneath the dirt. Purples are basically Pikmin on steroids, big heavy lads who have the power of ten regular Pikmin and can stun foes and withstand more damage as a result.
The other big change here, besides some new spray powerups that can be used to encase enemies in stone or have your Pikmin temporarily sped up, is your ability to take control of both Olimar and Louie separately, giving you the opportunity to divide and conquer when approaching obstacles and juggle more than one task at a time. With one quick button press, you can hop between either character and assume control of their current Pikmin followers, giving you more in the way of strategic options when it comes to manoeuvring around areas, dealing with enemies, picking up treasure, and making it out of dungeons unscathed.
Of course, you can also recall your separate groupings to form a single mass where required and the game's four distinct play areas, alongside all of the caves you'll dive down into, do a good job of posing problems and puzzles that'll require you to manipulate your crew in clever ways. Co-op and Challenge Mode were introduced in Pikmin 2, and they remain intact for this remaster, making for a nice package overall and a game that remains our own personal series favourite. Well, this writer's at any rate. [And this one. - Ed.]
In terms of this HD remaster, well, as we've mentioned in our review of the HD version of Pikmin 1, it's fairly bare-bones stuff here with a higher resolution in place, upscaled UI elements, and the implementation of Pikmin 3-styled controls. This port is also based on the 2009 New Play Control! release on Wii, which itself brought some improvements to the 2004 original, and you can choose to use motion controls here if you so desire.
There are a few niggling personal disappointments alongside the improvements, with this version doing away with the 'Attraction Mode' that would show gameplay tutorials on the title screen if the game was left idle for a time. A small excision, we know. Much more notably, a lot of the real-world branded products you retrieve as treasures in the game — your Duracell batteries, 7-Up bottle tops, and so on — have been replaced with fictional brands, presumably due to expired licenses.
Hardly a big deal, granted, yet the magic of finding and retrieving these recognisable, branded products that you likely had in your own home gave the original an added contextual frisson; a small but potent connection between your world and Olimar's. It's such a tiny thing, but despite the convenience and improved resolution of this Switch port, Pikmin veterans may have trouble shaking the feeling that they're not playing the definitive version of the game.
Apart from these very minor negatives though, this is a fine — if rather rudimentary — port that suffers zero performance issues and plants the (almost) full Pikmin 2 experience on Switch consoles for players to enjoy. And enjoy it you will, we reckon, because Pikmin 2 is a fantastic game at its core, an experience that's aged beautifully and a bit of a must-play in our books, especially if you're experiencing its delights for the first time.
Conclusion
Pikmin 2 is a fantastic follow-up to the 2001 original that expands upon its predecessor's core gameplay in some neat and well-considered ways. This is a bigger game, with more areas and dungeons to explore, a larger variety of Pikmin to work with, multiple protagonists to control, and a few extra modes thrown in for good measure. It may be a bare-bones port, and we do really miss those Duracells, but this is a game that's aged remarkably well and, with foundations as delightfully entertaining and inventive as this, it's still an experience that we highly recommend checking out on Switch.
Comments 50
Never tried a Pikmin game before, but very happy for fans of the series that can own all the games on one console. Might pick this one up eventually.
That is one very nice looking rocket, didn't need to see it four times though.
@MythTgr can't really see how the Metroid Prime trilogy is related to this, a remaster of the first game, by far the best one, was a huge treat. Don't see why they're obligated to remaster the other two now.
Again, I’m just happy I can play these games, I hope they port TTYD soon!
@MythTgr Metroid prime 4 doesn’t have a definitive release date yet. HD ports of Prime 2 and 3 will probably come (if ever, don’t hold your breath here) around the marketing season for Metroid Prime 4, whenever that is. Pikmin 1 and 2 have returned a month before Pikmin 4 to help people familiarize themselves with the franchise, as many haven’t played a pikmin game before. Prime 2 and 3 will have their time eventually, patience is key.
@Snatcher dude same. I do remember having it but I think the disc was either scratched or I lost it.
This was actually my first pikmin game and I STILL haven’t beaten it.😅
Shame they’ve not up resed textures.
The emulation community did that with this game years ago.
I have this mental block with these games that if i lose pikmin it will then make it even harder as i go and so i never get anywhere near completing them because i quit after a bad try.
Well... Like that was mentioned before, there's no "Tane no Uta" and "Ai no Uta" songs, and Kazumi Totaka's bonus secret song is removed at all. That's worse than the "bare-bones" port, imo...
@Snatcher You and me both! TTYD is my favorite game of all time.
I was impressed about the cinematics. they were crisp af. It was bot a half ass upscaling. that looked as if it was rendered again
@Snatcher same! I own two copies of this game and both discs fail randomly making it hard to complete the game. Just give me a switch cartridge Nintendo - I’ll pay you!
Replayed this last year on GC and it has aged incredibly well. Such a great game. Though the GC version does seem a bit fuzzier than I remember....
Definitely picking up the physical in september
@MythTgr It's only been a few months since MP1 Remaster. We don't even know if MP2 received the same treatment or not. MP4 is still a long ways off. Maybe try having some patience.
I mean licensing happens, so otherwise it is the same gameplay which is why people play games. I like fictional brands anyway. (I also have the originals so there is that.) If not seeing 7up stops one from playing...they didn't want to play anyway.
I think I'll still try 3 or 4 first before 2 and especially 1. Wow, so many games to play at once or soon with a demo of 4. Nintendo can't entice newbies like me any harder!
I would just love to see more GCN games on Switch in any format, though I would prefer complete remakes or even simple ports over NSO, which isn't permanent. And I don't just mean the usual classics like Thousand-Year Door but smaller ones like Wario World and Star Fox Adventures. I don't have a GCN or Wii handy and GCN games are horribly expensive.
@Takoda Hahah. Seems to be an issue with the screenshots, I'm sure it'll get sorted shortly.
I did get annoyed with the underground sections on Pikmin 2, always preferred the above ground sections. Still a great game but I prefer the first one personally.
@Not_Soos I hear it’s great, yet another game I have never played, but really want to, but can’t ):
@Manguy888A Right? I will buy it if you’ll let me lol
@Greatluigi Dang that sucks. I’m happy you can play them again!
Thanks for the review
But why all the pictures are the same?
@Snatcher Oh man, are you missing out! Here's hoping you get that chance. It's a phenomenal game. Also, I'm sure you're aware it was a huge inspiration for A Hat in Time. As much as I love Hat in Time, some elements of the game honestly kinda border on plagiarism of TTYD, including the character of Snatcher himself.
Nintendo keeping up their shadow drop streak, what shadow drop is going to be at the next Direct I wonder.
Every time I see niggling or niggles I keep thinking of the Almost a Slur video from College Humor. If you haven't seen it, it is a must watch.
On topic: I need to pick these up as soon as possible. I want the physical version, but I don't want to wait until September. 🥲 I beat Pikmin 3 before on the Wii U, but I never got to play these two.
@Not_Soos IT IS?! is that why its design seems to draw me in so much? I have to say, I don’t think I was aware, I had my suspicions, and I heard a thing or two about took inspiration, but not to that degree, never knew enough about TTYD to know, and the snatcher is one of my favorite video game characters (idk why lol) so if there is a character in there that’s like him, oh boy.
From what everyone has said I know I’m missing out and it sucks 😭 I sure do hope I get to play it, because now that you’ve said that, I need it!
@UltimateOtaku91 With any luck, it will be Metroid Prime 2 and 3. If they really want to wow us, they could include Prime Hunters as well.
Whenever I tried to convince my friends to play Pikmin I'd tell them how cool it was to see them carrying Duracell batteries and Haribo packets. I'm kinda intrigued to see what those items look like in this remake but yeah, a part of the games identity has probably been lost a little by their absence
Still curious about this alleged 7up cap
I've always heard 2 be labelled as the black sheep of the series myself (a similar situation to series such as Ace Attorney and Super Mario Bros now that I think about it) so I'm definitely interested in seeing how it rolls myself once I beat the first!
@Vyacheslav333 Wait they got rid of Totaka's song? Why? Was it tied to a menu only accessible on GCN/Wii or something?
I am not too bothered with real life brands in the game being removed (Sure I get some people will miss it as it was part of the charm for people who already played it).
For me, the only time where seeing real life brands that make sense are sports games (like fifa) and simulation racing games (like forza motorsport but not forza horizon as that is more of an arcade racer) as it adds more to the immersion.
I’m so tempted to buy Pikmin 1&2 digitally. I want the physical copy but I want to play these now on the switch. Glad to see them review well still.
@MythTgr I get the principle, but Nintendo has always been one to capitalize and repackage remasters. There were like what 7 "New Play Control" games on Wii, the amount of anniversary or trilogy collections on the Wii as well. The Wii U even had a few GameCube remasters the most notable being Windwaker and Twilight Princess and even rereleased Xenoblade on the Wii U eShop... And that is before we talk about Xenoblade remaster on Switch and the New 3DS port. That and the 3DS N64 remasters...
My point is Nintendo will Nintendo even when Nintendo is not saying they're Nintendoing. I think Prime 2 & 3 might get remastered, but the Prime remaster felt more like a proof of concept for the dev team like Windwaker was for the Breath of the Wild team.
@Fizza gcn only yes
Expired brand licenses?! In MY Pikmin???
Ouch, right in the stifled innovation.
Nintendo can shove it with this, 40 bucks over here in aus
@Snatcher Yeah, if you don't mind a minor spoiler, here's a link to the character in question: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iotz-7vZVt8 Skip to roughly the 1:15 mark. The design is a lot more simplistic, but the inspiration is undeniable. A demonic figure with yellow, glowing eyes and mouth against a dark purple background. When you fall into his trap, he exclaims "FOOOOOLS!" with a text box that's a lot more jagged-looking than the one for other characters, just like Snatcher's. The text box is white, but there's another demonic character in the game with a purple text box.
There's also a character in the game who won't let you pass while they're looking for their contacts which is an exact scenario in A Hat in Time during the train murder mystery. (Oh yeah... TTYD also has a train noir chapter.) Plus, the main hub area is a seedy ocean port run by a corrupt syndicate just like Mafia Town. A Hat in Time is basically 50% Mario Sunshine DNA in terms of gameplay, and 50% Paper Mario in terms of thematic elements. Even Mustache Girl stealing half your Pons is identical to something that happens at the beginning of TTYD where you get mugged and lose half your coins.
It may sound like I gave away a lot of plot points, but I promise, this is only like 1 percent of the interesting stuff that happens in the story. TTYD has an incredible narrative from start to finish with fantastic writing and characters and scenarios. The things I describe are far from the most interesting plot revelations. The game will genuinely make you cry, laugh, and every emotion in between. It's so good, man...
@Fizza IIRC, it was on a screen that only played the song if you didn't have a memory card inserted.
@PJOReilly Please don't change it.. its kind of amazing
@MythTgr What do you want…? Bare minimum but faster ports like the Pikmin games here or slower but higher effort ports like what we got with MP1…?
Trying to compare both situations is apples and oranges. Very little correlation.
Lol barely any improvements, a simple AI upscaling job. Full price! Hehe silly future of gaming.
One of my all time fav games. I've played the trilogy and this still is my favourite one. I'm glad they chose the NPC Wii version to port.
Cheers for the review.
Seem to always run into this game for cheap.
Found the original for £20 when the GameCube was still modern. A bargain given the prices it goes for today.
When I got round to going back and 100%ing the game on my Wii no less...I found the Wii version in a used electronics store for about £12. Again, goes for a pretty penny nowadays.
That said, will jump at the chance for the Switch physical bundle.
My only real complaint about these two games is the horrible control to select multiple pikmin types and lack of lock on and charge functions that pikmin 3 introduced. I love 1 and 2 (especially 1) but theyre hard to go back to considering I started with 3.
If you know me or have read my comments in the past, you know that I love Pikmin but I wish Nintendo didn't milk fans so much with their pricing schemes.
Pikmin is the only game where advertising looks completely natural 😂.
@spottedleaf I have only the original versions, Pikmin 1 and 2 on Gamecube and 3 on Wii U, so I always wonder how the controls work in the Wii and in the Switch ports. Controls are utterly important in Pikmin games.
@Fizza Yeah...? It was Nintendo GameCube version exclusive easter egg, I suppose...
@Not_Soos What the heck! That is straight up the same character! He even had the line and everything! Wow if you ask me A hat in time seems like a 3d platformer version of paper Mario, honestly I think the way they took inspiration sounds perfect, they took something from the game, and kinda made it there own!
Now I need to play this game! It sounds like something I would love! Heck even become one of my favorite games! Why haven’t they ported it yet 😭 please nintendo! I want to give you money!
@Snatcher Have you had a chance to play the original Paper Mario on NSO yet? Not as good as TTYD, but still a fantastic game and will give you a good idea of what to expect from the sequel. While it's not necessary to play the first one to understand the plot, TTYD has lots of neat callbacks to the first game.
The caves in Pikmin 2 remind me a bit of dungeons. I'll try it out when I pick up Pikmin1+2 physically in September.
Played this entry and for the first time, and whilst 1 is a perfectly contained experience, I found 2 to be a mess.
Constant intruruption with dialogue and cutscenes is annoying, there are cheap deaths from things such as randomly falling rocks, and controlling your Pikmin is cumbersome.
Overall it feels as though they increased the ambition from the first game, but hadn't yet built the functionality found in 3 and 4, they hadn't put the groundwork in.
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