'a used can of pop is not just rubbish, but a tragically bent figure with beady eyes and a gaping chasm for a mouth'
pikmin was all about 'bottom of the garden' adventuring. you crash land on a mysterious planet, your ship broken into lots of pieces, and you must try to retrieve those pieces to fix your ship and get back off the planet.
however, you encounter a species of sentient plant-like creatures, called pikmin. the pikmin are keen to be around you and seem to follow your every move and respond to your commands.
throughout the game you use the pikmin to search and retrieve the parts of your spaceship.
pikmin 2 plays out very similarly. though the premise this time is more focused on retrieving assorted 'treasures'.
the 30-day time limit of the first game is gone, and there is a lot more depth and longevity to the game.
if pikmin felt like a small experiment in organic, 'real-time-strategy', then pikmin 2 is a more confident, fully-fledged version.
there are several different areas in the game, all themed around different seasons, but when you first begin your adventure, there is only one area open for you to visit.
you play again as captain olimar, but this time he's brought his compadre, louie with him to help out.
the focus is on gradually accumilating an army of pikmin that enable you to overcome the various obstacles throughout the areas.
like in the first game, red pikmin have high attack power, are faster, and are resistant to fire. blue pikmin are resistant to water allowing access to watery areas, but they're weaker than the reds. yellow pikmin can reach higher places when tossed by olimar or louie, and they are resistant to lighting.
pikmin 2 introduces 2 more flavours of pikmin; a fat purple pikmin that can stun enemies and deal more damage when thrown and also has 10x the shifting power (when retreiving treasure), however they are much slower and can't be thrown very high.
white pikmin are 'diggers' that can locate buried treasure, and are also very fast.
the goal of the game is not so much to come up with grand strategies, but more about group organization and splitting tasks and workloads between groups of pikmin to get them co-operating and combining their strengths.
an example of this co-operative play: there is a log of wood that can be used to build a bridge, but there is water underneath the bridge, so you might have louie wait with a squad of red pikmin, while you as olimar guide the blues through the water to build the bridge, and then re-unite.
you're not likely to be sitting there thinking, in pikmin. it's action-focused, but the game does reward and require preperation. so you do need to choose an appropriate mix of pikmin or you might find that the game becomes difficult, quickly.
like a metroid game, the areas unfold gradually through discovery, aquisition of specific treasures, and using various pikmin to pull down bridges.
you begin in an ice/water area only with red pikmin. the red pikmin are of limited use here, but eventually you find a cave.
caves are a new feature in pikmin 2, and they contain the bulk of the treasures.
there are often 3-6 levels inside the caves, so this time, the areas in pikmin are kind of like an overworld to the underground dungeons, similar to the legend of zelda.
unlike zelda and metroid though, olimar & louie are merely little dictators that control and organize the multi-ability, 'mobile keys' (i.e. the pikmin).
you can't jump in the game, and play feels grounded and focused on treasure-hunting and exploration, unlike metroid or mario's more acrobatic play style.
treasure is the end result of your exploratory efforts, and it's a joy to find every single object.
i use the term 'treasure', loosely though as it's often nothing amazing or valuable.
as in animal crossing, the items are ordinary and often useless, but paradoxically charming and interesting. a typical haul often consists of random bottle tops, confectionaries, broken toys, and all kinds of manufactured products.
the presentation and humour of the pikmin games recall animations such as toy story, and over the hedge but with a touch of metaphysical reflection on the junk you haul in. a used can of pop is not just rubbish, but a tragically bent figure with beady eyes and a gaping chasm for a mouth, reminiscent of olimar & louie's boss.
this kind of symbolic and subtle storytelling sets pikmin apart from more basic adventure games, but also resonates a kind of nonchalant whimsy, and a deadpan comic attitude.
the names of the items you discover never cease to be whimsical and amusing.
your ship's onboard computer analyses the treasure as if discovering these manufactured goods, such as a duracell battery, or a 7up bottle cap, for the first time. it labels them things technically, like... "courage reactor" (duracell), "citrus lump" (orange), or "drought ender" (a dr. pepper bottle cap).
a huge part of the delight is in seeing what the computer names the 'treasure'.
olimar & louie, a sort of 'laurel & hardy' partnership, one small and podgy, the other tall and dozy, use the bulk of this treasure to convert into money to save their boss back on their home planet. this is the main 'goal' of the game, but the premise never interferes with the joy of exploring.
besides the monetary gain from the objects, some objects have other uses. the most important of these are pieces of a globe. finding these maps opens up other areas on the main map.
other items serve to protect olimar & louie from hazards such as fire, and electricity.
pikmin 2 is so much more developed than pikmin. the underground levels give much of this feeling of 'vertical' depth, compared to the rather brisk but pretty overworld.
the caverns below are like mini maps, often made up of 3-8 levels. there is treasure on each level. the deeper you go, the more valuable the treasure tends to be, but also the more dangerous the monsters are, and the bigger the layouts are. it's very much like metroid in this respect.
pikmin 2 really gets going when you're deep in these dungeons, encountering strange creatures in murky and dingy corners.
the layouts of the level are pretty simple to understand (one route for a power-up, another for treasure, another for the exit, etc.), but the use of light and shade makes the levels feel slightly more treacherous as you creep through the dark, clinging to the walls with your squad of little alien people.
some of my favourite enemies are a bug that is literally made of a loaf of bread ("breadbug"), a luminescent, glowing jellyfish that whizzes around and explodes like a fire cracker when defeated, and a somewhat freindly slimey water slug with an 'onion' for a tail.
there are some nice suprises later on in the game as well, that i won't spoil.
encounters with these strange creatures are often frantic and exciting, feeling a little bit like encounters with wild monsters and demons in an 'mmorpg'; it's got that same kind of real-time thrill to it.
often when killing an enemy, you can pick up its remains, hauling it back as 'treasure'. it's a strange attitude to death. the pikmin are none the wiser, hauling a bird head, its beady eyes still open, back to be sucked up into the ship's computer.
pikmin is full of this odd, presumably japanese humour. it defines the experience in a way.
in conclusion, pikmin 2 really feels like a purer, more focused adventure game than zelda and metroid.
stripped of much of the serious challange and multitude of options and abilities, pikmin is simple and based around exploring and treasure-hunting as an end.
you really get the feeling of... "this is what games are about", when playing.
like a lot of nintendos' games, it reminds you of a general, shared childhood; of a stage in life where things were not so complex or serious, and instead full to the brim with discovery and suprise…
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(for more thoughts on pikmin 2, see my blog entry: "thoughts on pikmin 2". http://uk.gamespot.com/users/just_nonplussed/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25690097)