I really enjoyed the first Pikmin game, having only played it for the first time recently, and so I was really looking forward to Pikmin 2. Unfortunately, while Pikmin 2 is fine, I ended up feeling really disappointed by it.
Since this review is going to be mostly me complaining, I figure I should start with some positives. The core gameplay is still largely the same, the environments are still pretty to look at, and there have been some improvements to make things a little smoother. The Pikmin AI seems to be a little better this time around, and they will defend themselves and pick things up more readily without having to be explicitly ordered to do so. I also liked how this time there are two astronauts, and you can switch back and forth between them at will, making it easier to coordinate different groups of Pikmin for various tasks. I really appreciated that the throwing speed when you’re throwing Pikmin was increased, as it was slow enough in the first game to be annoying at times. And there were some new puzzles involving weighing down platforms that were pretty clever.
With that grudging praise out of the way, let’s get to the problems. The game picks up where the first game left off. Olimar escapes the planet where he crashed and returns home. However, he discovers that in his absence the company he worked for has undergone some major financial difficulties, and is in serious debt. But as he’s processing all of this, his boss takes a look at an item Olimar had picked up on the Pikmin planet, and a computer analyzes that it’s worth a lot of money. After going over Olimar’s report, his boss realizes that there are probably more valuable resources on the Pikmin world, and so Olimar and his coworker Louie are sent there in order to use the Pikmin to acquire more treasures and clear the company debt.
Right off the bat this game struck me as a bit off. While Olimar’s use of the Pikmin in the first game was technically just as selfish, it felt much more relatable and sympathetic. If Olimar didn’t exploit the Pikmin in the first game, he would have died. All of us have ethical and moral standards we try to adhere to, but if our backs were up against a wall and we were staring death in the face, I think odds are good most of us would do whatever it took to survive, even if it was morally wrong. So while Olimar’s use of the Pikmin in the first game was ethically iffy, it didn’t bother me because he had literally no other options.
But in Pikmin 2 that is absolutely not the case at all. From what is presented there were other options besides exploiting the Pikmin again. Olimar could have found another way of generating money, one that was perhaps a bit more ethical. Or he could have just ditched his boss and left him to deal with the debt, possibly taking his family and going into hiding to avoid the loan sharks or whatever if necessary. The point is that unlike the first game, where Olimar was stranded and had no other recourse, Pikmin 2 failed to convince me that going back to the Pikmin planet was the only option.
Another thing I didn’t like was that the quality of the writing took a massive hit. While the first game looked rather cutesy, and did have a slightly quirky sense of humor at times, the notes Olimar made in his journal at the end of each day were thoughtful, somber, even philosophical. It showed that he understood the weight of his situation, and the narrative was presented fairly seriously. In Pikmin 2 though each day instead ends with Olimar getting a wacky and silly email from either his boss or his family, and the tone of the game comes off as much more goofy.
It also does a thing I’ve come to really loath in stories. It technically satirizes capitalism, but in the laziest way possible. Basically the story has the characters doing and/or suffering from the greedy and exploitative crap endemic to capitalism, but then occasionally turns to the camera and says “well this is a bit weird, isn’t it?” It’s tokenly acknowledging the problems with capitalism without really addressing them or grappling with them in a meaningful way, it just wants to score brownie points for pointing out that something’s bad while still doing it. Clearly the game didn’t put a lot of thought into the story, it was just supposed to be a simple framing device for the gameplay. In fairness not every game needs to have a good or deep plot, and in other circumstances I might have given the lazy story of Pikmin 2 a pass, but because of how solid the narrative was in the first game I just can’t.
Personally I would have taken the same basic premise that Pikmin 2 has, but been more serious and grounded with it. I would have changed it so that instead of Olimar working for some uppity out of touch boss, I would have had Olimar and Louie be the two owners of a small space business they were running. And I would have changed it so that while Olimar was gone Louie was the one who took out the loan to cover their financial difficulties, and if they don’t repay the loan within 30 days then all of their personal assets will be seized, and Olimar and Louie’s families will be left homeless and destitute. This would add greater urgency to their plight, would have made it more down to earth and relatable, and would have given them a better reason for going back to the Pikmin planet to plunder it for its treasures, because they just don’t have time to come up with any other plan. It would also be a nice twist, because while in the first game Olimar was fighting for survival against nature, this time Olimar would be fighting for survival against a cruel economic system that prioritizes profit over human wellbeing.
It might sound like I’m harping too much on the narrative setup, but the reality is that story can be incredibly important in a game. A good story can make you care, and can make an already good game even better, while a bad story can pull you out of the experience and make you wonder why you’re even bothering. The first game had a fairly simple premise, but the story was presented and told well, and it got me invested and immersed. I wanted to make sure Olimar made it out okay, so I was compelled to see things through to the end, for better or worse. In Pikmin 2 though the premise felt rather contrived, and the tone was so goofy that I found it impossible to actually care about what was happening.
While the story is the biggest problem for me, it’s not the only one. The first game’s core gameplay loop was great because it kept the design elegant and straightforward. Unfortunately this game decided to experiment and make things more complicated in several ways. The first is that it introduces several new kinds of Pikmin, mainly purple and white Pikmin. Purple pikmin are shorter and heavier than normal Pikmin, and can pick up much more than any other Pikmin. White Pikmin meanwhile are resistant to poison, and will poison any enemies that eat them. While introducing more Pikmin types is a tempting idea, having only three worked incredibly well in the first game, and introducing more just makes things more complicated and annoying. Creating purple and white Pikmin is more difficult and finicky than it is with the original three types, and their only real purpose is to deal with very specific hazards that the other Pikmin can’t handle. A better solution in my opinion would have been to get rid of those specific hazards and the new Pikmin, and just remain focused on the original three types.
The game also introduces lots of underground areas that you can explore with your Pikmin to find more valuable treasure, while also overcoming tough enemies and traps. I really don’t like these areas because they mainly consist of just killing everything and avoiding really obnoxious traps, rather than having to actually use your brain to solve problems in a clever way. In fact these areas got so annoying that there were several points where I was strongly tempted to just give up and quit, as the gameplay had gotten too irritating, and I didn’t give a crap about the story or the characters. I did manage to beat the game, but even at the end I didn’t feel any of the same catharsis or satisfaction I got from completing the first game, I was just glad it was finally over and I could do something else.
One last thing that really bugs me is that all of the “treasures” you find on the Pikmin world are just mundane everyday objects from the real world. The occasional appearance of ordinary objects on the alien world in the first game was easily excusable as just a quirky choice, but this time around it comes off as uninspired and lazy. What’s the fun in looking for “treasure” if it’s just boring junk I could find lying around my apartment? After how creative and distinct the spaceship parts looked in the first game this was a major let down.
Normally I like it when a game tries new things. But in the case of Pikmin the first game was so good and so well put together that honestly I would have been fine if they’d just done more or less the same thing again with Pikmin 2. Just include my ideas for the story, and maybe some slightly different biomes, and it would have been great even if structurally it was the same as the first game. Instead they changed too much and ended up ruining what I liked about the first game, namely the serene and somber atmosphere created by the narrative, and the elegant and straightforward gameplay loop.
I can understand why some people like Pikmin 2, and I’ll admit that a lot of the problems I have with it are due to the fact that I’m a cynical adult who overanalyzes everything. But at the same time I have to be honest about what I think. The first Pikmin really clicked for me, and I really liked it. But the second game failed to spark the same enthusiasm in me, and just left me feeling incredibly disappointed.
Final arbitrary score: 7/10 (Good)
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