Over the last month or so I have been on a mission. It is a mission bigger than Barbenheimer. It is a mission bigger than two words mushed together. It’s even bigger than Tom Cruise’s latest mission. It’s to play each of the now FOUR Pikmin games back to back to back.
Ever since Pikmin 2 came out in 2005 (ish) I have adored that game. Even before that I adored the little claymation Pikmin promotions in Nintendo Power. As a not-quite-driving-age high school student back then, I’d put on my iPod and dive into my Nintendo Power on my bus rides home. This is how I discovered many gems including Viewtiful Joe, StarCraft Ghost and my beloved Pikmin 2.
Pikmin 2 is a sequel as the title suggests. It’s bigger, badder, and longer than its predecessor and comes with new Pikmin. And Pikmin are these little sprite-like things that resemble walking carrots with blooms on their heads.
You, well, you’re Olimar and you’ve crash landed on their planet. Or at least that was the plot of the first game. In this game your space-mining company has gone bankrupt and you’re on a mission to find treasures like batteries, rubber duckies and dumbbells to get Hocotate Freight out of debt.
Typing that out, I’m noticing the setup is eerily similar to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Olimar was lucky he wasn’t greeted with little Xenomorphs, but instead with little carrot creatures.
So the game. The gameplay is a form of Real Time Strategy (RTS). The game is sub-divided into a days and on each day your goal is to work with the Pikmin to explore, discover and retrieve these treasures, making money for the company and helping them to payoff their debt.
What I’ve always loved about the game is the little-kid big-world element. The planet you’ve landed on seems to be Earth and the treasures you’re collecting (batteries and such) are much bigger than you and the Pikmin. Not to mention that the overworlds are breath-takingly rendered.
It may be a 20 year old game, but it still stuns.
I love getting off work and, rather than flipping on Brooklyn 99, stretching out on the couch and working with Olimar and team to recapture some treasures, conquer some caves (i.e. dungeons), reclaim treasure and ward off some treacherous villains.
Though, I don’t think these villains know they’re villains. Many of them are derivations of Daddy Long Leg spiders (which were a big part of my childhood, but I haven’t seen in years…where did they go?). They’re creatures about an order of magnitude larger than Olimar that can only be defeated with your Pikmin. Tiny monsters of great scale when viewed from Olimar’s perspecive.
The inclusion of these natural predators in the game’s faux-natural eco-system are the only things stopping the game from being a true #cozycore classic. I may be off work lounging on the couch parading around a virtual wonderworld joyously collecting treasure, but the feeling of losing a Pikmin or worse total Pikmin extinction is an existential threat as long as these guys lurk around.
Threat though it may be, it’s easy enough to recoup new Pikmin. And the villains are easy enough until a difficulty spike close to the end.
As of this writing I’ve never beaten the game, but I admire the heck out of it. Earlier this evening I conquered the “Hole Of Heroes,” one of the later dungeons in the game. It took me several play throughs and 1 force-close of the game to re-do a particularly grisly, facepalm-inducing defeat. Tomorrow I’ll probably take on the “Dream Den” or the “Submerged Castle.” They are the only dungeons that remain.
The prospect of completing the game now and coming full circle on a 20 year love affair with Pikmin 2 makes me yearn for more and sad to move on, but I’m so glad that it happened.
I’m excited to close this chapter. And afterwards, it’s onto Pikmin 3.
If it has half the charm of Pikmin 2, I’m sure I’ll love it.
Thanks for reading.
Stay cozy,
-Michael
