Pikmin 2 continues the travails of Captain Olimar, he's been rescued from the planet in Pikmin 1 using the endogenous Pikmin species to recover the parts from his ship. Now, he returns to his company but is told he needs to raise some cash to allow the company to survive so he returns to the Pikmin world and goes on a treasure hunt.

On the world we encounter our old pikmin, red, blue, and yellow but eventually we meet three others. However, yellow has changed from bomb throwers to being able to withstand electricity, their use is similar to the original pikmin as they take down barriers except in this version the barriers are electrical instead of made of stone.

White - small and fast and gas resistant
purple - really hard pikmin, they are the strong man pikmin but move very slowly. They have the strength of 10 pikmin.

We also have caves on this world and in them we meet a strange pikmin called Bulbmin, they are parastic and help the astronaut kill the beasties in the caves but they never leave the caves. In fact they are a bit creepy all round!!

Pikmin 2 is more of an adventure than the original pikmin, theres no time limits and the treasures are all in jokes from previous nintendo games from days gone by.

The game is very similar to the first but is in truth better, the challenges are more complex and well thought out. The route to some of the treasures requires coordinating the efforts of your various pikmin, the game retains the 100 maximum pikmin available at one time so by the end juggling your pikmin is a challenge.


Caves are cool, and have special rules. Time stops when you enter one meaning the need to get your pikmin back to the ship before dusk vanishes but your only allowed to use the pikmin you took into the cave at the start. They tend to be a bit creepy and the challenges are of a more extreme kind, using Bubmins is a help but they are strange.

There is a two player version where Dolimar has a competitor Louie, they are competing to get yellow marbles and use their pikmin to accomplish their aims, the winner gets their marbles first.

I loved the first pikmin but the second is far better, the game play is more refined and writers have really taken the best bits of the original and decided what works well and removed any aspects which didn't. Removal of the 30 day limit has greatly expanded the game and leaves the series open to a third, which I'm pleased to here is coming on the Wii pretty soon.