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	<title>pikmin 2 Archives - The Escapist</title>
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	<title>pikmin 2 Archives - The Escapist</title>
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		<title>Pikmin 2 Fixed a Problem the Original Game Never Had</title>
		<link>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-2-fixed-a-problem-the-original-game-never-had/</link>
					<comments>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-2-fixed-a-problem-the-original-game-never-had/#disqus_thread</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jesse Lab]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:00:29 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pikmin 2]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.escapistmagazine.com/?p=149684</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When <i>Pikmin</i> released towards the end of 2001, it was able to worm its way into gamers’ hearts thanks to its <a href="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-charm-of-pikmin-1-lies-in-how-un-nintendo-it-is/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mellow vibes and unique presentation</a>. It was a strange new IP for Nintendo, a risky one at that since it was launching alongside a new console in a genre Nintendo isn’t well known for, but the risk paid off. It’s not the most financially lucrative Nintendo franchise, but the first game did well enough to justify the development of a sequel, <i>Pikmin 2</i>.</p> <p>When the game was released in 2004, like the original game, I didn’t initially play it. I didn’t even know the game was out since, outside of <i>Nintendo Power</i>, there was no unique marketing tactic like with <i>Luigi’s Mansion</i> where the trailer was put into that game for players to watch at their leisure. But I eventually got the game for my birthday sometime in high school, and while I was excited to get it, it fell on my backlog. Something about the game bored me and I felt little desire to keep playing. Replaying the game now as an adult, I could tell right away why I dropped the game and how <i>Pikmin 2</i> has become somewhat divisive over the years.</p> <p>Like most sequels, <i>Pikmin 2</i> offered up refinement from the first game. Several of the mechanics from the first game were expanded upon, such as the role of the three original Pikmin, giving some of them new properties, as well as the new Purple and White Pikmin and their unique abilities. However, I think <i>Pikmin 2</i> opted to overcorrect what Nintendo deemed to be the first game’s flaws, despite those flaws being why some gamers, like myself, were endeared to the original <i>Pikmin</i>.</p> <p>If there’s one area where the original <i>Pikmin</i> struggled, it was its length. The game could theoretically take only four-to-six hours to beat, maybe even less, making it a fairly breezy play. Its short length wasn’t really a weakness though. Thanks to the omnipresent timer counting down how long you had to escape Earth, players began to experiment with how quickly they could collect all of the parts they needed to beat the game or to see how many parts they could collect in a single in-game day. It became fun to speedrun <i>Pikmin</i>, and its short length never allowed the game to overstay its welcome.</p> <p><img data-recalc-dims="1" fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-149689" src="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/pikmin-2-1.jpg?w=1024&#038;resize=1024%2C576" alt="Nintendo GameCube Pikmin 2 fixes a problem the original never had with length and its awful caves system with no time limit or real strategy." width="1024" height="576" /></p> <p>However, <i>Pikmin 2</i> treats the short length of the original as a problem to be fixed. That in-game timer had to be taken out as well to alleviate the stress that it presented towards players. Nintendo racked its brain to figure out how to kill two birds with one stone, and it came to a terrible answer that more people at The Escapist than just I find absolutely awful: <i>Pikmin 2</i> decided to introduce caves.</p> <p>I’ll be blunt — caves suck. They are a drag on the entire game and rob <i>Pikmin 2</i> of virtually all of the charm and unique personality that the first game had. They systematically take all of the positive elements that made the first game stand out and streamline it to the point of tedium and boredom. It’s actually kind of impressive just how badly Nintendo missed the mark with the caves and how their intended function only serves to bring all of the problems that the franchise has had with gameplay to the forefront.</p> <p>For context’s sake, instead of finding parts for your broken ship like in the first <i>Pikmin</i>, <i>Pikmin 2</i> tasks you with finding treasure on Earth to sell to pay off your company debts. While you can find some of these treasures in environments similar to the ones found in <i>Pikmin</i>, with some of these locations almost shamelessly copied and pasted over from the first game, most of the best treasures in the games are found in caves. These subterranean catacombs can stretch for multiple floors and will often contain multiple different treasures and a big treasure guarded by a boss at the very bottom. Most of the floors of these caves are randomly generated, so there are some roguelike elements present in <i>Pikmin 2</i>’s design, in theory offering significantly more content than the original game.</p> <p><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-149688" src="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/pikmin-2-2.jpg?w=1024&#038;resize=1024%2C576" alt="Nintendo GameCube Pikmin 2 fixes a problem the original never had with length and its awful caves system with no time limit or real strategy." width="1024" height="576" /></p> <p>The problem is that these caves offer absolutely no unique identity and personality. Unlike the bustling and lively worlds above, the caves are dark and dank. Most of them are difficult to distinguish between one another. Due to their being procedurally generated, there are few set pieces within them, causing them to blur together. They’re just boring to explore and feel like they never end. Of the 14 caves, some of them are quite short, lasting only two floors, but they can go up to 15 floors by the end of the game. At times they just drag down the pacing of a game that is meant to be brisk and light.</p> <p>These caves are able to take such an eternity to complete due to Nintendo removing the timer when exploring. It’s still present when you’re above ground, but due to what the instruction manual calls “strong magnetic fields,” time is warped in these caves and time doesn’t actually pass. Despite that explanation making absolutely zero sense, the lack of a timer actually introduces several problems that grind the pace of the game to a halt. While above ground, the search for treasures is frantic since you’re fighting against the clock to get as many collectibles as possible. There&#8217;s not as much thematic tension to acquiring these goodies, but if you leave the treasure super close to your ship but don&#8217;t get it in, that&#8217;s another day you have to spend recollecting it.</p> <p>Caves turn this into a slow and arduous process. Instead of the nerve-wracking tension of whether your Pikmin will be able to get a treasure to your ship before sunset, now it’s just a dull waiting game for them to bring the treasure back to your ship with little threat. The only real threat is that, if you lose all of your Pikmin at a lower level, you&#8217;re booted out of the cave and have to spend all that time going through another random set of areas again just to pick up where you left off.</p> <p><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-149687" src="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/pikmin-2-3.jpg?w=1024&#038;resize=1024%2C576" alt="Nintendo GameCube Pikmin 2 fixes a problem the original never had with length and its awful caves system with no time limit or real strategy." width="1024" height="576" /></p> <p>But then you start to realize that, the longer you spend in the caves, the more of an endurance match they become. You can’t grow new Pikmin in a cave, so you’re only allowed to bring with you a maximum of 100 Pikmin and use only those 100 Pikmin to overcome whatever challenge the game throws at you. While some could argue that this is elevating the challenge of the game, I would instead argue that it’s more akin to trial-and-error repetition and offers very little strategy. You&#8217;re just surviving and engaging in combat encounter after combat encounter. Where&#8217;s the strategy there?</p> <p>Consider a moment what the core of the first game was. You had to think about how to maximize your day and plan it effectively. With the caves, there really isn’t any way to plan your descent since you’re going in blind. You could come across a cave that is partially submerged that requires a lot of Blue Pikmin, but you won’t know that until you land inside. Plus, with the randomized nature of caves, there’s little to actually plan for since there are hardly any puzzles. If you leave the cave, that overabundance of water may not even be there next time. They can offer you challenging boss fights, but if you get destroyed by a boss the second they appear, which did happen to me in this most recent playthrough, then you can either reload your save or start the cave over from the very beginning. Sometimes it may even be impossible to defeat the boss if you&#8217;re that bruised up, so guess what you have to do again if that happens?</p> <p>By the time the credits rolled, I had to ask myself: What positive additions did the caves bring to <i>Pikmin 2</i>’s design? It’s more content and it bumps up the game’s length, but at the cost of the charm that was there in the first game. Most of the game no longer takes place in these quaint approximations of Earth. They now center on dark, repetitive, and dull dungeons with little variation and borderline-unfair situations you can be thrust into. There are elements of refinement here, but they’re buried under floors upon floors of the most underwhelming level design in series history. I know that <a href="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-4-demo-out-now-gameplay-overview-trailer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i>Pikmin 4</i></a> will include caves to some extent. I just hope that Nintendo learned from its mistakes in the 19 years since caves were introduced.</p>]]></content:encoded>
					
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">149684</post-id>	</item>
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		<title>Pikmin 1 &#038; 2 HD Re-Releases Coming to Switch Today</title>
		<link>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-1-2-hd-re-releases-coming-to-switch-today/</link>
					<comments>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-1-2-hd-re-releases-coming-to-switch-today/#disqus_thread</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Cripe]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jun 2023 15:03:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pikmin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pikmin 2]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.escapistmagazine.com/?p=147870</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-4-release-date-trailer-reveals-ice-pikmin-first-gameplay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Pikmin 4</em></a> is on the horizon, so Nintendo is re-releasing HD versions of both <em>Pikmin 1</em> and <em>Pikmin 2</em> on Nintendo Switch today, as announced during the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7t5jnpkCkI" target="_blank" rel="noopener">June 2023 Nintendo Direct</a>. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVuVaMkgBEg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">footage</a> shown during the presentation showed that the games will pretty much return as you remember them when they first released on GameCube. However, these upgraded versions of two calssics now support optional motion controls for those looking for more precise strategy gameplay. Nintendo has also revealed details regarding purchase options: &#8220;The games will be available individually or in a digital bundle that contains both games at a discounted price. A physical version that includes both games will also be available on Sept. 22.&#8221; <em>Pikmin 1</em> HD and <em>Pikmin 2</em> HD are both available to download on the eShop now. Players have the option to buy each game individually for $29.99 or as a bundle for $49.99.</p> <p><em>Pikmin</em> fans are getting special treatment this year, and after today, they’ll have access to all three mainline <em>Pikmin</em> experiences ahead of <em>Pikmin 4</em>’s launch on July 21, 2023. Also revealed today was the news that <em>Pikmin 4</em> Switch demo will become available next week on June 28. You can see the <em>Pikmin 1</em> and <em>2</em> re-release announcement trailer below.</p> <div class="mnmd-responsive-video"><iframe loading="lazy" title="Pikmin 1+2 - Launch Trailer - Nintendo Switch" width="1200" height="675" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xVuVaMkgBEg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>]]></content:encoded>
					
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">147870</post-id>	</item>
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		<title>Pikmin 3 Review &#8211; Tiny, Terrific, Tactical</title>
		<link>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-3-review-tiny-terrific-tactical/</link>
					<comments>https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-3-review-tiny-terrific-tactical/#disqus_thread</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Bolding Legacy Author]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pikmin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pikmin 2]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pikmin 3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shigeru Miyamoto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wii U]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.escapistmagazine.com/pikmin-3-review-tiny-terrific-tactical/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="v1PageContent"> <p><em>Pikmin 3</em> is a galactic epic worthy of the highest space opera, but it takes place at the scale of pencil erasers.</p> <p>In <em>Pikmin 3</em> you take on the role of three tiny explorers tasked with finding a food supply on a faraway world. When you crash-land on the planet of the Pikmin, you use the help of the little plant-men to gather the giant fruits of their world, along with the missing crew and bits of your ship. It&#8217;s pretty much the stock plot of the first two games, which comes up in-story, but nobody&#8217;s here for the gripping original character drama. You&#8217;re here for the cute plant things. And the sending of those cute plant things to their horrible little deaths.</p>  <p>The game plays out in days, each about twenty minutes long, where you must gather fruit for your crew, produce more Pikmin, and solve puzzles to advance the story. All at the same time. It&#8217;s a wonderful kind of multitasking play. It lends itself to bite-size chunks of play and never really feels like it&#8217;s on a time limit, though technically it is. Previous games in the series had a real limit, and made you worry about the clock, but <em>Pikmin 3</em> is far less concerned with the grand scope of a looming deadline &#8211; because your only limit is how much fruit you can gather to convert into juice. The story is easily long enough, clocking in at about thirteen hours with an extensive playthrough by a skilled player, maybe 17 for someone who takes their time.</p>  <p>Other than a far less restrictive game clock, very little has changed since Pikmin 2. It&#8217;s been nine years, but the gameplay is still incredibly fun and approachable. The controls are what make the game: they&#8217;re easy to use and accessible, allowing you to get right to the interesting strategy and tactics. While older Pikmin games could occasionally be frustrating due to the lack of precision on the controllers, that won&#8217;t happen here at all. And since there are three control schemes, GamePad, Wiimote, and Pro Controller, you&#8217;ll figure out a way to play that works for you.  Off screen play on the GamePad is present, as well, and is very functional. You lose a bit of the precision you have with the Wiimote, but playing snuggled up in another room is its own reward.</p> <p>The new Pikmin, Rock and Flying, add enough interesting strategy that they don&#8217;t feel like unnecessary or strange additions. Rock Pikmin do extra damage when you throw them &#8211; you can now literally stone some monsters to death &#8211; but can&#8217;t grasp things very well with their stubby arms. Flying Pikmin are like gnats, and can&#8217;t damage much, but can easily carry fruit or parts home to the ship over obstacles that other Pikmin can&#8217;t traverse. It&#8217;s a good sign that neither of the new guys felt gimmicky, like <em>Pikmin 2</em>&#8216;s white and purple Pikmin did, so you consistently bring them along for their utility.</p> </div> <div class="v1PageContent"> <p>More than anything, the game is just <strong>enjoyable to play</strong>. The creature design is as inspired and whimsical as ever, from flaming slugs to crystal-armored centipedes. You&#8217;ll find yourself cracking a smile at some particularly strange use of a clipboard somebody left lying around, like when your Pikmin turn it into a makeshift bridge, or when your explorers decide to name a lemon they found a &#8220;Zest Bomb.&#8221; Maneuvering your horde around, dodging attacks, and figuring out how to defeat each new monster is a thrill, and encounters are just hard enough that sometimes you have to retreat, get more Pikmin, and start fresh. The only thing that keeps Pikmin 3 from being as good as possible is the ending, which, without spoiling anything, is a chase-like sequence that feels out of place compared to the lackadaisical, mellow pacing of the rest of the game.</p>  <p>The game&#8217;s strategy is flexible enough to accommodate all kinds of players, though there&#8217;s no real difficulty measure, you can judge how skilled you are by how quickly you take on challenges. If you&#8217;re the type to pull maximum efficiency out of each in game day, then swapping between the three characters, giving them programmed routes, and retrieving all the fruit in minimum possible time will be great for you. If you&#8217;re not a hardcore strategist, then, well, don&#8217;t worry. Take your time and you&#8217;ll probably finish before everyone starves to death.</p>  <p>Sadly, the puzzles aren&#8217;t particularly difficult. They&#8217;re fun, sure, and very satisfying to execute once you&#8217;ve figured them out, but none of them are particularly <strong>hard</strong> to do. You can pretty easily breeze through all of them without getting stuck or stalled, and your only slowdowns will be when you make a mistake and run out of time during a day to finish the puzzle you were working on.</p> <p>As a sideline to the main story, <em>Pikmin 3</em>&#8216;s mission mode allows you to hone your tossing skills by attempting set challenges with certain numbers of Pikmin at your disposal. They&#8217;re challenging, and puzzling, set scenarios where repeated play is both rewarding and enjoyable. You&#8217;ll often find yourself trying a new strategy on the same map, attempting to shave just a few seconds off of your completion time or up your score. Playing co-op on the mission maps is awesome, with great moments for working together, and makes you wonder why there wasn&#8217;t a co-op story campaign.</p> <p>Similar to mission mode, the multiplayer Bingo Battle is a strange event where you don&#8217;t necessarily compete directly with your opponent, but you do have to compete for limited resources to fill out your score card before they do. It&#8217;s surprisingly fun, probably more fun than it has any right to be. While it&#8217;s not endlessly replayable unless you&#8217;re a real <em>Pikmin</em> enthusiast, it feels like added value or icing on the cake.</p> <p><strong>Bottom Line</strong>: The ending may not be the best thing ever, but it can&#8217;t tarnish the incredible enjoyment you&#8217;ll get out of <em>Pikmin 3</em>. This is probably the best game yet on Wii U.</p> <p><strong>Recommendation</strong>: There is absolutely no reason a Wii U owner shouldn&#8217;t buy <em>Pikmin 3</em>. Armchair puzzlers, tacticians, and lovers of all things cute will be hugely rewarded, as will those who play with their loved ones or family.</p> <p>[rating=4.5]</p> </div>]]></content:encoded>
					
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