Green. Smiling. After having finished the first Pikmin game, I opened the box of this understanding what was to come. A fun romp through a world which I don't get to see often. For being a GameCube game, it was quite stunning graphically. The water effects were great, the foliage and lighting were vivid, and the world just seemed so alive. Of course, when you first start the game, you are not where I am talking about. No, you are in a cold, scary place.
The story. Simply put is heartwarming and upbeat. I won't spoil anything for people that haven't played it but it is definitely not the draw of this game. Unlike the previous game, this one does not have a time limit. Something that I view as good. I felt much less stressed and rushed this time around.
So let's get into the meat of this game. This is a 3-D Real-Time Strategy game. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's essentially amount to commanding an army. In this case and army of carrot-like monsters called Pikmin. Just like in the first game, the concept is simple. Command you army of little monsters to defeat much larger beasts, grow your army, and find treasure. Simple as that. One addition to this game is the cave system. You will often run into little holes in the ground that contain a series of maps that are challenging at times and often times themed.
These caves make up a good portion of the game. In fact, there are numerous caves I have yet to beat completely. The reason why is you need an army of the special type pikmin to do this. Purple Brawlers are heavy and can lift more than other pikmin types. White Poison are small and speedy. They are resistant to toxins and are toxic to enemies. In addition to all those features, white pikmin can also find buried treasure.
This brings up one of my negatives points about the game. Just running through this game like I did, not farming any particular type...I wound up with only 17 white pikmin my whole play through. Now this may not seem bad but you need every single one you can get. Without these, you can't find buried treasure. So why not farm them like normal colored ones (not mentioned: Red, Blue, Yellow)? Simply because you can't. You can only find the flowers that produce white and purple pikmin in caves.
The only other negative point I can make about the game is the randomness factor. Often you could be running through a cave and run into an enemy that you just could not defeat...simply because you were not expecting it. One such enemy that I ran into was actually a secret boss that only spawns under certain tight conditions. This boss ended up spawning on top of my army. Reducing my army from 100 blue to 23 in a matter of seconds. I was thoroughly confused at this.
All in all, I loved my adventures with this game. I often think about dusting off my copy and going to 100% completion.
So for the first review, I feel I should point out something. I am not a writer. I am nowhere near being a professional. I do play lots of games though and I know what is and what isn't a good game mechanic. I know I'm missing some things in this review (namely how sprays are awesome and leader switching is often a death sentence) but I feel I got what I wanted to get into it into it.
Now I feel it is only right that I should provide this nice little disclaimer here saying this is my OPINION. I know many will say that I am wrong. That's fine, if you feel I am, just say so. Swearing at me and saying I have poor taste will not only make you look bad but it will make me feel bad because you had to resort to such a thing. I'm a reasonable person, if you think I got something terribly wrong...I am capable of revisiting past reviews.
With all that said, thank you for reading. I hope you look forward to the next review. I have over 100 games on my list to review. So this might take a while.
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