Recently I had kind of a bad time for about a week and a half. I sometimes have anxiety attacks or feelings of inadequacy that go through stages. I guess it happens to lots of people. Fortunately, I have things that can help me out in these times. Faith, loved ones, and video games.

So for that reason and general tiredness, I didn’t play much games for a little while. But this weekend I jumped right into some stuff with a vengeance. I played through a few worlds of Little Big Planet 2 (still on loan), but mostly this weekend was Pikmin. I clocked half the game in one day.

So previously, my bro (hi bro) had bought me Pikmin 2 a few birthdays ago. Great present, as was Donkey Kong Country Returns from my other bro the previous Christmas. Both of these came at a time when I wasn’t super interested in video games at that stage, and they along with some other notables (SSBB and Okami) brought me right back in, to the point where I’ve been in the thick of gaming culture since. So I’ve completed Pikmin 2, I think. But importantly, I’d played a lot of it and developed skills.

That was a necessary preface because I thought Pikmin 1 was quite easy. I think going about it the other way around would be a really great experience, as Pikmin 2 (although not one of the sequel games that picks up near the top of the difficulty curve of the previous, and assumes the previous as a prerequisite) builds on a lot of the concepts developed in 1. Playing them in order would also give you a good introduction to the world and characters, particularly Olimar. His introspective musings on his situation and the things he encounters are truly one of the highlights of both games. More on that later.

So it was easy. I sort of expected that I would find it so, so I was very supportive of my wife having a go. She played through the first few days, maybe a week I guess in game until it got to the point that it was too hard and stressful. I don’t blame her, the Forest Navel was quite hard compared to later stages, it might have been better swapped with the spring. And the final level was just a puzzle-type thing, I would have liked to see more areas like that actually.

Anyway, I took over at that point, and played a bit more and polished it up in a marathon on Saturday. My impressions were good, but it shows that it was such an early title, and perhaps could have used more content? The execeution was brilliant, though. And even the plot was handled very well, for Nintendo. It’s a fine game, worth buying for the low price it is now, but perhaps not the high initial price. The sequel is leagues better and as I can attest, stands on its own.

I was playing the New Play Control! version, which from what I can tell had loads of improvements, unlike a few games in that series that were apparently simple control updates, or like Jungle Beat which radically changed gameplay (and was apparently the worse for it). Improvements like yellow Pikmin holding bombs when whistled, and throwing them at enemies. Or Pikmin surviving longer on fire. And the day rewind system. Not to mention widescreen support. This is good, and in my opinion that rerelease brand should have lasted much longer. On the other hand, another way to fix things is sequels—in this case, the whistle was better in Pikmin 2, although the first game seemed a little better at handling extracting lots of dudes at once from an Onion.

Now seems like a good time to talk about the Pikmin series as a whole. It’s not just two games, you know. The NPC! versions of both games are greatly improved, as I mentioned (and the US is only just getting 2 that way, without NPC! branding. So slow NOA!). Also, Pikmin 2 has lots of brand name products and other treasures that are different between regions. So there are different iterations of the same 2 games. The 3rd is also on the way for WiiU, and looks great. However, there are 5 other additions to the Pikmin universe that I, as an avid completionist, consider important.

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This game did a huge service to many Nintendo franchises, by remixing songs, making stages, showing off artwork in stickers (trophies were slightly less impressive, they were only existing renders which led to over-representation of some series), and of course making new, highly-detailed character models for the fighters. Brawl also took some liberties with characters for playability, so Pikmin & Olimar are much larger than they really are, and also Reds & Yellows were granted the ability to produce fire & electricity, instead of just surviving it. On the music side, Pikmin tends to be more atmospheric in that regard so Brawl also included the Japanese pop singles released alongside the two games (and a French version). Incidentally, did you know they also bred a new flower species and named it after Pikmin, as part of the marketing? Oh, and Brawl had an awesome model for Olimar, way more textured and interesting than his model in his own game. I don’t blame Pikmin for that, it’s meant to be zoomed out. But yeah Brawl Olimar looks amazing, and he’s high on the tier list. Thanks Sakurai! He’s my main by the way, but people get annoyed cos he’s too good. ;p

2. The Pikmin 2 e-reader game. Oh, Japan. When will you share your goodies with the rest of us schmoes? The Gameboy Advance add-on that read barcodes off collectable cards was incorporated with the GCN-GBA link cable, but only in Japan. So if you get a lot of different cards and scan them in, you can play levels of 3 different puzzle minigames! Apparently. I’ve only seen 1 shaky YouTube video of this, but it looks kinda cool. Since I love obscure stuff like this, I wish they would release it on the DSi store. *sigh* A fanboy can dream. Worse, e-readers can’t be emulated at this stage as far as I can tell.

3&4. Warioware microgames! 9-volt and 18-volt’s stages are the best part of these games for fans like me. Warioware DIY had a game in the non-Japan version (so I guess we got something they didn’t after all) where you throw a Pikmin onto a rock for nectar. The fun part about this microgame was the pixelated painterly art style, one of the best looking games in DIY. The other is featured in Smooth Moves for the Wii: you control the Empress Bulblax from Pikmin 2, rolling to crush Piks on either side of you. This not only let you control an enemy creature, it established that there exist Pikmin of giant size, almost as big as the Empress herself. Canon? Sure, why not! How either of them got into that cave, though, is beyond me.

5. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GCN). Interestingly, hitting a ball in the rough sometimes caused Pikmin to burst out. How did they end up in the Mushroom Kingdom, since Pikmin ostensibly takes place in a future Earth? Iuno, magic? Mario and logic are essentially incompatible. Canon? Eh, maybe.

Well, I’m glad my review of this gem of a game let me splurge out some obscure stuff like that. So I’ll reiterate that it’s worth playing at least one Pikmin game, but if it was only one, go for the sequel. It has more features and content, as well as more fascinating little quotes from Olimar, and some interaction that wasn’t possible with only one stranded character. But I’m glad I’ve played both. If I main Olimar I should know his whole story I guess. Until next time, friends.