by Doc – Owner, Founder, Just Kidding, Pikmin 2 Is Still the Absolute Pinnacle of Pikmin And I’ve Been Saying That Since You Were in Diapers
I was on a Pikmin kick recently thanks to my AYN Thor, and played through Pikmin 2 and then 1 on it. Despite being technologically similar, they’re really quite different games at their core. Pikmin 1 is all about optimizing and replayability, where Pikmin 2 is all about replaying it for the intense and prolonged dungeon combat. Sure, if you’ve replayed both games a few times, they’re old hat to you and not very hard, but if that’s true then you’re beyond the middle difficulty that the Gamecube Pikmin titles aimed at anyway.
I digress. I deeply enjoyed replaying these gems (and suffered through 30 minutes of replaying Pikmin 3 before deciding my Pikmin addiction was again over), and found them to be far more strategic and satisfying than I did as a child. Part of what makes Pikmin 2 especially satisfying is the timing and consideration of when to use your rarer Purple Pikmin, as one misplaced throw could kill them in some of the more intense dungeons, and who knows how many floors you may need that Pikmin on?
It’s this kind of intensity that’s lacking from Pikmin 1: sure, you have to replace Pikmin that you lose, but there’s no scarcity and most battles are out in the open and can be easily avoided. You take Pikmin 1 at your own pace (relatively speaking, of course) but you have to take what Pikmin 2 throws at you, when it throws it at you. Purples and Whites aren’t in Pikmin 1, so there’s no added dimension to squad management and no rock-paper-scissors-glass shotgun approach to combat that admittedly makes Pikmin 2 so much fun to play in the second half of the game.
Imagine my surprise when I saw this:
This appears to run on the Open Nectar decompilation port of Pikmin 1, and it is, as you can see by this article’s featured image, a mod that places Purple Pikmin and White Pikmin into Pikmin 1 via Candypop Buds. The Pikmin work exactly as you’d imagine, bringing with them their poison resistance, extra weight and other mechanics unique to Pikmin 2. (I’ll admit that I’m partial to the relatively polygonal appearance and darker colorings of the Purples in Pikmin 2, not this mod.)
Pikmin Native has a wider offering than just importing Pikmin, as his channel appears to circle around porting several unusual Pikmin assets (such as sprays) and non-Pikmin assets (such as Mario) into Pikmin 1. I’m curious about what else he has in store, so I’ve subscribed and recommend you do too.
