Pikmin 2 is a bit divisive among Pikmin games. The first Pikmin was a beautifully elegant experience about time and workload management. Pikmin 2 ditches the time management aspect of the game for dungeons and significantly more challenge. Pikmin in Pikmin 2 feel infinitely more disposable, which is good because a lot of your Pikmin are going to get mowed down, incinerated, eaten, drowned, electrocuted, and even good-ol'-fashioned shot by guns.
Pikmin 2 almost feels like a roguelike with procedurally-generated dungeons. It's packed to the brim with loot and hazards to micro-manage your Pikmin through. With infinite time to complete the game and a portion of the challenge that came with that in Pikmin 1 being eliminated, Pikmin 2 is just hard. Monster types are brutal with lots of them, and with more Pikmin, you have significantly more bandwidth to kill enemies with them--either by crushing them with Purples or just straight-up sacrificing White Pikmin for the glorious cause. The slew of monster types keeps the gameplay interesting and occasionally terrifying. And the coolest feature is the Piklopedia, a journal of sorts for every enemy and every piece of loot you grab in the game.
Pikmin 1 felt like an honest arcade experience, where a lot of it became about minmaxing your work days maneuvering through levels and harvesting loot to fix your ship; it wasn't a particularly long game for it, but it was replayable. Pikmin 2 feels more like a complete game. It's a harder game with arguably a major hook fans of the first game liked gone, but it's still a beautifully designed game.
Pikmin 2 almost feels like a roguelike with procedurally-generated dungeons. It's packed to the brim with loot and hazards to micro-manage your Pikmin through. With infinite time to complete the game and a portion of the challenge that came with that in Pikmin 1 being eliminated, Pikmin 2 is just hard. Monster types are brutal with lots of them, and with more Pikmin, you have significantly more bandwidth to kill enemies with them--either by crushing them with Purples or just straight-up sacrificing White Pikmin for the glorious cause. The slew of monster types keeps the gameplay interesting and occasionally terrifying. And the coolest feature is the Piklopedia, a journal of sorts for every enemy and every piece of loot you grab in the game.
Pikmin 1 felt like an honest arcade experience, where a lot of it became about minmaxing your work days maneuvering through levels and harvesting loot to fix your ship; it wasn't a particularly long game for it, but it was replayable. Pikmin 2 feels more like a complete game. It's a harder game with arguably a major hook fans of the first game liked gone, but it's still a beautifully designed game.