I grew up during the GameCube and Wii era so I'm fully willing to acknowledge that nostalgia plays a part here, but I've always found the environments in the GameCube Pikmin games to be some of the most memorable in gaming. They feel cozy but not artificially so, they're still lived in worlds. I could spend hours watching the wildlife do their own things while walking around the lush scenery present in these titles. I'd say this is even more apparent in Pikmin 2, where it's clear the dev team had years to work with the hardware and really get the most out of it. The overworld of Pikmin 2 is a place I can get truly lost in with all the little details added to make this world feel more real than the previous game.

But you don't spend most of your time in Pikmin 2 in the overworld. You spend it in caves. By command of your employer, you must spend a majority of your time scrounging in these dull, repetitive caves all for the sake of profit. There's a beautiful world right within your grasps but you can't experience it because you need to be gathering treasure. Much like how the first Pikmin had anti-war themes, Pikmin 2 contains anti-capitalism themes. Every moment of Pikmin 2 revolves around Olimar's entrapment in a capitalist structure. When you start your day, the first thing on your mind is where you will find the treasure needed to meet your quota. Not for your own survival, not for the benefit of the indigenous creatures aiding you, but for profit. Pikmin 2 is the most exhausting game I have ever played. If you're playing proficiently then you'll spend upwards of several hours of each day going through caves to get more treasure. Every second you're not in a cave you'll be trying to either find the next cave, find treasure in the overworld, or grind up Pikmin to make getting through the caves easier. When I would finish a play session I felt the same way I had felt after working a shift, that being tired and ready to quit.

As much as I believe Pikmin 2 to be an excellent portrayal of capitalism and how it leads to the mental and physical deterioration of the people trapped in it, I can't bring myself to rate this game highly. It's one of the worst games Nintendo has put out and seeing that it has high review scores shocks me. Though maybe everyone just really digs anti-capitalism narratives even if the gameplay is miserable.