I mentioned in my glowing Pikmin 4 review that somehow I never really engaged with Pikmin. Even in the early days of the Wii, when I could have bought ultra cheap used Player’s Choice editions of Pikmin 1 and 2 for Gamecube, and then slightly later when I could have played Pikmin 3, I just didn’t. I don’t know why. Well I had a $50 Gamestop gift card to use, and since you can’t convert them to Steam gift cards anymore, I had to buy something, and Pikmin 1+2 on Switch was $50 new. So here we go, time to atone for some more past Game Crimes.

Pikmin⌗

I know my view of this game is colored by having first played Pikmin 4, but the lack of future quality of life improvements is sorely apparent. I know it would have been fine in its time, but man it’s really rough around the edges, to the point that it sort of feels like the minimally viable product of Pikmin. All the basics are there and essentially fully-formed: 3 Pikmin varieties, onions, parts, time limit, weird enemies, neat puzzles.

But the things it’s missing – because they hadn’t been developed or refined yet – makes it hard to really thoroughly enjoy. There’s basically no optional stuff. No dungeons. Aiming is horrific. Minimal opportunities or reasons to exercise Good Dandori. But of these, the most infuriating is Pikmin pathing. Pikmin will get distracted by EVERYTHING, and will get completely hung up on the slightest jagged edge of world geometry, and when they get stuck they’ll just be there forever because then they’ll be wedged into some weird corner and they’ll be greyed out making them easier to overlook.

It’s also sorta short. I’m thinking back to those early GameCube releases, and none of them were this short. From briefly reviewing games of that time, I suddenly know exactly why I never hopped on the Pikmin train: Nintendo chose to release it the same day as noted small obscure uncelebrated title Super Smash Bros Melee. And then there just sort of wasn’t anything worth swapping out the disc for until the other same-day double-release of Super Monkey Ball 2 and Super Mario Sunshine. So game length adds to the feeling that the game is a proof of concept or Minimally Viable Pikmin. It’s still good and unique and fresh, but I don’t feel that bad skipping out on it now.

Pikmin 2⌗

Pikmin 2 is literally “Pikmin but More and Better”.

Pikmin Varieties
Captains
Enemies / Bosses
Destinations

Better:

No Time Limit
Pathing Actually Works
Pikmin aren’t dumb as rocks

As mentioned above, Pikmin felt like a minimally viable product, and Pikmin 2 feels like a “full” Pikmin game as intended. It introduces two things I honestly was surprised weren’t in the original based on what I saw in Pikmin 4: Dungeons and Treasures. I was legitimately shocked this stuff wasn’t in the original, but it’s all here and basically fully-formed and largely unchanged from what ended up in Pikmin 4, to the point that it’s clear that many of the tilesets for Pikmin 4 dungeons were upscaled/re-renders of Pikmin 2 dungeons.

What’s bad? There’s still some stuff that’s just painfully and unfairly difficult. Cannon Beetles and their magic heat-seeking rocks can and should die in a fire. Wollywogs were a pain in Pikmin, but you could stunlock them with two groups of Pikmin. Not so much in Pikmin 2. Or if you can, it’s not something doable by mere mortals. White and Purple Pikmin are also just way too hard to farm up. And generally it’s just too easy to lose massive counts of rare Pikmin deep in a dungeon and then whoops you’re screwed and you might need more of those exact Pikmin to get back to the same point where you lost everything.

Controls still aren’t good. Aiming stuff in the air still sucks. Camera still sucks. There’s more opportunity for Good Dandori because you can split your party, and Pikmin are SO much less stupid with pathing, but it’s still held back by technical limitations of its time.

Overall Review of the Switch Combo-Pack⌗

Is it worth it? Ehhh. They were good games for their time, I can now say I “get” them. The updates are good, but they’re rather reserved: it’s port territory not remake, barely “remaster”. But do I recommend them? Nah. I’d rather delete my Pikmin 4 save and just play that again from scratch. If you haven’t played any Pikmin games before, I can now absolutely say just go play Pikmin 4, it’s the pinnacle of Pikmin content. It’s like a Pikmin Greatest Hits and ALSO you get the best video game dog of 2023.

If you already loved Pikmin 4 and you require more content, there’s more here, but I can’t guarantee you’ll love it because these games feel like rough drafts of some amazing ideas that weren’t perfected until 4. Maybe hold off unless you can get it used.