Pikmin 2 icon.png

New Play Control! Pikmin 2

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Pikmin 2
Australian boxart for New Play Control! Pikmin 2.
Australian boxart
Japanese name Wiiであそぶピクミン2? (lit.: "Let's Play On Wii Pikmin 2")
Rating ESRB rating: E PEGI rating: 3
Console Wii
Developer Nintendo EAD
Publisher Nintendo
Genre Real-time strategy
Players Single-player (story mode)
1 or 2 players (Challenge Mode and 2-Player Battle)
2 players (2-Player Battle)
Saved game size 2 blocks
Release date
Japan March 12th, 2009
North America June 10th, 2012
Europe April 24th, 2009
Australia May 14th, 2009
South Korea N/A
Related games
Predecessor New Play Control! Pikmin
Re-release of Pikmin 2

New Play Control! Pikmin 2 is a re-release of Pikmin 2 for the Wii, as part of the New Play Control! range of video games. It was released in Japan, Europe, and Australia in 2009, and in North America in 2012, and features a number of changes to the original game, mainly in its controls.

Unlike the first game's Wii version, the box art for every region is the same as for the GameCube releases, within a New Play Control! border; the cover, however, may be turned over and replaced to show the full size cover. In North America, it was released as part of Nintendo Selects, so it has a different border to releases in other places.

Changes

Quite a few of the differences were also implemented in the enhanced port of the first game, New Play Control! Pikmin. One unintended change is the inability to bypass the auto-save that happens whenever a new sublevel is entered: because the Wii lacks memory cards, one cannot remove the memory card to stop the game from saving there.

Graphics and sounds

  • The game now has widescreen support.
  • The Nintendo logo before the title screen is white.
  • The cursor was graphically changed to look the same as in the previous New Play Control! title.
  • Arrows appear when swarming.
  • When a leader is behind the level's geometry from the camera's perspective, a silhouette with their color appears. Pikmin do not cast a silhouette.
  • Some sound effects play from the Wii Remote's speaker, if it's not mute. The list is the same as the one for the first game's enhanced port, with the addition of the noise that plays when a newly-collected treasure is rotated, the sound that plays when a new spray is concocted, and the sounds that play when a spray is used. A new sound effect also plays on the speaker whenever the current leader is changed.
  • In the GameCube game, the US and European versions have extra instrumentation for the Wistful Wild's sunset theme (even if they only play on the first loop). None of the New Play Control! Pikmin 2 regional versions have this, though.

Controls

  • The new control scheme allows the cursor to point at any point of the screen, allowing whistling from almost anywhere, especially when combined with the down-to-the-ground camera accessible by holding Wiimote Dpad leftright.png. Throws have had their mechanics slightly changed, but are still limited in range.
  • When the camera is centered with Nunchuk Z.png, it focuses to the direction the leader is facing, not the direction the cursor is at.
  • If the Nunchuk or Wii Remote are disconnected, the gameplay will pause, and a message will appear notifying the player.
  • Whistling now lasts for considerably less time, only one second.
  • GCN B.png / Wiimote B.png can be used to automatically write all letters of the ship's dialogs, in text boxes, but in the New Play Control! port, the button can also be used to advance the page; only GCN A.png can advance the page in the GameCube version.
  • Two-player modes cannot be entered unless two Wii Remotes are connected. Even still, the gameplay will not begin until both Wii Remotes have a Nunchuk connected.

Gameplay

  • The Man-at-Legs is invincible while rising from the ground.
  • In the US region exclusively, the Massive Lid and the Happiness Emblem have swapped places.
  • The game camera is modified from the original game, allowing players to see more of their surroundings.[1]
  • Thrown flower Pikmin now fall straight instead of twirling horizontally at the apex of their throw arc. This also makes them fall at the same speed as leaf or bud Pikmin, instead of falling slower.
  • Wild Pikmin can no longer be whistled into the party at all times. Instead, certain conditions must be met first:
    • For Yellow Pikmin, the poison vent gate blocking the entrance to their stump must be destroyed.
    • For Blue Pikmin, Yellow Pikmin must have already been discovered.

Text

Main article: Text differences.
  • As would be expected, the controls in text and images have been updated to reflect the Wii version's control scheme.
  • The European version of Pikmin 2 on the GameCube still uses American spellings and idioms (except for text exclusive to that version). In the Wii release however, a few strings of text in the European version was adapted to use British spelling and expressions.
  • This game follows the European version's rename of Wollywogs, Yellow Wollywogs and Wogpoles to Wollyhops, Yellow Wollyhops and Wolpoles, respectively, started by New Play Control! Pikmin. This change does not happen in the European version Pikmin 2 for the GameCube, but stuck for the European version of Pikmin 3. It is presumed that it took place due to Nintendo assuming British players would find the term "wog" offensive.
  • The title screen's copyright information has been updated from "© 2004 Nintendo" to "© 2004-2009 Nintendo".
  • The on-screen message when the player enters the final level of a cave says "FINAL LEVEL!" in the European region. In the other two regions it mirrors the GameCube version by saying "FINAL FLOOR!" instead. The sublevel indicator in the HUD has the same difference, saying "FINAL LEVEL" or "FINAL FLOOR" respectively.

Other

  • On the options menu, the language, rumble and sound mode options have been removed.
  • Some unused content from the GameCube version was removed.[2]
  • When entering the first sublevel of a cave, the game no longer changes from Olimar to The President or from Louie to Olimar.
  • A glitch where the heat haze effect is shifted when the fire is not centered on camera was introduced.
  • Totaka's song has been removed from the game. The cave completion instance was removed on purpose, but the save failure instance cannot happen because this port always saves the game successfully, and does not need to use memory cards.
  • The cutscene that plays when a leader absorbs a spray drop for the first time was made impossible to skip.
  • When a 2-Player Battle match starts, Pikmin that enter a leader's group will first run to a faraway point from the leader for about a second, and then return to the leader's side.
  • Also when a 2-Player Battle starts, idle Pikmin that do not enter the group right away will not have their stems glowing. Whereas this is always true in the GameCube version, there is a chance some Pikmin will have their idle glow working properly from the get-go in the Wii version.
  • If the player activates the hole for the next sublevel at the same time they lie down, the Pikmin in the hole cutscene will huddle up next to that leader in the GameCube version[3], but will run away from the hole in the Wii version.[4]
  • The following glitches were fixed:
    • The stems of idle Pikmin at the start of a 2-Player Battle match do not glow until the Pikmin first enters a group.
  • In the Japanese version exclusively, there is an extra attraction mode cutscene with Ai no Uta as the song.

Controls

See: New Play Control! Pikmin 2 controls

History

The leaf texture used in Pikmin 2's Challenge Mode menu. (Used on Pikipedia in the {{stub}} template.)

This section is a stub. You can help Pikipedia by expanding it.

Development

Release

On December 15th, 2016, this game was made available as an eShop download for the Wii U Virtual Console in Europe. It only became available on the North American eShop on March 30th of the year after. Finally, it became available for Japan's Virtual Console eShop on June 20th, 2017. As of March 27th, 2023, the Wii U version of the game is no longer available for purchase due to the closure of the Wii U eShop.

The Japanese version of the game is only available in Japanese, while the American version is available in English, Latin American Spanish, and Canadian French, and the European version of the game is available in English, European French, German, Italian, and Castilian Spanish.

Versions

Main article: Region.

The first version of this port was released in Japan, and uses Japanese text. Later, the game got released in Europe and Oceania, in a different version, that uses European-language scripts. Finally, the game also got released in North America, in a version that uses only English text. Besides languages, each of these versions have some miscellaneous differences, with the most important one being the list of treasures. Most of the treasures are the exact same, but a few got changed to better fit each region's culture.

It is worth noting that since this is a port of the GameCube original, titled simply Pikmin 2, that that release can be considered a different version. A list of differences between the GameCube and the Wii versions can be found in the changes section.

Reception

Credits

See: New Play Control! Pikmin 2 credits

Media

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See also: Promotional material.

Names in other languages

Language Name Meaning Notes
Flag of Japan Japanese Wiiであそぶピクミン2?
Wii de Asobu Pikumin 2
Let's Play On Wii Pikmin 2
Flag of the Netherlands Dutch NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2 - Name taken from various official sources.
Flag of France French Nouvelle façon de jouer ! Pikmin 2 New way to play! Pikmin 2 From cover, written as Pikmin 2 NOUVELLE FAÇON DE JOUER ! on official website.
Flag of Germany German New Play Control! Pikmin 2 -
Flag of Italy Italian New Play Control! Pikmin 2 -
Flag of Portugal Portuguese (NoE) NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2 - Name taken from various official sources.
Flag of Spain Spanish New Play Control! Pikmin 2 -
Flag of Russia Russian NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2 - Name taken from the official New Play Control! Pikmin 2 website.

Trivia

  • The save data description is To me, Pikmin!

External links

References

  1. ^ New Play Control! Pikmin 2 minisite on Nintendo.co.uk
  2. ^ New Play Control! Pikmin 2 on The Cutting Room Floor
  3. ^ Video of a leader lying down at the same time the hole is activated, in the GameCube version, by "PikHacker" on Discord, published on December 20th, 2019, retrieved on December 21st, 2019
  4. ^ Video of a leader lying down at the same time the hole is activated, in the Wii version, by "PikHacker" on Discord, published on December 20th, 2019, retrieved on December 21st, 2019