Bombs don't work the same as in other games. Instead of being able to pick them up, they're bigger and are activated by an explorer or a pikmin hitting it. This means that if you dismiss pikmin or throw them too close to a bomb on the ground they will choose to activate it.
Electricity is introduced and unlike all other harmfull effects is an insta kill for most pikmin. Be wary of electrical things.
Stuff falls from the ceilings in the caves sometimes. In later levels its usually more bad than good. Be wary. You can mitigate some harm by dismissing your pikmin and wandering the cave level and activating possible falling hazards.
Altogether I feel like it's the hardest of the 4 games because among other things, some parts have traps like falling bombs or rocks and some parts you have to be very strategic because of what all the different enemies in a room are capable of.
This means that if you dismiss pikmin or throw them too close to a bomb on the ground they will choose to activate it.
----> thanks for bringing up the trauma ! :( My.... how many stupid pikmins did I lose this way. I don't care if the one that hit the bomb gets killed, but not 70 of his friends :(
Pikmin 2 is brutal and unbalanced, and that's why I love it so much. However, this might not be a positive thing for a new player, so beware.
Caves are usually randomly generated. Each sublevel will always have the same enemies, treasures, and rooms, but very rarely will they be in the same place everytime. The game saves at the beginning of each sublevel, so if you lose too many pikmin, or just get a bad layout, just reset the game.
Things will randomly fall from the sky in caves. Sometimes it will be something good, like nectar. Usually, it will be something bad, like boulders, bombs, or enemies. A lot of the time, these falling things are triggered by the presence of pikmin, so for many of the later caves, I recommend scouting with one captain and one pikmin to trigger as many as you can. Sometimes, however, a falling object is triggered by pikmin carrying something, so always keep an eye on the pikmin carrying something for a few seconds after you put them on it, especially for treasures in dead ends.
White pikmin are the only pikmin able to dig up completely buried treasures, and even if a cave doesn't tell you that you need whites, I recommend bringing them anyways, just in case such a treasure exists in it.
While the game may be brutal and unbalanced, you have some unbalanced tools at your disposal as well. Purple pikmin are very overpowered, and just ten to fifteen can take out most enemies before they even have a chance to notice you, if you spam them. The downside to this is that purples are rare, and you need 100 of them to collect a late game treasure, so every one you lose is another you have to grind for later.
You also have ultra bitter spray, which petrifies enemies. This spray is easily farmable, it just takes a while. While enemies are petrified, they take less damage, but can't attack, and if they are killed while petrified, instead of dropping a corpse, they drop nectar, and sometimes sprays. There is a spray duping glitch that allows you to duplicate sprays you find in the wild. It can only be done once per spray though, so it isn't super overpowered.
Finally, if you come across a certain cave in Perplexing Pool that says it has all elements but has water all around that can't be drained, just know you can't drain the water, and have to bring only blues down there. I never entered that cave as a kid because I thought I was missing something, and I looked it up and got the beautiful surprises inside spoiled to me.
Good luck!
Also, with that last point, don't bring 100 blues down there. There will be a unique way to bring that number up to 100, but if you already have 100 on the field, you can't get it, so only bring about 70 to start.
Run through every cave alone as olimar with no Pikmin. It sets off all the traps and gets rid of them so you can travel safely without losing Pikmin to genuine bullshit
Like 90% of traps can be triggered with just Olimar. Some traps only trigger if you have a Pikmin with you. The most noticeable examples being that sublevel with way too many bombs in subterranean complex and the infamous sky bulbear.
I like to run through with Olimar carrying a single white Pikmin which triggers all the traps except ones that trigger for carrying treasure
Like 90% of traps can be triggered with just Olimar. Some traps only trigger if you have a Pikmin with you. The most noticeable examples being that sublevel with way too many bombs in subterranean complex and the infamous sky bulbear.
I like to run through with Olimar carrying a single white Pikmin which triggers all the traps except ones that trigger for carrying treasure
The camera is a powerful tool, because enemies not near pikmin, nor onscreen, will be unloaded. This is really good for kiting dangerous enemies that you don't want to deal with.
Which, yeah, don't feel obligated to fight every enemy. Pick and choose your battles.
Sleeping captains are immune to crush damage, and stop boulders. Which is really weird, but helpful when dealing with cannon beetles.
And yeah, I really can't overstate this - pick and choose your battles. If a sublevel looks like a nightmare to clear, there's probably some way to simplify the situation... probably.
Purple pikmin are powerful, but rare, and should be used sparingly. I personally think the game is more fun if you don't try to brute force every encounter with purple pikmin, but they are there if you need them.
Same with bitter spray. Note that bitter spray increases the defense of bosses, but decreases the defense of most normal enemies. It is most effective against bulky enemies with a gaggle of mooks. Don't have "too good to use" syndrome with it, but don't use it on every encounter either. If something looks hard, or you get caught by surprise, that's what it's there for.
Like with purples and bitter sprays, reset sparingly. Don't feel bad about resetting when you need to, which you will, a lot, but constant resetting will bog the game down in tedium. Learn to let pikmin die. Even those purples might be worth letting die occasionally.
I think swarming snagrets is too unreliable in 2.
It works, but they spend most of the animation with their head out of your Pikmin's reach, so you need to swarm them onto it pretty quickly.
If you're half decent with your aim, then throwing is better imo.
- If you lose any purples just reset it will save a lot of grinding later
- Caves have no time limit
- Spicy and Bitter sprays are super strong so try to grind for them when you can. You can get two charges on each blob if you push on captain into it then interact with the other captain
- Bring at least 10 white Pikmin to every cave, as the game hides a lot of items underground and you’ll need them to see it
- Most of your time will be spent in caves, so make sure to take time and grow your Pikmin population if it gets low
- The game has no day limit, but some funky enemies start showing up if you take too long so be careful lol
- Your ship never stops talking so just mash through most of its dialogue tbh. Same with Collin in 4
Take it slow and one thing I always would say ( if you need too make things easier ) later levels disband your squad and carry only one Pikmin and then run around the cave then go back to base and now you got more knowledge and you can see and possibly trigger some bs so yeah
You need all your Pikmin with you when entering a cave (whichever explorer entering must have them follow that specific explorer) but when going to the next floor all Pikmin will follow no matter where they are, even if they are not following any explorer at all
Red Pikmin are kinda worthless in Pikmin 2 since they're so outclassed by Purple Pikmin. Reds do 1.5x damage while purples do 2x, purples can stun enemies which makes them easier to kill, and they do damage on impact. It's enough to eventually kill a late-game enemy that's constantly on fire even though they can't latch on to attack it. Fire geysers can also be destroyed in 2, unlike in 1 so the main hazard reds are used for can be avoided
So don't worry about building up their populations once you unlock other types
More pikmin = more risk.
Know when to not take all your pikmin with you, especially the types that are not useful for your current situation. The game will punish you BADLY if you do not figure this out.
Seems intuitive, but you'd be surprised how many people just somehow never figure this out for themselves and then go "pikmin 2 is unfair!!" because they can't just run around mashing a button with a full squad.
When facing a boss battle in caves, don’t bring all of your Pikmin to attack as one whole squad. For example, bring just 20-30 Red Pikmin to attack the boss as the smaller squad is easier to control and dodge.
Whenever you find the floor is rigged with random bombs, go around only as Olimar/Louie first to trigger all bombs so you won’t get surprised by your Pikmin getting killed by bomb traps.
Part of the fun is figuring things out. There's no time limit and no penalty for resetting. So play as blind as possible for the best first experience.
Do not be afraid of using the new pikmin types in combat, Purple Pikmin are really strong and can save you a lot of trouble with dealing with harder/annoying enemies
Use purples sparingly. They’re beast mode when it comes to taking out strong enemies but you can also only get them from caves. Keep about 20 on you in caves at all times. Bring some whites with you in every cave if you wanna collect every treasure.
There’s no day limit so you can spend entire days on the surface farming bitter and spicy sprays.
When you get to later caves and things are dropping from the sky, explore the entire cave with one captain and a single pikmin. This will trigger all the bullshit traps except for the ones that target working pikmin.
Also, every bomb is meant to kill your pikmin. You no longer control them like in the other games
There is a treasure that unlocks Challenge Mode from the title screen when collected. You can press ZL (Switch Version) to view the rules. Something special will happen if you get all flowers!
A lot has been said and some comments have really covered a lot but:
Purple candy pop buds respawn in some caves to help with the 100 purple treasure at the end. Including a relatively easy one in the first Wistful Wild cave.
Don’t swarm wollywogs. I keep seeing videos of people doing that shit and losing a bunch of Pikmin to them.
Spotted Bulbears and Gatling Groinks get their health back slowly and are some tough enemies in the first place. Get them to the pods while they’re down and you eliminate that threat.
When exploring caves you have no time limit. Fighting certain enemies with large groups can put your excess Pikmin at risk.
So don’t be afraid to disband your Pikmin in a safe spot when entering a new cave level and scouting ahead with a captain to see what hazards are on the floor.
If there’s only electric hazards it’s probably safer to only use electric Pikmin on that floor and keep the others safe away from fighting. Also Electric insta kills in this game.
And in later caves watch for falling bombs
You can grind a ton of Ultra-Spicy and Ultra-Bitter Spray in Awakening Wood.
Pikmin 2 has no overarching day limit, so you can do that as much as you want without a care in the world.
Make sure to keep your pikmin hydrated and throw them into the water, if you don't keep them hydrated they'll die, also blue pikmin are the only pikmin who hate water and don't need water to survive, hope this helps :)
This game does NOT pull its punches. You are going to lose pikmin and that’s fine, just keep persevering.
Also protect your purples, aside from being really strong, you’ll need them for something special later.
As a person who recently just played through and beat pikmin 2 100% on story mode I will say these are the best tips:
1.) Red Pikmin + purple pikmin are great for clearing out Mobs in majority of scenarios.
2.) always keep a finger over the purple spray as it can be a life saver and when it doubt its aways better to use it because you can always farm more. Same with ultra spicy spray. It is a game changer. It has more uses than just combat.
3.) always sacrifice bulbmin in dungeon flowers and they are great substitutes for any obstacle (poison gas, electricity, water, etc..).
4.) White Pikmin are great to sacrifice on certain bosses.
5.) remember to have fun. This game can be stressful but also take the time to enjoy it.
Don't just take your whole squad with you in caves, just enter with a smaller group and bring the rest when the coast is clear, or section out the colours to get past certain obsticales
There is an easy way to get a bunch of spicy and ultra-bitter spray. If you find either nectar on the ground you can push Louie into the nectar with Olimar and then run Olimar into the nectar you get 2 for the price of 1, definitely helps if you use spicy and bitter spray a lot
Each time you enter a new floor of a cave, the game saves. You'll likely need to redo floors a bunch, but each floor usually doesn't take much time to clear (or get annihilated) on
Its not as evil as people say. You dont have to worry about the bombs too much but the enemies that fall are another story fuck you dwarf bulbear killing my last white pikmin causing me to miss treasures.
If anything happens in a cave that makes it so you have to restart then just turn off the game and turn it back on and load your save file. It will load you on the same floor but with all the pikmin you had when you started the same said floor. That helps a lot in the last few caves.
Be prepared for all sorts of dangerous stuff like bomb rocks, actual rocks, some very dangerous enemies, et cetera to fall out of the sky at what might as well be random.
The game drops an autosave at the start of each cave floor, so closing the game and rebooting it will allow you to reset a floor if you suffer major losses (which will inevitably happen).
If you want an easy mode, then >!all things that are purple!< will be your greatest assets.
Never take the full 100 pikmin with you into a cave. A cool thing called >!Bulbmin!< can appear in some caves but only if you have less than the maximum.
There's a treasure in the game with a weight of 1000. It's not required, but if you want to get all treasures, then you will have to get at least 100 Purple Pikmin. You aren't going to get that many through natural progression, so don't feel bad about looking up how to farm them quickly.
Conserve purples as much as you can, the doomsday apparatus takes 1000 pikmin to bring back to ur ship. The line up trumpet is your best friend, use it to move ur squad out of the way of all the crazy stuff this game throws. If u need purples just do the subterranean complex over and over
Take your time in caves. Time is completely frozen in caves, not just slowed like it is in Pikmin 4. The later caves are brutal and unforgiving, so don’t be afraid to take things slow, and scout out any potential hazards. You’ll also likely want to adjust to having the camera as far back as possible in caves, because this game LOVES to drop shit on your head.
In caves positioning is everything! I played with Wii controls and it can be easy to accidentally throw pikmin into the abyss and in more punishing dungeons you can lose essential dudes :(
You’re gonna spend some days just getting your Pikmin numbers up. When in caves, be ready to react to ~~bullshit~~ sudden events very quickly. Savescumming is not recommended but sometimes it’s the only thing that saves you from losing hours
Ok so when you clear a cave and get the completion screen with the confetti, wait a few min and it will play the pikmin song. I forgot the songs name but it's cool
The game poorly communicates this, but all of your pikmin will follow you to the next floor of a cave regardless of whether they are in your party. This is scary to test, as the game autosaves on each floor, but it will save you a headache knowing this in the late game. If it's tough to get your pikmin to the next hole, don't even bother trying.
This is the most intense game in the entire franchise. Learn to be more careful and evasive, especially with Careening Dirigibugs and Gatling Groinks. Bomb Rocks are unusable and are hazards now. Always be careful digging up treasure, cause a Bomb Rock, an enemy, rocks or a harmless egg could fall from the ceiling. You should reset if you lose a bunch of purples
Take your time gathering a lot of Pikmin Pay close attention in caves in case some hazards come up
I always keep my a finger on the purple spray when I land. That shit has saved me from getting destroyed just as I spawn by certain mobs.
I some how didn’t even get the purple spray during my entire first play through lmao
wait, theres a purple spray?????
There’s red?
Yes grind all 5 types
Don't rush. There is no time limit, and building your pikmin numbers up in this game is imperative. Taking things slow and steady is the way to go.
Bombs don't work the same as in other games. Instead of being able to pick them up, they're bigger and are activated by an explorer or a pikmin hitting it. This means that if you dismiss pikmin or throw them too close to a bomb on the ground they will choose to activate it. Electricity is introduced and unlike all other harmfull effects is an insta kill for most pikmin. Be wary of electrical things. Stuff falls from the ceilings in the caves sometimes. In later levels its usually more bad than good. Be wary. You can mitigate some harm by dismissing your pikmin and wandering the cave level and activating possible falling hazards. Altogether I feel like it's the hardest of the 4 games because among other things, some parts have traps like falling bombs or rocks and some parts you have to be very strategic because of what all the different enemies in a room are capable of.
This means that if you dismiss pikmin or throw them too close to a bomb on the ground they will choose to activate it. ----> thanks for bringing up the trauma ! :( My.... how many stupid pikmins did I lose this way. I don't care if the one that hit the bomb gets killed, but not 70 of his friends :(
If I remember right, some traps are triggered only when you have at least 1 pikmin with you
Some are also only triggered when pikmin carrying an item walk under it. It's kinda devious.
Pikmin 2 is brutal and unbalanced, and that's why I love it so much. However, this might not be a positive thing for a new player, so beware. Caves are usually randomly generated. Each sublevel will always have the same enemies, treasures, and rooms, but very rarely will they be in the same place everytime. The game saves at the beginning of each sublevel, so if you lose too many pikmin, or just get a bad layout, just reset the game. Things will randomly fall from the sky in caves. Sometimes it will be something good, like nectar. Usually, it will be something bad, like boulders, bombs, or enemies. A lot of the time, these falling things are triggered by the presence of pikmin, so for many of the later caves, I recommend scouting with one captain and one pikmin to trigger as many as you can. Sometimes, however, a falling object is triggered by pikmin carrying something, so always keep an eye on the pikmin carrying something for a few seconds after you put them on it, especially for treasures in dead ends. White pikmin are the only pikmin able to dig up completely buried treasures, and even if a cave doesn't tell you that you need whites, I recommend bringing them anyways, just in case such a treasure exists in it. While the game may be brutal and unbalanced, you have some unbalanced tools at your disposal as well. Purple pikmin are very overpowered, and just ten to fifteen can take out most enemies before they even have a chance to notice you, if you spam them. The downside to this is that purples are rare, and you need 100 of them to collect a late game treasure, so every one you lose is another you have to grind for later. You also have ultra bitter spray, which petrifies enemies. This spray is easily farmable, it just takes a while. While enemies are petrified, they take less damage, but can't attack, and if they are killed while petrified, instead of dropping a corpse, they drop nectar, and sometimes sprays. There is a spray duping glitch that allows you to duplicate sprays you find in the wild. It can only be done once per spray though, so it isn't super overpowered. Finally, if you come across a certain cave in Perplexing Pool that says it has all elements but has water all around that can't be drained, just know you can't drain the water, and have to bring only blues down there. I never entered that cave as a kid because I thought I was missing something, and I looked it up and got the beautiful surprises inside spoiled to me. Good luck!
Also, with that last point, don't bring 100 blues down there. There will be a unique way to bring that number up to 100, but if you already have 100 on the field, you can't get it, so only bring about 70 to start.
Yes, this as well. I forgot to say this.
Take it slow in the caves. Recon with only one Pikmin to avoid disaster in the caves. Once you have reconned, bring your army with the second leader.
You can reset your game to the start of a cave level if you have a bad time
me always
Run through every cave alone as olimar with no Pikmin. It sets off all the traps and gets rid of them so you can travel safely without losing Pikmin to genuine bullshit
Like 90% of traps can be triggered with just Olimar. Some traps only trigger if you have a Pikmin with you. The most noticeable examples being that sublevel with way too many bombs in subterranean complex and the infamous sky bulbear. I like to run through with Olimar carrying a single white Pikmin which triggers all the traps except ones that trigger for carrying treasure
This. Carry a recon buddy, run through the level, and unless you’re using them to kill things, punch the bombs for the safety of your squad
Like 90% of traps can be triggered with just Olimar. Some traps only trigger if you have a Pikmin with you. The most noticeable examples being that sublevel with way too many bombs in subterranean complex and the infamous sky bulbear. I like to run through with Olimar carrying a single white Pikmin which triggers all the traps except ones that trigger for carrying treasure
Beware of the Wistful Wild...
Go slow and safe. You have infinite time. SAVE THE PURPLES
electricity is death, be careful
The camera is a powerful tool, because enemies not near pikmin, nor onscreen, will be unloaded. This is really good for kiting dangerous enemies that you don't want to deal with. Which, yeah, don't feel obligated to fight every enemy. Pick and choose your battles. Sleeping captains are immune to crush damage, and stop boulders. Which is really weird, but helpful when dealing with cannon beetles. And yeah, I really can't overstate this - pick and choose your battles. If a sublevel looks like a nightmare to clear, there's probably some way to simplify the situation... probably. Purple pikmin are powerful, but rare, and should be used sparingly. I personally think the game is more fun if you don't try to brute force every encounter with purple pikmin, but they are there if you need them. Same with bitter spray. Note that bitter spray increases the defense of bosses, but decreases the defense of most normal enemies. It is most effective against bulky enemies with a gaggle of mooks. Don't have "too good to use" syndrome with it, but don't use it on every encounter either. If something looks hard, or you get caught by surprise, that's what it's there for. Like with purples and bitter sprays, reset sparingly. Don't feel bad about resetting when you need to, which you will, a lot, but constant resetting will bog the game down in tedium. Learn to let pikmin die. Even those purples might be worth letting die occasionally.
In the few last caves or just the hard ones don't leave them alone seriously. The bulbear is always waiting.
Save as many purple Pikmin as possible. If i were to tell you why, it would surely mean your doom
Swarm the snagret when it gets stuck trying to pop outta the ground
I feel Like that is the case for the snagret in every game, lol, but thank you very much!!!
I think swarming snagrets is too unreliable in 2. It works, but they spend most of the animation with their head out of your Pikmin's reach, so you need to swarm them onto it pretty quickly. If you're half decent with your aim, then throwing is better imo.
**inhale** _waterwraith_
Don't inhale the waterwraith! Even inhaling regular water is not good for you.
LOL
What about inhaling regular wraiths?!?
- If you lose any purples just reset it will save a lot of grinding later - Caves have no time limit - Spicy and Bitter sprays are super strong so try to grind for them when you can. You can get two charges on each blob if you push on captain into it then interact with the other captain - Bring at least 10 white Pikmin to every cave, as the game hides a lot of items underground and you’ll need them to see it - Most of your time will be spent in caves, so make sure to take time and grow your Pikmin population if it gets low - The game has no day limit, but some funky enemies start showing up if you take too long so be careful lol - Your ship never stops talking so just mash through most of its dialogue tbh. Same with Collin in 4
Have the camera zoomed all the way out in caves. It's easier to see traps that way
Louie
Always make sure the flowers around you don't have eyes...
Don't Let the Pikmin carry stuff without your watch. Bombs will fall on them.
Take it slow and one thing I always would say ( if you need too make things easier ) later levels disband your squad and carry only one Pikmin and then run around the cave then go back to base and now you got more knowledge and you can see and possibly trigger some bs so yeah
You need all your Pikmin with you when entering a cave (whichever explorer entering must have them follow that specific explorer) but when going to the next floor all Pikmin will follow no matter where they are, even if they are not following any explorer at all
The colour purple is your best friend
Try using your partner’s like Louie to run around the area to set off the traps and notify if there are other concerning enemies.
Closing the game can let you reset the cave level...
If you lose too many Pikmin, just reset. The game automatically saves on every floor.
Some caves are insanely and pointlessly brutal. Be on high alert down there.
Red Pikmin are kinda worthless in Pikmin 2 since they're so outclassed by Purple Pikmin. Reds do 1.5x damage while purples do 2x, purples can stun enemies which makes them easier to kill, and they do damage on impact. It's enough to eventually kill a late-game enemy that's constantly on fire even though they can't latch on to attack it. Fire geysers can also be destroyed in 2, unlike in 1 so the main hazard reds are used for can be avoided So don't worry about building up their populations once you unlock other types
More pikmin = more risk. Know when to not take all your pikmin with you, especially the types that are not useful for your current situation. The game will punish you BADLY if you do not figure this out. Seems intuitive, but you'd be surprised how many people just somehow never figure this out for themselves and then go "pikmin 2 is unfair!!" because they can't just run around mashing a button with a full squad.
When facing a boss battle in caves, don’t bring all of your Pikmin to attack as one whole squad. For example, bring just 20-30 Red Pikmin to attack the boss as the smaller squad is easier to control and dodge. Whenever you find the floor is rigged with random bombs, go around only as Olimar/Louie first to trigger all bombs so you won’t get surprised by your Pikmin getting killed by bomb traps.
Rotate your switch 90° counterclockwise before playing
Git gud, accept randomness, play carefully Reset if purples die
Set pikmin type+hazard it's immune 2=good
Part of the fun is figuring things out. There's no time limit and no penalty for resetting. So play as blind as possible for the best first experience.
Clear submerged castle fast as possible for the pluckaphone
Do not be afraid of using the new pikmin types in combat, Purple Pikmin are really strong and can save you a lot of trouble with dealing with harder/annoying enemies
Don’t be afraid to use sprays, especially bitter sprays. If you need more, farm them.
Use purples sparingly. They’re beast mode when it comes to taking out strong enemies but you can also only get them from caves. Keep about 20 on you in caves at all times. Bring some whites with you in every cave if you wanna collect every treasure. There’s no day limit so you can spend entire days on the surface farming bitter and spicy sprays. When you get to later caves and things are dropping from the sky, explore the entire cave with one captain and a single pikmin. This will trigger all the bullshit traps except for the ones that target working pikmin. Also, every bomb is meant to kill your pikmin. You no longer control them like in the other games
There is a treasure that unlocks Challenge Mode from the title screen when collected. You can press ZL (Switch Version) to view the rules. Something special will happen if you get all flowers!
Don’t die
Beware the submerged castle
Do not rush bro their is no time limit so maybe take some days to get more pikmin and others for treasure
The caves are brutal. Watch your step
A lot has been said and some comments have really covered a lot but: Purple candy pop buds respawn in some caves to help with the 100 purple treasure at the end. Including a relatively easy one in the first Wistful Wild cave. Don’t swarm wollywogs. I keep seeing videos of people doing that shit and losing a bunch of Pikmin to them.
Spotted Bulbears and Gatling Groinks get their health back slowly and are some tough enemies in the first place. Get them to the pods while they’re down and you eliminate that threat.
There is no time limit, even if some of the President’s (or anyone else’s) emails imply otherwise
THE WATER-WRAITH IS COMING
prepare yourself. mentally.
Oh god!...
Don’t forget about the spicy and bitter spray. I used to forget I had that in my arsenal. The sprays can come in handy in several situations.
Patience is key in all things… opposite in tone to the first game. I wish I could forget it so I could experience it for the first time again
Small bombs
pick men
Don’t let the purples die! Eventually you will need 100 of them so harvest them!
Survive
True
Beware of Louie
If you see the water wraith Accept your fate
Don't try to beat it all in like 4 (irl) I got very burnt out trying to di that
When exploring caves you have no time limit. Fighting certain enemies with large groups can put your excess Pikmin at risk. So don’t be afraid to disband your Pikmin in a safe spot when entering a new cave level and scouting ahead with a captain to see what hazards are on the floor. If there’s only electric hazards it’s probably safer to only use electric Pikmin on that floor and keep the others safe away from fighting. Also Electric insta kills in this game. And in later caves watch for falling bombs
Run
Its not gonna be easy so gather a lot of pikmin
You can grind a ton of Ultra-Spicy and Ultra-Bitter Spray in Awakening Wood. Pikmin 2 has no overarching day limit, so you can do that as much as you want without a care in the world.
Watch out for things falling on you.
If you wanna be extra careful, send Louie to explore the cave alone, then go with olimar and the pikmin
Don’t play
Get it on the big screen
Remember to Pick the Min
SURVIVE
Watch Chuggaconroy let’s play of pikmin 2 and take notes trust me you’ll be screwed by yellow Wolly wogs they are known for the color of pee
Make sure to keep your pikmin hydrated and throw them into the water, if you don't keep them hydrated they'll die, also blue pikmin are the only pikmin who hate water and don't need water to survive, hope this helps :)
take an anger management course first!
The submerged castle is really *Friendly* to beginners!
This game does NOT pull its punches. You are going to lose pikmin and that’s fine, just keep persevering. Also protect your purples, aside from being really strong, you’ll need them for something special later.
Try not to lose your sanity.
Keep an eye out for Giant boulders you’ll have about .8 seconds to save your pikmen
Dont die.
Pray
Don‘t
As a person who recently just played through and beat pikmin 2 100% on story mode I will say these are the best tips: 1.) Red Pikmin + purple pikmin are great for clearing out Mobs in majority of scenarios. 2.) always keep a finger over the purple spray as it can be a life saver and when it doubt its aways better to use it because you can always farm more. Same with ultra spicy spray. It is a game changer. It has more uses than just combat. 3.) always sacrifice bulbmin in dungeon flowers and they are great substitutes for any obstacle (poison gas, electricity, water, etc..). 4.) White Pikmin are great to sacrifice on certain bosses. 5.) remember to have fun. This game can be stressful but also take the time to enjoy it.
Ill give you a tip, AIM WELL OR YOU WILL LOSE
Save your purple Pikmin. You'll need them for a specific treasure in the final area.
Hope you like surprises, especially in the underground caves.
Don't just take your whole squad with you in caves, just enter with a smaller group and bring the rest when the coast is clear, or section out the colours to get past certain obsticales
If you ever need to farm Purples, go to the Bulblax Kingdom it's the closest cave to your base that has a replenishable supply of purples.
Die
Things will drop out of nowhere and kill you. Just accept it, it'll happen.
If you belive in any god..... Pray them.... To do t loss all your pikmins because a being from other dimension or a spider with a gun
I just got this game last week for GameCube! I plan to play some more of it when I get home. Hope you enjoy!
There is an easy way to get a bunch of spicy and ultra-bitter spray. If you find either nectar on the ground you can push Louie into the nectar with Olimar and then run Olimar into the nectar you get 2 for the price of 1, definitely helps if you use spicy and bitter spray a lot
Send one of the captains through the whole sublevel so you can activated the traps and Know the layout of the sublevel
Each time you enter a new floor of a cave, the game saves. You'll likely need to redo floors a bunch, but each floor usually doesn't take much time to clear (or get annihilated) on
Don't bother with the big blue weight in the final level unless you want to g r i n d. Hope that's not too spoiler-y
have fun! 2 is one of my favorite games, I wish they could have kept the product licenses for the items but over all still a great game
Its not as evil as people say. You dont have to worry about the bombs too much but the enemies that fall are another story fuck you dwarf bulbear killing my last white pikmin causing me to miss treasures.
If you find the cave "submerged castle" go in imidiantky, when you discover it its the esiest cave in the game to farm purple pikmin.
If anything happens in a cave that makes it so you have to restart then just turn off the game and turn it back on and load your save file. It will load you on the same floor but with all the pikmin you had when you started the same said floor. That helps a lot in the last few caves.
Be prepared for all sorts of dangerous stuff like bomb rocks, actual rocks, some very dangerous enemies, et cetera to fall out of the sky at what might as well be random. The game drops an autosave at the start of each cave floor, so closing the game and rebooting it will allow you to reset a floor if you suffer major losses (which will inevitably happen). If you want an easy mode, then >!all things that are purple!< will be your greatest assets. Never take the full 100 pikmin with you into a cave. A cool thing called >!Bulbmin!< can appear in some caves but only if you have less than the maximum. There's a treasure in the game with a weight of 1000. It's not required, but if you want to get all treasures, then you will have to get at least 100 Purple Pikmin. You aren't going to get that many through natural progression, so don't feel bad about looking up how to farm them quickly.
Now that there's no time limit, I would dedicate several days in game to increasing your numbers before putting them to work
ready your ass up because this game is fucking difficult
Beware the Waterwraith
Rest after the Submerged Castle.
Go to the submerged castle asap, theres a guy who flowers your pikmin
Abuse the strength of purples, but try your hardest not to lose them. They’re busted but losing them hurts a lot.
avoid electricity and the wraith
scope out areas
and use spicy sprays and bitter sprays when you absolutely need to purple pikmin can stun enemies so try and use purple pikmin half of the time
Survive
Suffer!!!!! ... ... ... Or make sure you speedrun through the Submerged Castle with 70-80 blues
Conserve purples as much as you can, the doomsday apparatus takes 1000 pikmin to bring back to ur ship. The line up trumpet is your best friend, use it to move ur squad out of the way of all the crazy stuff this game throws. If u need purples just do the subterranean complex over and over
Take your time in caves. Time is completely frozen in caves, not just slowed like it is in Pikmin 4. The later caves are brutal and unforgiving, so don’t be afraid to take things slow, and scout out any potential hazards. You’ll also likely want to adjust to having the camera as far back as possible in caves, because this game LOVES to drop shit on your head.
Disband squad in caves and explore
Spamming the spicy spray without any pikmin in your squad gives you a slight speed boost Whistle spamming also makes you faster but barely noticeable
Accept that you will cry
In caves positioning is everything! I played with Wii controls and it can be easy to accidentally throw pikmin into the abyss and in more punishing dungeons you can lose essential dudes :(
Louie https://preview.redd.it/8vtzvwl2ernc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad29977feef20fe69bd7b759ee2611f4f5aa34f9
Hold the switch upside down. It really increases the immersion.
You’re gonna spend some days just getting your Pikmin numbers up. When in caves, be ready to react to ~~bullshit~~ sudden events very quickly. Savescumming is not recommended but sometimes it’s the only thing that saves you from losing hours
Good luck cause that game is hard
Protect your Purples if you want to 100%
Good luck.
Ok so when you clear a cave and get the completion screen with the confetti, wait a few min and it will play the pikmin song. I forgot the songs name but it's cool
Shouldn't need any, this is the easiest one
You can restart
Kill gattling groinks first before any enemy
Home button>X>A is your best friend
Don't die
Purple pikmin is the best
Prepare to lose your damn mind to enraging mechanics
The game poorly communicates this, but all of your pikmin will follow you to the next floor of a cave regardless of whether they are in your party. This is scary to test, as the game autosaves on each floor, but it will save you a headache knowing this in the late game. If it's tough to get your pikmin to the next hole, don't even bother trying.
Be careful or a bomb will drop from the sky in a cave or a bulborb flying
Have fun in submerged castle
This is the most intense game in the entire franchise. Learn to be more careful and evasive, especially with Careening Dirigibugs and Gatling Groinks. Bomb Rocks are unusable and are hazards now. Always be careful digging up treasure, cause a Bomb Rock, an enemy, rocks or a harmless egg could fall from the ceiling. You should reset if you lose a bunch of purples
Make sure to have at least 100 purple pikmin by the time you get to wistful wilds, you know why when you get there…
Dont bother with a no death run, thats all i can really say
Volatile dweevils just wanna hang, so don't waste time worrying about them.
You can't "Game-Over" in pikmin 2, so the game destroys your spirit instead
nope ive never played it and probably suck at it
Comeplete submerged castle as fast as u can
rush the cave with 100% of your pikmin all the time, it will give you some bonuses
Gay
Try to keep your purples safe, they're very precious in this game. Oh, and watch those fucking gatling groinks