Obscure Game Review: Bug!

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today we'll take a look at an odd yet fun little title for a console that had a distinct lack of just those, at least in America: the Sega Saturn. Ah, the Saturn. It may have received a pretty lukewarm reception here in the USA, but it did have a few quirky games among its mostly lackluster library. Among them was a weird little platformer called Bug!, which was one of the very few Saturn games I played when it was new.

As I mentioned in my review of Knuckles’ Chaotix for the 32X, my good friend always had all the Sega consoles when they were brand new, by virtue of his father working for Sega at the time. As such, I got to play a lot of these games in their heyday way back when, and one such game was Bug!. Though us young, easily distractible children often abandoned games pretty quickly when we couldn’t get very far, Bug! was one of those games that we persistently played despite never being able to reliably advance very deeply into it. Many years later, upon amassing a sizable video game collection and obtaining my very own Saturn, I procured a copy of Bug! and set out to complete a long forgotten game that had been in the back of my mind for years. And I was quite surprised by how even to this day, the game still holds up quite well. It’s certainly no Super Mario 64, but I think it’s a solid adventure-platformer in its own right and is definitely one of the better Saturn-exclusive titles. So that being said, let’s check it out.

The game begins with a pretty simple story- our protagonist Bug is living peacefully with his insect family, when suddenly a giant black widow spider named Queen Cadavra snatches up his entire family and hauls them off to be eaten. Having escaped certain death, Bug quickly sets out to rescue them, and the adventure begins. Er, I mean, the movie begins.Yeah, one kind of weird aspect about this game is that the entire plot is supposed to be…a movie. As in, all the characters are actually actors filming a movie. Transitions between different levels consist of Bug walking between sets, a director yells “Action!” at the beginning of every level, and even some of the powerups are movie-related (i.e. clapper boards are continues, an invulnerability powerup is called the “stuntbug,” etc.). I never really paid attention to this aspect as a kid, but now it just sort of makes me scratch my head. Why did it need to be a movie? Who knows, and honestly, it doesn’t have much bearing on the actual game other than an odd point of interest.

 The entire game is actually a movie, for some reason. Just go with it.

Anyway, as Bug you must traverse large, semi 3-D environments in search of the end goal all while fighting off armies of various insects. Why do I say semi 3-D you ask? Well, because the 3-D aspect is a bit…shallow. Your movement is restricted to the four cardinal directions- up, down, left and right. As you walk along paths you are “fixed” to the floor, only able to move north/south or east/west at any given moment. Some platforms are kind of free-floating, allowing you to jump either up or down to anything above or below you, but for the most part you’ll be on the aforementioned “fixed” paths. Additionally, Bug and all of the enemy insects you encounter are all sprite-based objects. Still, even without being truly 3D the game still manages to be a lot of fun. Each level is laid out like a gigantic hedge maze, with multiple routes to choose from in order to reach the end goal. There are so many different routes, in fact, that you could probably play a single level dozens of times and never take the same one to reach the end of the stage.

 Very often you'll face junctions such as this one with multiple directions to choose from as you traverse levels.

You'll have to make your way through six different "worlds," each with 3 different stages and a boss fight. The "worlds" differ dramatically, from a grassy field to a desert to a frozen tundra. Along the way you'll encounter a wide variety of insect foes that will try to squash you in your tracks. There's a nice variety in the enemies, and they change accordingly through each overarching world- for example, in the grassy "Insectia" you'll be fighting a handful of common bugs like grasshoppers, snails and bumble bees, whereas in the underwater "Quaria" you'll have to take on moray eels, scuba-diving beetles and killer crabs. Enemies also vary in their attack patterns, as some will simply walk back and forth, others dive bomb you, and still others hurl projectiles like fireballs, electricity and even dung (by dung beetles, of course).

Enemies can be dealt with simply by jumping on them, but it's not always that easy.  Some of them are done away with by one jump, while others require 6, 7, even 8 jumps in order to be defeated. Thankfully, you'll be able to collect a few different powerups that aid in taking on the armies of bugs and such. There's zap, which as its name implies, grants you a short-range but powerful electrical attack. The only problem is that it's limited and tends to run out pretty quickly. However, there's also the spit-glob powerups, which do not run out and can be used until a level ends.

 The "zap" powerup is quite useful, but is limited.

These globs come in four different colors; the green glob is the standard one, allowing you to spit one glob at enemies at a longer range than the zap attack. Each glob equals one "jump damage" to an enemy, meaning that you can defeat them from a distance by jumping and then launching spit balls at them. Red globs give you a double shot spit, while rare blue globs give you a triple shot. Finally, there's purple globs that bounce along the ground until they hit something. Spit globs do not appear until the third world but once they do, green ones are pretty much given at the beginning of every stage from there on.

By jumping and spitting at enemies, you'll be able to safely attack from a distance.

 As I mentioned before, there's the "stuntbug" invulnerability powerup, and there's also a plethora of extra lives and continues scattered about in levels, usually in hidden, blocked off or hard to reach areas. In addition to all of that, there are a few large golden coins that are usually hidden throughout levels which can be used when collected to enter bonus stages in each level. These bonus stages will allow you the chance to gain an extra life or two and consist of various challenges like avoiding falling boulders, bouncing along mushrooms, and even racing Sega's very own mascot Sonic the Hedgehog himself! 

I didn't think a bug would be able to go toe to toe with the "world's fastest hedgehog"...

Finally, there's also a multitude of gems to collect in each level. Collecting them won't do anything for you in the levels themselves, but if you manage to grab 100 or more on all three levels of the world, after the boss battle you'll be able to enter a bonus game for a chance to earn an extra continue, which you will most likely need toward the latter stages of the game. Speaking of boss battles, they are pretty intense in scale. You'll have to go up against gigantic monsters ranging from a huge spikey-tounged iguana beast to a massive octopus that tosses fish at you (which, by the way, you'll have to swat back at him with a tennis racket. Give this game points for originality, if nothing else).

Just one of the boss fights in the game. Is it just me or does that thing look like the Pokémon gyrados?

The graphics are fantastic for the time and still hold up well today. As I mentioned both Bug and his enemies are sprites, but they are very nicely detailed and fluently animated. There's also a few short FMV cutscenes every now and then, which might have been impressive back in the day but suffer from that very mid/late-90's 3D animation look that isn't all that appealing these days. Like I said though, these are pretty scant and don't reflect on the actual gameplay. Each world has its own unique color scheme, fitting the scenery well- for instance, the desert levels are all filled with rustic-looking browns and oranges. The music is pretty good too. Nothing spectacular, but it has a few catchy tunes, such as the theme for Reptilia and Splot.

While everything I've described probably sounds pretty straightforward, the game is definitely not a walk in the park as far as difficulty. The early stages are certainly pretty easy, but as you progress the platforming aspect starts getting in your way, big time. The problem here is with the controls, which are also the biggest flaw this game has. It's a little hard to describe unless you've held a Saturn controller and played it for yourself, but basically the major issue is with jumping from platform to platform. Like I said before, your movement is entirely restricted to one of the four cardinal directions, but some platforms will be moving three dimensionally in space. That means that if you aren't very precise with your jumps, you'll miss and end up falling to your death.

There's also parts where some of the jumps you have to make border on absurd. Take this part for example: in certain areas there are a few giant slingshot-looking things where you'll have to press down on the D-pad and let go, allowing yourself to be flung forward. Sounds simple enough, but in other areas you have to slingshot yourself AND bounce on enemies in the air in order to make your mark. Then there's parts like the one pictured below in which you'll have to bounce on TWO enemies moving in different directions than one another. You need to wait until the extremely precise moment in which they both line up in order to safely bounce across and make it to the other side, and this is much easier said than done. This part is pretty late in the game and as far as I remember only occurs once, but it's still a major pain and unless you are absolutely perfect, you'll just die here over and over and over again.

You have to slingshot yourself across the gap, lined up perfectly, and with extremely precise timing land on both these flying bugs to safely cross to the other side. I've never been able to do it myself.

And therein lies another problem. I can't really blame this one on the game itself as much as I can on the Saturn's limited technical capacities, but there isn't much a save feature for this one. It's there, but it only saves automatically when you complete all three stages and the boss fight of a world. This is also assuming that your Saturn's lithium battery is still functioning (which, unless you've replaced it recently, probably isn't) AND that you have enough spare RAM to save the game (unless you have an external memory card for the Saturn, which to my recollection weren't nearly as widely available as those for its rivals the PS1 or N64). A password system probably would've been ideal in this case, but the developers chose this weird save system that doesn't entirely work in your favor, especially due to the aforementioned saving issues. That being said, if you are far along in the game and the jumping part that I mentioned before starts frustrating the hell out of you, you're likely to just give up and not look back; however, more often than not, this would mean that you'd have to start the game all over again if you power off the console.

For this reason, I've never actually completed this game myself. The crazy jump is in the first stage of the penultimate world, and unfortunately I have never been able to make it past there. I would love to one day, but right now this game simply remains an unbeaten and oft-forgotten relic of my childhood. A sequel was made but unfortunately was vastly inferior to the first, both in overall quality and charm. The Saturn died shortly thereafter and with it, Bug! died too. It's a shame because I would've liked to see a true-to-life fully 3D addition to the series, but sadly this was not to pass.

Bug! may have been a weird concept on a third place console that pretty much failed here in the US, but it's still a great game and one of the very few, in my opinion, that might just make the Sega Saturn worth it. It's certainly not a rare game by any stretch of the imagination, so if you've got a Sega Saturn sitting in a box in your attic, you might want to dust it off and plug it in if you get a hold of this game. If you're a fan of classic platforming action, it's got just about everything you'd want and more.

Collection Additions Volume 3: Extensions Galore

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. I apologize for the long leave of absence but after a much-needed vacation (and some recovery time afterward) I'm back to talk about games and and my never-ending and improbable quest to have the greatest video game collection ever. Now that I have a lot more free time I'm hoping to do more reviews of random games, plus updates every week on any game-related stuff I've bought. Anyway, let's jump into it today, shall we?

So yesterday I nabbed a pair of N64 games, plus some controller extension cords- one for the Super Nintendo and two for the NES. I know a lot of people are into wireless controllers these days, but personally I don't want to bother with that. Changing batteries, constantly charging them- I'd much rather be plugged right into the system without having to worry about any of that. So what's a gamer to do when you want to have a comfy spot on a couch without living in fear that you'll accidentally yank your console right out of the TV in the heat of the moment?

Thankfully, a ton of third party companies have emerged to save us from just that. I already have extenders for pretty much every console I have, including four for my N64 so I don't have to worry about three other people doing the aforementioned console yanking. I didn't have any for the NES though, mainly because the NES controller wire is pretty lengthy as it is. However, after some recent console rearranging I decided it would be a lot easier for me to just buy a few extensions and have the peace of mind that I wouldn't accidentally destroy my toploader NES one day. As for the SNES extender, I already had one so I figured I may as well grab one more, lest I ever have any two-player SNES sessions.

Now for the games- Doom 64 and Perfect Dark. Firstly, I should say that I absolutely love the Doom franchise. Doom is just one of my go-to games that I can always play whenever I want and still have fun with it, regardless of how many times I've beaten it in my life (which is probably in the thousands at this point). However, I must confess that I've never actually played Doom 64. I've known about it, but for whatever reason it always just flew under the radar to me. However, I've been determined to rectify that and now that I own it, I'm hoping to give it a playthrough soon. Might even be good for a review, wink wink.

As for Perfect Dark, I never owned it myself but I have played the multiplayer back in the day with friends. From what I gather, it's pretty similar to another classic first-person shooter Rareware game of the era, that being Goldeneye 007. That's good enough for me to give it a shot.

So that's all for now, but stayed tuned for more stuff coming real soon. Thanks for reading and as always, game on.

Collection Additions: Volume 2

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. So today I paid a visit to a local flea market that runs every Sunday during the summer. In all honesty I've never been to a big flea market before, so it was interesting to see the wealth of video game stuff that was available to be picked through. It was nothing spectacular and a lot of it was overpriced, probably due to the ever increasing cost of video games as time goes on, but nonetheless I did find two games that made the trip worth it for me, so let's check it out.

Wading through pile after pile of sports games and broken Xbox 360s, I found these two great Super Nintendo games. Both of them are pretty common games, but nonetheless they are very fun to play and I got them both for cheaper than eBay value. I've never played Final Fight before, but I'm a big fan of those 90's beat 'em up games like Streets Of Rage and Double Dragon. Plus, it's Capcom, how can you go wrong?

As for Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, I do own it's predecessor Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, so I pretty much know what to expect in terms of gameplay. Both carts were fairly dirty, but the labels are nice and intact and the rest of it is nothing a little cleaning won't take care of. Star Wars booted up on the second try, but Final Fight took a little work to get going. The contact points were filthy so it took a few good scrubbings with isopropyl alcohol, but after some determination I got it up and running. I didn't play it for very long but it's very fun, just as satisfying as most games of the beat 'em up genre are. I imagine it would be a great game to play through with a second player.

So that's it for this week, a bit of a quickie but I don't have much to talk about right now because I'm going on a vacation in a few weeks so I need to take some time off from buying games. But in two weeks or so I should be right back in action, so stay tuned until then and as always, game on.

Collection Additions: Volume 1

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the Game Room. So, after finishing school I had hoped to have a lot more time to play video games, but as it turns out being an adult isn't quite as simple as that, and now that I have a fancy new job I don't quite have that luxury. As such, I don't think I'll be able to continue my "game of the week" series every single Sunday. However, on the flip side now that I have a steady source of income, I can actually buy more games again and continue to grow my collection.

As such, I've decided to do a weekly update on any new additions I have coming in, which is much easier for me to write about than reviewing a single game every week. I'll probably do some quick reviews, which I have in store for today, and I'll also continue to periodically do some big reviews as well. So let's check out what I bagged this week with my very first paycheck I just received.

I walked into my local retro gaming establishment with the full intention of blowing a lot of money on games. I didn't end up spending that much, but I did walk a way with a handful of Turbo Grafx 16 games, which I always enjoy getting ahold of since you just don't see them all that often. The first one that caught my eye was Alien Crush, since it's one of the few TG-16 games I have actually heard of previously and I knew to be a good game. The rest was a crapshoot since I'd never seen any of them play, but as I mentioned before, I'll take any TG-16 games I can get my hands on really.

They're all game-only which kind of sucks because I do prefer to buy games as complete as possible, but with TG-16 games it's really tough to do so, especially in person and not from anywhere on the internet. All TG-16 games came with a jewel case and a manual, and even then they're still incomplete without a big outer cardboard box. Including the ones I just bought, I have fourteen TG-16 games in all and only two of them I have manuals for. I also have one with a jewel case, but that's about it. Anywho, even if it is just the games I'm happy to own them. I gave them all a quick test to make sure they work, and while I was doing so I briefly played each of them and jotted down a few quick first impressions, which I'll go into now for each one.

Alien Crush
As I mentioned before, this was the one I was most interested in out of all of them. However, I couldn't seem to get it working at first. I was worried that is was broken, but after much messing around and cleaning the contact points and refusing to give up (because I'm lazy and I really didn't feel like going back to the game store today), I got it going. For those who don't know, it's an alien-themed pinball game, and yes, it is exactly as weird as it sounds, but in the best possible way. The graphics and music are great, and I especially like the xenomorph influence straight out of the movie Alien that is present everywhere. It's your basic pinball game, just with a fun grotesque alien twist to it. Everything was very responsive, and it was a lot of fun. I'll definitely play more of this one when I get a chance.

Double Dungeons
With this one I didn't know what to expect at all, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It's essentially a first person RPG, reminiscent of those 90's point and click PC games where you explore from a first-person view. It also reminded me quite a bit of the Sega Genesis game Fatal Labyrinth, what with the types of enemies you encounter and the attack system. I couldn't figure out how to use items or anything like that, and ended up dying a few times before moving on, but it's definitely interesting and has a great first person perspective for it's time.

Final Lap Twin
Your standard grand-prix style racing game, as the title alludes to. Reminded me a lot of games like Top Gear on Super Nintendo. The graphics are quite nice and the controls are nice and fluent. Turns are a little tough to navigate, but with some practice I'm sure I could get the handle of it.

Power Golf
Firstly, I should say that I really hate golf. I don't have anything against anyone who plays it, but I just personally find it incredibly boring and uninteresting. It's always kind of amazed me just how many video games exist that are dedicated to golfing, but nonetheless I have never really enjoyed any of them, not even cartoonish ones like Mario Golf. As for this game, I literally could not even figure out how to hit the ball. The controller only has two buttons, so how hard could it be? I had no idea what I was doing wrong and after 10 swings, the words "give up" flashed on the screen, to which I promptly complied.

Victory Run
As was the case with Alien Crush, this one gave me problems starting up as well. I should also mention that the other games each started up on the first try, so it's not my console that's being finicky or anything. Anyway, it's another racing game..or...is it? I don't know if I missed something here, but it didn't seem like there was any race going on at all. You just drive...and drive...and drive...occasionally turning, and sometimes the screen jitters up or down which I guess is supposed to convey going up or downhill but really was just giving me slight motion sickness. There's a day to night transition in the background, and at some point I noticed two things: you can switch to a higher gear which makes the car go faster, and there's also a time limit. But nothing else happened, the time ran out, and my patience ran out too.

So that's that for this week. Overall I'm happy with what I got and what I paid for it, even if I did get a few stinkers. TG-16 games are always interesting to me just because I never even knew the console existed as a kid, so it's pretty fun just exploring what it has to offer.

Stay tuned for more weekly updates and as always, game on.

The Lost Art Of Strategy Guides

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Due to a bit of a hectic week I have to take a break from my game of the week segment this week, but hopefully I should be back on track by next week. For now, here's a quicky about my thoughts on strategy guides.

It’s hard to imagine, but there once was a time when you couldn’t just type in a question on your phone or at your computer and it would immediately generate an answer for you. No, in the olden days we had to rely on good old ink and paper if we needed guidance, and in the realm of video games this came about in the form of strategy guides. There was always a rack full of them at whatever game store you walked into, those huge colorful booklets with the game’s artwork plastered all over the cover.

Like many other mediums, strategy guides have been rendered all but obsolete by the digital age that has taken over all facets of life, and if I’m not mistaken they have pretty much died out altogether. However, just because they have become outdated doesn’t mean they have completely lost all appeal, and like vinyl records they can still be appreciated for their wonderful artwork and general feelings of nostalgia when using one.

I have a decent stack of strategy guides, having started collecting them not too long ago just for the fun of it, and personally I think there is still a lot of value in owning them. Like I mentioned before, I love skimming through them and looking at all the great artwork they have. Sure, you could just drop “Mario” into a Google search and get 10 million images of Super Mario Bros. artwork, but there’s something about having it printed on a page in front of you that’s just satisfying as hell.

Strategy guides weren’t just helpful for certain games; they were all but mandatory for some, especially if you were a completionist trying to unlock every bit of extra content and squeeze every little penny out of the game you just bought. For example, not only is the Metal Gear Solid 2 guide I have humongous (appropriate for such a complex game), it also goes into fine detail about the vast amount of easter eggs and secrets the game has to offer, which is something you would certainly never be able to tackle on your own in the days when the internet was just a mysterious far away land. 

One thing I loved about strategy guides were the detailed maps they laid out. I have a pretty bad sense of direction, even in simulated environments, and having an extra map for games like Silent Hill 2 where every little extra bullet and healing item helps really aided in the experience. 

The guides themselves even had their fair share of additional content you probably wouldn’t see in the game itself. For example, in the Resident Evil 0 guide I own, there’s many pages dedicated to the making of the game, including concept artwork and behind the scenes features. And I can’t forget that most guides would often come with a great poster of the game that you could tear out and hang up, which I did with almost all of the guides I owned. Unfortunately most of the guides I own now have had their posters removed, but the Resident Evil 0 one is still there and I just might have to hang it up one day when I have a large game room to put it in.

Of course, having strategy guides also took away a bit of the challenge from games. If you read them from page to page as you were playing along, it kind of felt like the game was being played for you, and that sort of ruined the experience a bit. I remember receiving one for Banjo-Tooie with the game for Christmas, and upon beating the game I felt a bit like the strategy guide took away a lot of the fun. I suppose it depended on the game you were playing, but from then on I would only use them sparingly when I was in desperate need of assistance.

Now, I haven’t played very many modern games for any of the newest generation of consoles (not owning any of them has something to do with that), but I feel like pretty much all guides have been rendered useless, even those posted on the internet. With the abundance of YouTube playthrough videos and just the general fact that most games are self-explanatory enough and don’t offer much extra content besides DLCs or whatever, having a strategy guide would kind of seem like a moot point. It’s a little sad to see the world you grew up with change so rapidly, and if you’re a Luddite like me it’s hard to let go of the past. But that’s part of the reason I started collecting guides in the first place- to keep the spirit of the old days alive for future generations, reminding old and new gamers alike of what things were like in the halcyon days of gaming.

Game Of The Week: Pikmin 2

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today I’m taking a look at a great sequel to a great game, one of the best for the Nintendo Gamecube and one I love to start back up every now and then: Pikmin 2. I love both games in different ways and it’s hard for me to choose which one I like better, but I’ve decided to a do a review of Pikmin 2 because there’s a bit more for me to talk about when discussing it. So let’s get small and dive into the grass as we take a look at Pikmin 2.

 Released in 2004 for the Gamecube, Pikmin 2 did exactly what any good sequel should do: keep the core gameplay that made the original great intact while improving and expanding the universe created by the first game. The story picks up right where the first left off, with the protagonist Captain Olimar returning home from the alien planet where he crash landed in the first game. However, his triumphant return is short-lived when he discovers that in his absence, the freight company he works for has gone bankrupt and if its massive debt isn’t paid back soon, he’ll be out of a job. The boss of his company is at a loss for what to do- that is, until he discovers that a small object brought back from the alien planet by Olimar is extremely valuable, and that more treasures are there waiting to be collected. In order to save his company and his job, Olimar then travels back to the planet with his fellow employee Louie in search of more treasures.

This is where the primary addition to gameplay in the second game comes in- with the two playable characters of Olimar and Louie, you’ll be able to switch between the two and divide up your Pikmin squads around each of the levels. This pushes multitasking even further than in the first game, as now you’ll be able to simultaneously work on accomplishing different goals around the map by controlling two characters. There are also certain bosses that take advantage of this switching system- for example the toady bloyster boss, which you’ll have to distract using one character and launch Pikmin at from behind with another. It’s a very intricate system which allows you to tackle multiple tasks on completely different sides of the map while maintaining a greater level of control than the first game allowed. Another major difference between the first and second games is the introduction of “caves” throughout each of the maps, which are multilayered underground voids in which both the layouts and enemy/treasure placements are completely randomized. At the final floor of nearly all of the caves is a boss fight in which you’ll have to do battle with a massive enemy which will yield a special item upon being defeated. These items are mostly upgrades to Olimar & Louie’s suits that make the gameplay a little easier (for example, being impervious to fire, a larger whistle range to corral Pikmin, etc). There are four caves per map, with the exception of the last map in which there are only three, for a total of 15 in the whole game. Unlike above ground, when inside of a cave time does not pass, allowing for exploration of a cave without the urgency of moving quickly before a day ends.

Being able to split up your squads between two playable characters exponentially changes the multitasking dynamic of the game.

Speaking of urgency, there is no overarching “time limit” as there was in the first game. In the first game the player has 30 days to recover all of the ship parts before the game ends, whereas in the second game, there’s an unlimited amount of days to explore and collect all of the treasures. The second game doubles down on enemies, adding many new types that present a multitude of different threats to your Pikmin squad. There are a few enemies from the first game that don’t return, but the myriad of new ones makes up for that fact nicely. In addition to the enemies, two new Pikmin types join the ranks of the reds, blues and yellows: purple and white Pikmin. Purple Pikmin are slower than molasses, but their massive weight allows them to briefly stun enemies when thrown, making them extremely useful in combat. Also, they can carry ten times their own weight, allowing just one of them the lifting capacity of ten other Pikmin. By contrast, white Pikmin are small and swift, rapidly following behind you and carrying items. They are immune to poison and can dig up underground objects that other Pikmin can’t see. Additionally, they deal substantial damage to enemies if eaten. Both of these new types are very useful and valuable to have throughout the game, but there’s a major hitch- they can only be spawned in caves by throwing red, blue or yellow Pikmin into their respective candypop flowers and not by the traditional means of transporting dead enemies or pellets to the onions. These flowers only spawn a maximum of five Pikmin, meaning that you’ll have to very slowly build up a squad over the course of the game. However, the usefulness of both types for different tasks makes it very much worth the time and effort to do so.

It sucks that you aren't able to spawn purple & white Pikmin as quickly as the others, but it's certainly worth it to take the extra time to do so.

Lastly, there’s the introduction of items which aid in your adventure. I already mentioned the special items you’ll receive from defeating bosses, but there are two others that are very useful to collect as you progress- spicy and bitter berries, which can be used to create spicy and bitter spray, respectively. By pressing up or down on the D-pad, you’ll use one of these sprays which greatly helps in combating enemies; spicy spray causes your Pikmin squad to become temporarily enhanced, making them move and attack faster, while bitter spray briefly freezes enemies allowing your squad to attack them without being counterattacked. You’ll find the berries to make both types scattered in flowers around the maps, and by bringing five berries back to your ship you’ll be able to make one spray. 

By far, the biggest aspect that sets this game apart from the first is the cave system, which is also where my biggest critique is. I do like the randomization aspect, as the challenge always slightly differs every time you enter a different level of the cave. Also, I like that time doesn’t pass in the caves, so you have an unlimited ability to explore and strategize. However, the thing I didn’t enjoy about the cave system in comparison to the first game is that spending time in the caves makes up a majority of the game. Because of this, there’s a noticeable lack of emphasis on above ground exploring and puzzle solving, where you’ll be working against the clock to find items, break down barriers, build bridges, etc. until the day ends. Also, another above ground aspect lost by spending most of the game in the caves is the ability to sprout new Pikmin from dead enemies. Since the onions don’t follow you into the caves, you lose a lot of the satisfaction from defeating enemies and then using their carcasses to create new Pikmin, which is one of the most fun things about the first game and being above ground in the second. And lastly, the caves really don’t present much of a challenge at all unless you really act on an “honors system” for yourself, so to speak. Every time you enter a new sublevel of the cave, the game automatically saves. I’m not sure if there’s some practical reason for this, or if this feature can be manually shut off for that matter (honestly, I’ve never thought of checking until writing this sentence), but it happens every single time you finish a cave level and then move on to the next. Because of this, if something horrific happens and half your squad gets obliterated by an enemy that dropped in while you weren’t paying attention, you can simply reset the game and start over in that level like nothing ever happened. Like I said, you can impose an honors system on yourself and not do this if you have the discipline to do so, but more often than not I just got so annoyed at losing a ton of my hard earned purple Pikmin because a bomb rock exploded near them while I was off on the other side of the cave that I’d jump up and do a reset out of anger. I know they were trying to put a little less pressure on the player than in the first game, but I think this kills a lot of the challenge in making it through the caves, especially in the later ones when things start getting extremely difficult.

It's kind of like using save states in the caves, if you think about it.

Despite these things, the caves are really my only gripe with the game. I love the diversity of enemies new and old, plus the in-depth enemy analysis in the “Pikelopedia” which appeals to both my inner biologist and nerd at the same time. The new stage hazards of poison and electricity are very cool, as well as the enemies that utilize both, along with fire and water too. The game throws multiple hazards at you at once and you have to come up with some intricate strategies to deal with them. For example, there’s one part of the game where an enemy called the fiery bulblax (as the name implies, it’s on fire) is holding a treasure and sitting across a lake in a little enclave. There’s no other way around and only blue Pikmin can cross the lake, but they can’t attack the beast without being incinerated if they touch it. So, you’ll have to quickly wake it up and retreat into the lake, hoping it will follow you into the water and have its flames doused, at which point you can attack it. The game throws multiple hazards like that at you all throughout the game, and I like the creativity implemented there.

This guy takes a bit of fanagaling to take down, and it's just one instance of the game putting multiple obstacles in your way to complete a goal.

As in the first game, the graphics and music are both great. The music amps up in tension as enemies attack and then slows down peacefully when there’s no threats. The enemies are designed quite nicely and really give you a sense of accomplishment when you take down the massive, ugly boss enemies. Besides the main game, there’s also plenty of time to be spent in challenge mode, in which you’ll have to collect a certain amount of items within a time limit while dodging enemies and other obstacles.

All in all, Pikmin 2 is a great sequel and a worthy successor to the first game. It does lack some aspects that make the first game a lot of fun, so it’s kind of hard for me to choose which one I like better. I usually keep them separate in my mind and enjoy them both equally for their own reasons. Now I just need to get my hands on a Wii U so I can check out the third one…but that will be another story for another time. For now, so long and be careful where you step in your backyard, you never know what’s crawling around in the grass beneath you.