Once you first discover a red, blue, or yellow pikmin, their onion (a pikmin spaceship) will appear next to yours. From here, you can kill things or bring pellets to an onion, and whatever color the object has left sprouts the color of the'pikmin matching the color of'the onion will grow. You can decide to just leave them there and let them grow into strong flower types, or you can just pick them up right away for your army.

As anyone can probably decipher, the game's premise came from the pikmin themselves. Olimar and Louie use the pikmin to solve puzzles and use them as weapons for battle or as a means of defense. To do this, both Olimar and Louie must have sets of pikmin recruits to create an army. Only 100 pikmin may be used per person, so with this, it'd be best to decide how many of each color pikmin you have to have when taking account of your limits. Since both Olimar and Louie can handle their own army of pikmin, multitasking will prove to be an even bigger necessity than it was'last time around. With the assigned tag button, you can choose to control any of the spacemen as they command their pikmin to do certain tasks. You can make one leave the red pikmin somewhere to fight fire enemies, and tell the yellow pikmin to climb trees and get any items necessary there. From all this, you can tell Pikmin 2 requires you to really think ahead and on your feet.

To add even more thought to that, two new pikmin colors have been introduced. You can't just cultivate them the same way you do with the red, blue, or yellow ones either. You have to find a certain flower, which are in convenient places around the pikmin worlds, and throw any color pikmin into them. The result will be a pikmin popping out. Throwing pikmin into a white flower will cause white ones with red eyes to pop out. These fast, poisonous little white fellows are not affected by poison, and as a one-two punch, anything that eats a white pikmin becomes intoxicated. Throwing pikmin into a purple flower will cause purple pikmin to pop out. These pikmin are heavy and a lot slower than the rest of the pikmin, but they pack a punch proving that they have sumo-power. Their'strength can be a big help when trying to overtake a boss.

Perhaps the best new addition to this sequel is the ability to delve underground. A certain point on the map of an area can lead to an underground dungeon, where your multitasking will be even more important. Unlike the ground above, time doesn't pass at all underground. This can allow you to look around and plan your way through these underground mazes. Each underground area consists of several floors with loads of puzzles to solve and enemies to conquer. Often times, there's a boss guarding a precious treasure at the deepest level of the dungeon. To make things seem even worse, the bosses in Pikmin games aren't cake either. In Pikmin 2, most of the bosses will require you to switch between Olimar and Louie several times to double team and take the boss down. It's essential to not make that many mistakes though, as huge'portions of your army can be devoured at anytime, leaving Olimar and Louie helpless. The dungeons are a welcome addition to the Pikmin series, and they keep Pikmin 2 fresh.

The original control setup is back as well. So most of the commands will be used with the whistle or by throwing a pikmin. You can use the whistle to call the pikmin to follow you, and you can press X to leave them there idly. You can also use the directional pad to decide what color pikmin you want to throw, and you can also use the C-Stick to move your pikmin freely around Olimar or Louie's range of contact.'Lastly, you'have the ability to switch between Olimar and Louie on the fly.

The combat in Pikmin 2 also remains the same except for'the fact that you can switch to Louie at anytime. To fight, just throw a pikmin somewhere, and it'll ferociously attack anything in sight. Keep in mind that purple and red are the best fighters, and they're even better at flower form. It's really simple, and players should have no problem with it. Pikmin veterans will still have trouble fighting airborne enemies, but there aren't that many to begin with anyway.

Once you get used to the mechanics, then you can make use of another new mode available in Pikmin 2. Now that Louie is part of the action, you can play a capture the flag style multiplayer game. The object of the game is to bring four marbles to your "nest." Additionally, you can steal any marble your opponent has, and at times you'll often have to go through hilarious fights with your armies of pikmin. That'll also lead to the alternate way of winning, which you can pull off by killing your opponent with your pikmin. The game doesn't really call for this, but it's another nice feature.

One minor, but significant, change made was in the Challenge Mode. Rather than just cultivating a high number of pikmin like its predecessor, this time you have to complete a randomly generated course. There'll be monsters in every area, but if you get through the whole thing with none of your pikmin dying, you'll get a higher rating. Although, like its predecessor, it's just something extra that doesn't really add anything to the main premise of the game.

Olimar, Louie, and the pikmin are small. To add a little more to that, the lands to explore in Pikmin 2 are massive. The landscapes in Pikmin 2 are pretty much the same as the original, and they were just beautiful. To keep the visuals fresh and more up to date, better lighting has been added and little details like petals blowing in the wind are there for a more realistic feel. The pikmin and the enemies also look a lot livelier, rather than the disturbing, dead-looking plant'cuties we saw in the last Pikmin. The level design is also extraordinary, and Nintendo has really given the players a feel that Olimar and Louie aren't alone in that colorful landscape. The only thing one can really complain about with the visuals is the camera. This can be easily fixed, as you can manually control the camera freely.

The audio in Pikmin 2 is nowhere near as clich'd as anybody might think either. For starters, switching between Olimar and Louie will disturbingly allow them to yell out their name for some reason. It doesn't end there either, as your lively pikmin will make a lot more noise than last time when performing a task. The soundtrack in Pikmin 2, though, consists of nature-themed music like the original, and they're quite pleasing to the ear. If you can get by all the yelling by your pikmin and the constant self-calling of Olimar and Louie, you shouldn't encounter any problem with the sound.