New Play Control! Pikmin 2

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
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 port 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.

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 regions.

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, most likely due to the Nintendo logo's color being changed from red to gray in 2006.
• The cursor was graphically changed and arrows appear from the active leader to the cursor when swarming, mirroring changes from the previous New Play Control! title.
• 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, a likely glitch or oversight causes the North American and European versions to have extra instrumentation for the first loop of the Wistful Wild's sunset theme. This extra version of the theme is absent from all copies of New Play Control! Pikmin 2, like the Japanese version of the GameCube release.

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 . Throws have had their mechanics slightly changed, but are still limited in range.
• When the camera is centered with , 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.
•  / 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 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 now is resistant to damage 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.
• 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.
• Three Color Training's starting sprays have been changed from 2 ultra-spicy sprays to 1 of each type.

Text

Main article: New Play Control! Pikmin 2 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 exist in the European version of Pikmin 2 for the GameCube, but stuck for the European version of Pikmin 3. It is presumed that this was due to the term "Wog" being considered a slur in British and Australian English, respectively.
• 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, with rumble being in the Wii home menu and language being locked to the Wii's system settings.
• Some unused content from the GameCube version was removed.
• 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, but will run away from the hole in the Wii version.
• 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 attract mode cutscene with Tane no Uta as the song.

Controls

See: New Play Control! Pikmin 2 controls

History

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Development

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Release

On December 15^th, 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 30^th of the year after. Finally, it became available for Japan's Virtual Console eShop on June 20^th, 2017. As of March 27^th, 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 English, French and Spanish 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

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Credits

See: New Play Control! Pikmin 2 credits

Media

• 

  European box art.

• 

  North American box art (Nintendo Selects).

• 

  Back side of the North American box art.

• 

  Japanese box art.

• 

  Back side of the Japanese box art.

• 

  North American disc.

See also: Promotional material.

Trivia

• The save data description is “To me, Pikmin!”

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	Wiiであそぶピクミン2? Wii de Asobu Pikumin 2	Let's Play On Wii Pikmin 2
Dutch	NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2	-	Name taken from various official sources.
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.
German	New Play Control! Pikmin 2	-
Italian	New Play Control! Pikmin 2	-
Portuguese (NoE)	NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2	-	Name taken from various official sources.
Spanish	New Play Control! Pikmin 2	-
Russian	NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin 2	-	Name taken from the official New Play Control! Pikmin 2 website.

External links

• Official New Play Control! Pikmin 2 website (Europe).
• Official Japanese Wii de Asobu Pikmin 2 website
• US version game manual
• Japanese version game manual