Why Pikmin 2 is my Least Favorite One 

I love the part of Pikmin 2 where I didn’t have enough purple pikmin to lift the doomsday apparatus so olimar simply cracked his knuckles and lifted it back to the ship himself while flexing his huge biceps. Best gaming moment of all time

It’s funny how both Olimar and Luigi both got massively fleshed out during the GameCube era by just giving their thoughts on the stuff around them

My biggest complaint about the first 2 Pikmin games is that Nintendo doesn’t know how fractions work.

In Pikmen 1, your time limit is your life support. In Pikmen 3, your time limit is your stomach. and in Pikmen Bloom, your time limit is the slow encroaching march of time as it draws you ever closer to your death.

The water wraith is generally one of the scariest things Nintendo has made

The Piklopedia was literally the best part of the game. I spent hours reading ON PURPOSE because the entries were so fun, and I loved tossing pik-pik carrots to the Bulborbs and various enemies. I know most of them just want to voraciously consume all your Pikmin without discrimination but they're SO DARN CUTE.

I get the feeling that the developers wanted to put more emphasis on exploration than time management. They could have definitely applied more pressure on the player, but every game design choice points to encouraging the player to take their time and take in the atmosphere

I feel like Schaff is trying to ignore Hey Pikmin's existence

One of my most fond memories is watching Chuggaconroy’s let’s play of Pikmin 2. I have such fond feelings for this game for the cozy feeling of watching Emile play it. The Piklopedia theme is burned into my mind as nostalgia

Never before has a title alone filled me with a sense to fight for my morals and beliefs.

to be fair, having time pass while in dungeons could easily piss people off. Imagine exploring the areas, getting to the boss, and then you get kicked out because "welp the sun set lmao" or having every day come to an end immediately after you're done with the dungeon. Even if it breaks suspension, I felt it was necessary.

Pikmin 2 terrified me as a kid, but I loved it. The tension built from time management and dealing with terrain and environmental hazards was amazing.

I really wish pikmin 1 and 2 were more available. They haven’t been properly sold in like 10 years

17:24 the caves that suddenly go to the “garden” theme are usually situated in high places. Snagret hole, for example, starts atop a bird house, a decent way up a tree stump, so going below that would lead you outdoors. Most of the time the layout actually *does* make sense

He changed the title after Hiding In Private responded to this video. Glad he did

6:58 “Olimar is the only Nintendo character to have fought space pirates” …Do I even need to say her name?

I’m glad that Schaff shows his love of Pikmin, even if it will probably not get as much attention

If I had a nickel for every trilogy where Schaffrillas described the second entry as “The Weakest One” instead of Worst, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

pikmin 2 is literally my most favorite game of all time and i could never get tired of it

I personally love Pikmin 2 the most. It’s easily my favorite of the bunch. I love the feeling of creeping down through caverns brimming with beasts I could only imagine, my loyal Pikmin terrified but valiantly following me. I love the theme of capitalism ruining the good in the little things and the big things, such as taking Olimar’s son’s present or literally rifling through the world attempting to find anything of value. I do agree that the dungeons do get a bit same-y visually, but I enjoy analyzing a floor and seeing the best way to go about it. And you’re right, maybe on one randomized playthrough a treasure is in the water! It incentives players to be ready for any hazard at any time and not to go with just purples. I love the hazards as well, it caused many shrieks and laughs in subsequent playthroughs with friends or partners. I think it has its problems but is a very good game that is great for veterans and new or intexperienced or just plain bad at games individuals.

Pikmin is so different from everything else I can't even compare it to anything besides art style wich is probably why we all love it so much

The Wistful Wild theme is legitimately one of the best songs in a Nintendo game.

I have to say, while you're entitled to your opinion about this game, I do find the contradiction about what makes an RTS kind of funny. You're upest they remove the agency and pressure to get all the treasures in a limited number of days, which removes a form of resource management. You claim that time management is a part of RTS games, which is true for some games. But then later on in the video, you actually complain about having limited opportunities to grow pikmin in the underground sections...which would be resource management...which is also an RTS game mechanic and fundamental. Is not the part of the undergrounds difficulty recognizing the dangers to avoid total loss of pikmin in the dungeons.

It's crazy how many of the issues with the story could have been fixed by just letting Olimar return to his normal life for a few months between games instead of springing the debt on him immediately

Nothing compares to Chuggaaconroys reaction to jinxing himself with the water wraith for the first time. I genuinely laughed for hours after seeing it for the first time when I was younger.

Pikmin 2 is personally my favourite. I love the difficulty and pressure of Pikmin 1 and love the gameplay mechanics of Pikmin 3. Pikmin 2 has such a big vatriety if enemies and I love the piklopedia. The bosses especially are peak. You either love or hate the cave system and treasure collecting focus.

Ad: "It's like a box of chocolates!" "Your pants are a box of chocolates."

I'm watching this after watching Mr Crab Man's review of Pikmin 4

I honestly found that going through the Submerged Castle was the quickest way to get purples, as it's one of the few dungeons in the game that are guaranteed to have purple candipops. Also not sure if you know this, but you don't need to have your pikmin following you for you to take them down with you; pikmin will never get left behind in a dungeon, even if they're on fire or whatever. It's happened a few times where I've saved dozens of pikmin dying from hazards just by going down to the next floor lol

Pikmin 2 offers a unique that the others don't. I love having a chill time collecting things at my own pace, taking in the world without as much stress as the others. They're fantastic RTS games, but this one holds a special place in my heart. Now if this was a video on if Hey Pikmin or Pikmin Bloom is the weakest one, it would be more valid. I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you on this.

The argument against the purple Pikmin being OP is valid, but I feel like the rock Pikmin are just as OP in the third game. They take off so much damage when thrown and the inability to be crushed makes them perfect for dealing with the Beady enemies. I adore the look of the purple Pikmin and was disappointed that they’re only available in Mission Mode in P3

I think the reason Submerged Castle is the one dungeon I can always remember is due to the Water Wraith. To this day whenever I find myself back in that specific dungeon I can't help but remember Chuggaaconroy screeching when the it first showed up right as he was about to finish a floor

I actually love the Doomsday Apparatus if only for the "holy shit" factor when you first see the 1000 weight. It's also completely optional and in the postgame area. If you're like me, you'll have more than 40 purps by the time you reach it, so I never found the grind to 100 too tedious. You can run through the caves super quickly too; just ignore everything and head straight for the exit of each floor.

Hiding in private cooked you 💀

while pikmin 2 is my personal favorite, i totally understand and see the points you made about it. i hope you make more pikmin videos!

A minor thing I love about the series is that in each new game the Pikmin are shown to have advanced In the first game they’re at or near the bottom of the food chain but by the second game they’ve learned from Olimar and worked there way, up, even managing to survive long enough to develop new offshoots, and by the third one they’re practically the dominant species Also the song they sing about how much they love Olimar and wish he didn’t have to leave breaks my heart

Who hoo! New pikmin video! Pikmin is a very underrated series and I’m so happy when I get to see creators acknowledge it.

I really love the Piklopedia. I enjoy things that dive into a setting's lore, especially its ecology, and the Piklopedia does a great job at making the info flow naturally, like they're actually notes being written by our intrepid explorers.

Thank you for making these Pikmin videos! I love this series so much and I have so much nostalgia for Pikmin 2 especially since it was the first Pikmin game I owned since I played the first one at a friends house. Your videos always make my day so I truly thank you for being my favorite RU-vidr of all time and I thank you for all the joy your videos being me. You probably will not see this comments but thank you for everything Schaf :)

I… I actually never knew that Pikmin 2 didn’t have a time limit. I always did everything with a sense of urgency, because I thought that was the case. I actually really like the Dungeons in Pikmin 2, not only because it’s fun to set up for them, explore, and complete them, but also because I thought it was important to go into specific dungeons at specific times, so you can properly time exiting out of said dungeons with your venturing forth on the overworld map to collect the remaining treasure in the day. Plus, with the idea that days had a time limit, I found the dungeons relaxing in a way, since they were a break from all the fast planning in the overworld. My minds been blown man… PS: The Water Wraith was the funniest thing to me as a kid, not because of the being itself, oh god no, it’s terrifying! More so the famous Chuggaconroy clip.

Pikmin 2 is my favorite but I still agree with majority of your video. I just like combat in Pikmin games a lot, so the challenge and caves are fun for me (minus the falling traps). Im also too impatient to grind out berries so I never use the bitter or spicy spray to make combat easier

Pikmin 2 is my favorite because it offers the most freedom. You have unlimited time to explore this planet and it's areas even after you've collected every treasure, and that's exactly what I did. I spent so much time, well over 100 in game days in this game, building up Pikmin and Sprays, encountering th Ujidani and even the Beady Long Legs in the overworld. The downside of this is at a certain point the only end-of-day message you get is your wife telling you she loves you and begging you to come home and it makes me sad and wish there was an option to just, go home and end the game for real.

Earlier this year, I went on a thirty hour journey to 100% this game, and all I have to say about that experience is... never again.

Pikmin is so underrated and overlooked, it's a shame because they're so fun to play. PIKMIN 4 announcement was the best thing Nintendo has done in a while.

I remember Pikmin 1 being too stressful. Pikmin 3 is too easy and too short. Pikmin 2 felt perfect. I personally loved crawling through all the caves. They were these oppressive puzzles and were just so atmospheric. Not to mention all the crazy bossfights. NOT TO MENTION THE PIKLOPEDIA!!

To be fair, Tears of the Kingdom also started by taking all the hearts I’ve spent 120 hour to acquire, so losing the ship seems pretty common.

Love how Pikmin 4 is taking a lot of aspects from Pikmin 2 so

Schaff saying Pikimin 3 is on his top 10 favorite games reminded me how in the Kingdom Hearts video, he said KH2 is probably in his top 20 favorite games, and ever since then, that got me thinking about how much I'd want to see him making a video involving ranking his favorite games. He doesn't make that many video game analysis, but I always enjoy when he does stuff like it.

Glad to hear someone else spent hours poring over the Piklopedia entries too, the atmosphere with the music and reading Olimar's charming writing is a core memory for me. I used to have the players guide for this game and held onto it as a comfort item for a while, the game made me feel safe

I’ve always thought the dungeons were really unique and interesting in my opinion. Exploring a semi-linear (mostly) underground themed areas in multiple levels leading to a boss with some nirvana floors truly made it interesting every time. I hope they return in Pikmin 4 in some capacity. Also the dungeons were also graphically impressive for 2004 just like the overworld. Half-Life 2 came out the same year and I’d argue Pikmin 2 looked just as good in some ways.

Have y’all seen what this game did to Chuggaaconroy?! This game drove him nuts! Especially the Submerged Castle!

On your comments about Pikmin 2's removal of the time limit; I get that removing the time limit takes away the sense of urgency that Pikmin 1 had, but after playing all the games for so many years, the time limit has kind of become less and less of an issue to the point where it barely ever effects the way I play the games. I usually complete Pikmin 1 in around 9-10 ingame days. Pikmin 2 usually takes 14-17 days to 100% and the same goes for Pikmin 3. To veteran players of the Pikmin series, time limits don't matter and only serve to give newer players a reason to avoid the game. By giving Pikmin 2 an infinite time limit, veterans of the series are barely effected at all and newer players are encouraged to explore and work at their own pace. This lack of time management "difficulty" is also overwhelmingly made up for by Pikmin 2 being the hardest game in the series. Ironically, you could technically say the time limit artificially inflates the difficulty of Pikmin 1 by establishing a time limit that most players never see the end of.

I actually like Pikmin 2, it was fun to travel in dungeons, the enemies are grotesque, strange, and powerful. I liked the White and Purple Pikmin, and of course collecting the 'treasure' was fun

I'm actually playing pikmin 2 right now, and honestly, my favorite part is the piklopedia! I love how in-depth the descriptions are for all enemies you encounter, as well as the stories olimar shares on the treasure description. Its honestly so lovely.

the first battalion wars and first two pikmin games are my childhood and i love that people are starting to talk about them more and more now just as it was their childhood

This man's risking his reputation rn

I hardly disagree I think pikmin 2 is the strongest I love how chill it is with its no time limit and it’s boss fights are really fun and the dungeons are also good and hate me for this I actually like collecting treasures and with how long the dungeons take it would of been basically impossible to complete a dungeon if the time passed in dungeons any of the mainline games aren’t the weakest if your gonna say one game is the weakest it has to be the spin-off’s

To beat the game ( get to the 2nd ending), you actually need to collect every treasure, so 100 purple pikmin IS required to complete the game

Samus fought space pirates too tho 😏 Can't wait for pikmin 4! I hope they add online campaign Co-op and other online modes. would be so amazing!

Always delighted to see some Pikmin recognition.

I actually think that re-using the map layouts from the previous game was a good idea. Having previously used maps remade with different content and different environment made it incredibly interesting. I hope in Pikmin 4 they re-use some of the areas from the previous games but combine them with newly-designed areas to make the maps way larger. Also I think the purple spray is actually useful and should return in Pikmin 4 but in limited amounts so you’ll only use it on annoying enemies.

I don’t think I originally saw “weakest one”

Tbh after replaying all of the games, pikmin 1 was the only one I felt an urgency to collect everything. Pikmin 2 is very enjoyable to replay, there is a lot more freedom. lol blew my mind as a kid. I was never bothered too much about there being with an urgency. It was the different caves, enemies and bosses that got me hooked, and yeah submerged castle was the best part of the game. The 3rd game was too easy though, it has the weakest story mode. Pikmin 3 is great for better ai, mission, and bingo battles. Still all fantastic games.

I know this definitely doesn't fix the problem, but the bulblax kingdom is definitely the best dungeon to farm purples, as long as you take in about 30 or less purples, then there will be about 3-4 candypop flowers per dungeon, and the dungeon is only 7 floors long, and the dungeon is right next to where the ship/onions land, AND the dungeon doesn't have any traps, so definitely the best dungeon for farming purples in my opinion (also the bulblax kingdom has a great ost)

The complaints about purple spray and purple pikmin feel like a very disingenuous cope against the fact the game has such high difficulty... Both are easy-come easy-go resources with large time investments behind them. In the amount of time you spend stocking up on spray you can just clear the dungeon/encounter without bothering collecting spray at all, using just your wits and skill. It's more fun, more time-efficient, and is only really a flaw unless you're bad and need to resort to grinding. Same goes for purple pikmin. I agree that their stunlock capability is a bit overtuned against regular mook enemies, they're also slow af making them more fragile than the rest of your party. And each one lost is another large time set-back. So bringing a whole fragile squad of them into a cave is high risk-reward situation, which can backfire and leave you feeling like an idiot. The devs were smart about how much time investment vs power potential the purple spray and purple pikmin offer. They're cheesy under the most ideal situations and if you take your sweet, sweet time, but they're anything but game-breaking.

Damn, pikmin really said "Rocks fall, everyone dies"

I definitely agree with most of your grievances, so I'll just gush about the Piklopedia. As someone who loves collecting and completing things in games, I love the Piklopedia entries, including the sales pitches, but Louie's Notes are definitely the best parts, and probably my favorite part of the whole game. Reading them always makes me hungry and get in the mood to cook or grill something. and anything that makes me want to eat food that doesn't exist is always a winner in my book. I think my favorite entries are the ones that are inedible, such as the Caustic Dweevil ("Effects of consumption include uncontrollable arm flailing and enthusiastic dishwashing") or the Glowstems ("Known effects include uncontrollable episodes of impromptu break dancing"). Just the thought of Louie trying to eat a fucking LED light is hilarious.

The water wraith was one of the first times I remember being legitimately terrified in a game.

Pikmin 2 has always been my favorite

It's so weird to me that when Olimar and the President return to rescue Louie after paying off the debt, they still only take the Hocotate Ship: a two-seater rocket. Wouldn't it make more sense if the Dolphin was returned to them after resolving their debt and Olimar flew it to PNF-404 while the president rode in the Hocotate Ship??

I like to think of game development as an equivalent to normal evolution: At first, the core skelleton exists and if it survives, the next stage gets activated: explosion of ideas. After that, the balance begins to kick in again after all these ideas undergo natural selection by players and reviewers.

As someone with the exact OPPOSITE opinion, with Pikmin 2 being the strongest game to me and the other two being weaker, I’m really looking forward to seeing why you think that! I’m guessing you don’t have the massive anxiety I have that made the time limit so stressful that it completely killed the game for me and I never finished the first game and experienced most of it through a strategy guide instead? 😅 - EDIT: I super, super agree with your feelings about the dungeon system, though, and the fact that’s how you get the white and purple Pikmin.

I diagnose you with wrong

So I'm one of the dudes who has Pikmin 2 as his favorite, so I'll go ahead and throw in my two cents. I'd say that most of the points you made in this video are spot on. Story is undoubtedly weaker than Pikmin 1, which has one of the strongest stories of any Nintendo game period(I *love* Olimar's journal entries and could write an entire essay on how they make Pikmin 1 as great as it is). The Piklopedia is incredible and is quite possibly the best part of the entire series, doing a lot of heavy lifting in making the world feel lived in. Ultra Bitter Spray, Doomsday Apparatus, and Purple Pikmin are all indeed complete and utter indefensible bullshit. The one point where our opinion really diverges is with dungeons. While I agree the level design isn't much to write home about, the *enemy* design is some of the best I've seen in any game, and the sheer variety of enemy designs and attack patterns dwarfs every other Pikmin game. Wandering enemies like the Gatling Groinks and Spotted Bulbears are utterly terrifying, especially if they manage to get the drop on you. The Armor Cannon Beetle Larvae can utterly decimate your party if you're not careful and don't maneuver well. Even mostly harmless enemies like the radio bug (forget it's name) or the mitites can distract your army, leading them into traps and potentially devastate your army. The sheer variety of methods the game manages to come up with to try and screw you over provides a very different challenge from the other two games, and helps make up for the removal of time pressure imo. This last bit is gonna be a bit of a hot take, but I also... kinda like the bullshit instakill traps. Ok, maybe not the rockfalls, but stuff like falling bombs or getting ambushed by hidden enemies really keep you on your toes and helps sell the environment as hostile to your presence. If the game is going to give you infinite resources and infinite time to complete it, I feel like some quantity of bullshit is justified. Sure, maybe you lose 50 Pikmin due to an explosion trap, but you still have 50 more to try to complete the dungeon with and you'll have more waiting for you when you get out. It can also create some tense moments where your army gets decimated and you're just rushing to find the next geyser so that you can escape with your treasure and not lose all the progress you've made. It's really unlike anything else in the series, and I'm kinda for it. Lastly, while Pikmin 3 inarguably has the strongest boss fights in the series, the Pikmin 2 bosses are a significant step up from Pikmin 1's, and has plenty of memorable boss encounters of its own. You've already discussed the Water Wraith at length, but one of my personal favorites is the Man at Legs. Not only is the sheer audacity of putting a freaking LASER SHOOTING SPIDER into the game just wonderful, but having to run to cover whenever the laser comes out to avoid getting gunned down and using the terrain to your advantage is something special. I guess it's not terribly surprising why we have different views on Pikmin 2. I like dungeons, dungeons are ~80% of Pikmin 2's gameplay, ergo I like Pikmin 2. You don't like dungeons, dungeons are ~80% of Pikmin 2's gameplay, ergo you like Pikmin 2 less.

Fun fact: You know almost exactly how loaded of an opinion Schaff is going to have going on just by the time marker. No exceptions.

Schaffrillas Presents: Why Pikmin 2 is my Least Favorite One --------------------------------- INTRODUCTION & SUMMARIZE 0:00 Intro 2:28 Part 1: The Good Stuff 7:36 Part 2: What's my Motivation 13:55 Part 3: The Dungeons Kinda Stick 23:54 SPONSORED AD 25:16 Part 4: Purples, Difficulty, Balance, and that Goddamn Weight 38:04 Conclusion: It's Still Good, I Guess 39:54 Outro

How are real time strategies not for me if I don't like time limits. Pikmin was one of the only rts games that had a time limit.

pikmin 2's lack of a timelimit was my favoirite thing. sometimes, you just want to relax and stock up on berry juice while increasing your pikmin numbers. in other pikmin games, a couple unproductive days can destroy you, but in 2, you can have a nice, calming time. it can be a podcast game. easily the best in the series. and yes, bulbmin are easily the best pikmin type

nahhhh pikmin 2 is the best hands down. at least until we chew on pikmin 4 long enough

Pikmin 1 (Good and goofy renders) Pikmin 2 (Treasures and better gameplay and many people say it’s the best, also funny cutscenes that is iconic) Pikmin 3 (Not lots of new stuff but pretty good) Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Icing on the good cake) Pikmin 4 (IDK but the Demo is long and amazing!)

Dandori issue.

Yeah, the valid criticisms of the game. I used to always be scared of the Water Wraith in Pikmin 2 because of how powerful it was but when I 100% the game, he wasn't as deadly as I thought. The submerged castle's horror vibe could work as a whole area in Pikmin. Maybe a night time mode in Pikmin 4 that plays into the fears from the submerged castle could be cool. Hope you do a video on Pikmin 3 soon.

So glad that the pikmin fandom is still active.

So, I think the purple grind gripe you mentioned was a little overblown. You dont have to engage with the enemies and none of the holes are blocked in the Subterranean Complex so you can literally skip all the floors by just zooming through with Olimar. I had maybe 15 White and Purple Pikmin and after an hour and a half, I had 200 each. Having to grind them out at all is stupid though, and I do agree that they should’ve just gotten their own onion.

Pikmin 2 was one of the first video games that I ever played, and I cherish it fondly. It has such a wistful and nostalgic feeling is only shared by Twilight Princess for me. I cherish it deeply.

I still really love Pikmin 2, but I'll agreed that it is the most flawed entry. The removal of urgency and the unfairness/dullness of the majority of the caves really causes the game to drag a bit. It does have a lot of things that you didn't mention that I think it excells at. The bosses in Pikmin 2 are my favorite in the series, even though many are trivialized by the addition of the purples. The designes, the attack patterns, and the fact that many are more intense versions of regular enemies always stood out to me, and made getting to the end of a new cave more enjoyable, not knowing what the boss would be like. Repeat playthroughs are hurt by the knowledges and lack of uncertainty though. Another thing that Pikmin 2 did that I love is the expansion of the music system. I love Pikmin's adaptive soundtrack, and Pikmin 2 took what Pikmin 1 did with it, and ran with it. The different variations for combat, being near an enemy, working, carrying treasure, and being near a spiderwort, on top of sunset versions of each, ON TOP of different time signatures for Olimar and Louie, make the music for this game absolutly stellar. I fully agree that it's the weakest one in the series, I just wanted to point out some things you didn't mention that I personally love about 2.

I don't really care if it was "weak", it had the purple and white pikmin, and even years after my first time playing it i still have a fondness for those funky cave guys. shame they're only in challenge mode in 3 (and heavily nerfed)

Wrong

Can't wait for the 2 million sub special squarespace ad compilation

As someone who generally abhors time limits, I liked Pikmin 2 for it's lack thereof. Still, I do get the excitement and emersion that having them lends to a game. But I'm very much with you on many of the other frustrations. Also, the amount of time I spent collecting berries... absolutely insane.

I literally rewatched the first pikmin video this morning. Thank you schaffrillas. So hyped for Pikmin 4

This dude was in a car accident and is in critical condition, hope he gets better soon.

The reason i love pikmin 3 so much more is that you have a time limit, but its way more forgiving than pikmin 1. you have way more extra days if you spend one in-game day collecting fruit so it gives you slack when fighting a boss. i think they realised it mightve been too easy with all of the fruit jars adding up so they implemented louie being louie and takes most of your food so you have to be very careful and put your efficiency skills to the test. i loved this and i think they did the time way better rather than just completely taking it away and im curious as to how they will do time in pikmin 4 with the new caves

Shout out to the editor for putting in a unique Tomatoa every few seconds

Pikmin 2 is my favourite. I absolutely LOVE the cave spelunking! The challenging of trying to collect every single treasure whilst trying to survive with as few casualties as possible and taking on these ridiculous bosses is such a rush that I was bummed Pikmin 3 didn’t include the caves. Agree to disagree though

So many people calling this a bad take when he's presenting it with nothing but facts and logic, smh at the defenders. I still find some fun with Pikmin 2, if only because the feeling of throwing so many Pikmin at everything to clear things out is here as always and continues to feel satisfying on its own, but at large, there are just too many fundamentally broken aspects to this game to ignore. There's not even a contest when I compare it to Pikmins 1 and 3, and I'm at a point where I can't in good faith call Pikmin 2 a good video game anymore.

Great vid. Wanted to remind you of the first two floors of the snagret hole. So cool as it’s like you jump out of a birdhouse onto grass.

So an item known as the "Doomsday Apparatus" requires you to have a party full of the strongest Pikmin and takes near a full day to take it back, leaving you completely defenseless, not to mention loosing all the Pikmin if you start too late. I can see why they call it that.

Definitely can understand Pikmin 2 isn't for everyone, personally though it's my favorite game of all time. I feel like it's just brimming with personality: when it comes to the pikmin all starting to have *their* own personalities, Olimar/Louie/Ship having unique journals for the enemies/treasures, and the themes for a lot of the dungeons. You mentioned that this game has the least re-playability for you, which I found interesting with the mechanic of the RNG-based floor layouts. There's ups and downs imo to both methods, and it can definitely feel lazy or even bullshit sometimes with the RNG you'll get. But personally, I really like it. After playing all 3 games so many times, I appreciate in Pikmin 2 I can still find myself in new situations compared to the other 2 games where I know every single action I'm gonna take pretty much from the start, since nothing changes. Hell, it's why their speedruns are so optimized/consistent now. Either way though, I do again know there's down-sides too. The story I also can see bugging people, and the aesthetics of the caves, but I guess I'm just so content with the gameplay that it didn't bug me too much. When it comes to no time limit in caves, I definitely prefer it that way. When I'm on a tough floor with a tough layout, it gives me time to strategize a way through rather than just full-charging in and inevitably losing plenty of Pikmin on the way if I was timed, and strategy is what I love about the Pikmin games. I will definitely agree though that the lack of a day time limit to beat the game as well as the lack of balancing for purple pikmin/sprays can take away from the experience. I'm at the point now where every time I play, I do challenge playthroughs like deathless + no purples/sprays runs because otherwise it's extremely easy when it's not a first playthrough. I appreciate just seeing in-depth pikmin content to begin with though. It's such a underrated series and the announcement of Pikmin 4 makes me so excited. I also can tell just by some of the tricks I see in the gameplay footage in this video that you've definitely played the games tons of times lol

I agree that the slowed down pace of Pikmin 2 is a detriment to the gameplay. I got bogged down in making incremental steps forward towards paying up the debt, and after I lost most of my purples my progress slowed to a nigh halt, so I gave up.