Most of Nintendo's mascots made their debut on NES or even earlier. Check the Super Smash Bros. Melee line-up; the most recent characters are the Pokémon, and they made their first appearance somewhere early during the Nintendo 64 era. A year ago, at last a bunch of brand new characters arrived: Capt. Olimar and the Pikmin! (sounds a bit like a sixties band, doesn't it?). Gamers across the world appreciated the funny characters and original gameplay. This fall the Pikmin return and it looks like they intend to stay among Nintendo's greatest.

In the original game Capt. Olimar crashed on a strange planet. With the help of the Pikmin, he had to return the parts of his spaceship before his respiration system broke down. In the sequel, Olimar returns to his homeworld and finds that the company he works for has gone bankrupt. Olimar decides to go back to the strange planet to collect treasures with the help of the Pikmin and pay off his company's debts.

This time Capt. Olimar comes prepared. He now has unlimited air supply, so you can take as long as you like gathering objects. The game doesn't have to be finished within thirty (in-game) days anymore, but there might be a limited amount of treasures. Challenge is of course limited: the goal of the challenge I played was to collect objects with a total value of 10.000 points as quick as possible. Though the time limit has been removed, planning is still an important part of the game, since you're still only able to work during the day. Unlike Link, who sails on day and night, Olimar has to gather his Pikmin at the end of the day and leave the planet surface. Treasures must be collected in one day, or they will be returned to their original location. It's wise to set your goals at dawn, so you won't have to abandon objects at sunset, only halfway on your way to the ship.

This sequel arrives quite soon after the original, so it's hardly a surprise Nintendo has used the same engine. The graphics are of similar quality, which means a little fuzzy but still quite good. It's not the resolution that makes a convincing world, however: it's the way plants move you walk under them (you can make a dandelion lose its seeds), the way bugs try to shake of attacking Pikmin and the way the little creatures rush to catch up with Olimar. In that respect, it's a beautiful world that's great fun to explore.

The camera and the command system (the C-stick) are also left unchanged. In my opinion there was some room for improvement, but the current system is still perfectly useable. Throwing Pikmin has become a bit easier, as you can change the colour of your projectile by pressing the D-pad.

Another innovation is the introduction of Olimar's assistant. The Y-button changes control from Olimar to the assistant and vice versa. The non-controlled character can be called or left behind just as the Pikmin, so by using B and X-buttons. The second character allows to work at two places at the same time. This means you can remove obstacles blocking an object faster, but it allows to work in two different areas as well. It's not known yet if you'll need the second character to solve certain puzzles or if he's just there for your convenience. We haven't noted differences yet between the two (apart from their appearance and a change in music).

The main reason the assistant has been introduced is the new multiplayer mode. There will be both competitive and cooperative play, but we haven't been able to try those yet. It promises to be a lot of fun, especially if competitive play allows players to try to frustrate the others attempts to gain objects. Cooperative play where you actually need each other (most of such modes are merely two players doing the same single player mode at the same time) would be great as well. This is just speculation, but even a 'standard' multiplayer option will probably be a great addition and extend the lifespan of the game.

Prolonged playing time will also be provided by the dungeons. In the Pikmin world you will now find holes that lead to an – randomly generated – underground maze. There is no timer here and you also don't have the possibility to grow new Pikmin. When all the Pikmin in the group you brought in the maze are eaten, electrified, drowned, burned or whatever happens to the pour souls, you'll return to the surface.

Besides the familiar red, blue and yellow species, two new kind of Pikmin are also introduced. Pictures show a fat purple one and a tiny white one with red eyes (Albino-Pikmin?). The abilities of these new breeds are yet unknown as they were not included in the demo version. In addition to the new Pikmin, a vast amount of new enemies are added to the game.

Some people consider Pikmin 2 not to be more than an updated version of the original. But with new levels, new enemies, new Pikmin and multiplayer modes, I think they don't give this game enough credit. True, it has more of the same, but it also has enough innovations to make the cynical nickname Pikmin v1.2 misplaced. Overall, Pikmin 2 seems to become one of the best titles of 2003.