Welcome to our review of Fruit Beestje 2: The Return of the Fruitbeestjes – which roughly translates into Pikmin 2 by my daughter’s standards. If you are wondering what the carrot is all about, you should check out my review of Fruit Beestjes 1 – Also known as the game formerly known as Pikmin 1. Let’s dive in!

And you get some debt, and you get some debt.

Are you a fan of Animal Crossing? Then you must be familiar with the dreaded debt hook. But don’t worry, Pikmin 2 has a similar debt storyline worth checking out. No, you are not going to pay off a loan to a crooked Tom Nook gone Pikmin character. No, it’s even worse! In Pikmin 2, Captain Olimar and his co-worker Louie venture back to the Pikmin planet to collect treasure that will help pay off the Hocotate Freight Company’s debts. Since selling off the ship of our beloved captain wasn’t enough, it’s time to become an intergalactic Beachcomber. With bottlecaps, batteries, and other discarded items worth a lot of Pokos, the adventure promises to be an exciting one.

Pik-Pik-Pikmin

Pikmin 2 delivers an even more thrilling experience compared to its 2001 predecessor. The gameplay has been expanded to offer a greater area to explore, enemies to conquer, and environmental puzzles to solve. Notably, the time limit has been removed, providing players more freedom to enjoy the game at their own pace. Yes, the sun is still setting, but no more than 30 days to finish the game or die a horrible death by space slugs. Moreover, players can now venture underground and explore dungeons with Olimar, Louie, and the Pikmin – hooray, time to go spelunking! The game’s intricate design offers an extended adventure with diverse and captivating settings, enemies, and new types of Pikmin to master.

In addition to your trusty red, yellow, and blue Pikmin companions, you now have white and purple Pikmin to aid you. The yellow Pikmin has been upgraded to be able to endure electric shocks. White Pikmin are immune to poison and can poison enemies that consume them. They also can uncover hidden treasures, often found underground. The purple Pikmin are massive in size and strength, equivalent to ten regular Pikmin. They can stun adversaries and endure more damage. All hail Chadmin!

In addition to new spray powerups, which can encase enemies in stone or temporarily speed up your Pikmin, another significant change is the ability to control both Olimar and Louie separately. This allows you to divide and conquer when facing obstacles and multitask more efficiently. With just a quick press of a button, you can switch between characters and take command of their Pikmin followers, opening up a range of strategic possibilities for navigating areas, defeating enemies, collecting treasure, and successfully escaping dungeons. This new option was an excellent quality-of-life upgrade from the original game and improved my game experience.

Upgrade?

As I mentioned in my review of Pikmin 1:

Pikmin 1 has been updated, with a more high-definition interface (compared to the Wii version) and offering players the choice between motion controls or the Joy-Con/Pro Controller. It’s worth noting that the functionality of the right stick has changed, as it now controls the camera instead of directing Pikmin to attack or grab in that direction. This change is acceptable to me but can be a bit of a head-scratcher for those who have played the GameCube or Wii version and accidentally sent all their Pikmin into the water. What? No, I haven’t done that while my daughter was watching. Yes, they are just swimming.

Pikmin 2 has gotten a similar treatment in terms of this HD remaster. It’s the same game with a higher resolution and upscaled UI elements. Nintendo also chose to implement Pikmin 3-styled controls – which I loved since controlling my Pikmin was much more accessible. Other changes are on a smaller level but can raise some eyebrows amongst the fans of the first hour. Pikmin was noted to feature many real-world branded products you retrieve as treasures in the game. For example, Duracell batteries, 7-Up bottlecaps, and so on. These are all replaced by Nintendo-esque brands, most likely due to expired licenses. Luckily there is still the spaceship that renames everything you find into great new … brand names.