Pikmin 2's Flaw: Dandori Issue

I was watching a YouTuber play Pikmin 2 for the first time, and he was complaining that Pikmin 2 had a lot of waiting, Around this point, I scrolled down to see a comment along the lines of

“Pikmin 2 has too much waiting” Unironically a dandori issue

Which didn’t sit right with me. If this was Pikmin 1 I would agree, but not so with Pikmin 2. I ended up spending a couple days contemplating Pikmin 2’s design, and I have arrived at some conclusions.

Pikmin 2 is an interesting sequel to the first game, focusing less on time management and multitasking to a more combat focused dungeon crawler. This isn’t bad in and of itself, but it ends up resulting in both a railroading early game, and a lot more waiting around than in Pikmin 1, and it is waiting that can’t be overcome.

Part 1: What Even is “Dandori”

From a preliminary search on Google, Dandori seems to be a Japanese term for arrangements or plans. It was adopted as a driving philosophy presented in Pikmin 4, and localized verbatim in the English version. According to Pikmin 4, Dandori is the ability to “organize tasks strategically and working effectively to execute plans”. Basically just trying to turn the concept of multitasking into an art form.

Now aside from the Pikmin fandom adopting their own version of “skill issue” as “dandori issue”, this also creates a metric for which the series as a whole can be judged. To what extent does the games allow you for dandori expression.

To that end, I am looking for two main things:

1. A set of resources to delegate
2. A plethora of tasks to delegate those resources too
3. A freedom of which tasks you can choose to do

If you don’t have multiple resources, you end up just waiting for your one resource to be available. If you don’t have many things to work on, you end up just waiting for your one task to be completed. If you don’t have freedom, then there is no sense of expression, and are just following the path before you.

Unfortunately, I believe that Pikmin 2 (especially the early game) really struggle with this. Let’s see how.

Part 2: A lack of Early Game Options

Pikmin 2, unlike Pikmin 1, takes a very long time before you get any sense of freedom. Most of the map is inaccessible, and there is usually only the one options to progress in regards to accessing more of the map. To illustrate my point, I’m gonna break down map by map what are these restrictions and how it affects progression, skipping Day 1, because that is a fixed tutorial in pretty much every Pikmin game anyway.

The Valley of Repose

It is the first day after the tutorial, what do we have access to?

To the left is a map of the Valley of Repose, with the brown squares representing caves (this games dungeons) and the green circles representing treasure to collect.

As at this point of the game, we only have access to Red Pikmin, let’s map out what we have access to with red lines and oh…

When we land, we are first introduced to a bag that needs 35 pikmin to crush. The tutorial only gave use 20, so the game is pretty much forcing us to sprout more pikmin. Not a bad start. After that is down, we can either claim the Utter Scrap or break down the wall to the Emergence Cave. Spoiler, one of these is optional, and ends up just causing us to waste time waiting for the painfully slow leaf pikmin to bring it back. Even the best case, you are still waiting for the wall to fall, but that brings use to our first cave of the game, the Emergence Cave.

I’m going to hold off my total thoughts and breakdown of the game’s cave system for now. All I will do is explain that the caves are multi-floored dungeons with enemies and treasures with some minor randomness which is more focused on combat and survival then exploration.

My big issue comes with the treasure you get on the second floor: The Spherical Atlas. This is a special treasure that not only does it give a decent amount of money, this is what unlocks the next area of the game. I also gonna hold off on my thoughts in regards to this later, and instead focus on that it requires 101 pikmin to carry it. Seeing as there is a cap of 100 pikmin you can have on the field, it is impossible to pick up, if it weren’t for the 2 Violet Candypop Buds. These flower can turn up to 5 of any pikmin into purple pikmin, giving us our first new pikmin type. Yay. Purple pikmin can carry as much as 10 times the amount other pikmin can carry. Given that we now have 10 purple pikmin, can collect the Spherical Atlas, and GTFO.

Once we return to the surface after collecting the Spherical Atlas, there is nothing else we can do. I mean literally, and the game know this as it forces the day to end immediately. What I find interesting is that there is a lot of design in this day I like. Having a treasure weigh 101 pikmin to guide us into unlocking purple pikmin makes a lot of sense… if this was a tutorial, and in a way this kind of was.

It kind of feels shitty that what is suppose to be the first day out of the tutorial, where time management and freedom is suppose to begin, is just another tutorial. Compare this to Pikmin 1’s Day 2 in the Forest of Hope. You are similarly limited with just red pikmin, and you are funneled into unlocking yellows like you are with purples in 2, but once you have yellows, almost the entire map is open to you. It is not another “tutorial day” like it is with Pikmin 2

Speaking of The Forest of Hope…

The Awakening Wood

The Awakening Wood is when the game gets a little bit better, and probably the biggest two things which help is access to nectar south of the ship turning our pikmin into flower pikmin increasing their speed, as well as Burgeoning Spiderworts in the base north of the ship which contain berries that can be harvested for Ultra-Spicy Spray, an item that can boost pikmins speed and attack. These berries are actually genius since they respawn and are always useful, it creates an easy fallback for your pikmin to do if there are no other tasks, as well as present an interesting decision on how many pikmin do you want working on these and not on breaking walls or carrying treasure.

Upon landing, we still only have access to what the red lines connect, which is kinda limited. One treasure and one cave, sounds kind of familiar. The main barrier this time is a paper bag requiring the weight of 200 pikmin to crush. Because we only have the 10 purples from the Emergence Cave, at best, the 10 purples and 90 reds is still only a weight of 190, so we are limited to the Hole of Beast, which has 3 violet candypop buds. Also before leaving, I want to call attention to the fact that this cave has enough treasure to double our pokos for later.

Now since we have 25 purple pikmin, we can crush the paper bag and access the White Flower Garden. I wonder what we will find there :) White pikmin, we get white pikmin, 15 to be exact. TL;DR on white pikmin: they are fast, immune to poison, and can dig up buried treasure.

With white pikmin, we are starting to get something akin to Pikmin 1. Once we got yellows, we had access to 3 new ship parts, and likewise once we have access to whites, we have access to 3 new treasures:

• The Pilgrim Bulb, south of the landing site
• The Chance Totem past the poison wall next to the White Flower Garden
  • Also a bitter spiderwort filled with ultra bitter berries for a different type of spray that turns enemies to stone
• The Geographic Projection past the poison wall next to the Hole of Beasts

However that last one, the Geographic Projection looks kind of familiar. In fact it is the other half of the Spherical Atlas, and like it, this is the treasure that unlocks the next area. So in reality, there is only really one option. Again comparing this to the Forest of Hope, after collecting Yellow, any 4 of the 5 available parts can be used to unlock the next area, giving them all equal weight. Unfortunately, the games structure ends up massively devaluing a lot of the above ground treasures. Why spend time to get the Pilgrim’s Bulb worth 55 pokos, when the Hole of Beast contains 1100 pokos worth of treasure. Why break down the wall to the chance totem, when the wall to the Geographic Projection gives us access to next area. Speaking of which.

Yellows And Blues

The Perplexing Pool is an interesting level. The only real thing that needs to be done is go around to the back of the stump and use white pikmin to break down a wall to unlock yellows. After you do that, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GAME, you have access to optional caves.

The two caves you have access to, the Citadel of Spiders and Glutton’s Kitchen, don’t have anything to do with progression and are purely there for the money. In fact, the you don’t even need yellows to access the Citadel, though it does have electric hazards, so it is advised against entering it at this time.

With nothing else to do here, let’s head back to the Awakening Wood for the final stop of this train. At the north end of the Awakening Wood there is an electric gate that can only be broken with yellows. Past that is the final step before true freedom: Blue Pikmin

Once we have Blue Pikmin, pretty much the rest of the game is available to us, which includes 2 new caves in each of the 3 major areas. And the game knows this is where things change. Those 6 caves are considerably harder than the ones up until this point. Almost as if this is where the real game begins, and that is kind of the problem I had until this point…

Where We Are and How We Got Here

It has been approximately 2 hours into the game, and the game finally opens up. We have collected anywhere from 2640 to 5270 pokos out of the 10000 needed to pay off the debt with between 18 and 49 out of 201 treasures in total.

Though it is true we have more freedom now, there is no new area until we pay off the debt, and all of the previous areas are already half explored. Awakening wood pretty much just has the electric gate to the Bulblax Kingdom to the East, and the water bridge to the Snaggret Hole to the West for example.

Let’s compare this with Pikmin 1.

In Pikmin 1

1. The tutorial day gets the engine and red pikmin from the Impact Site
2. The Forest of Hope unlocks yellow pikmin
3. Any 4 ship parts here unlocks the Forest Naval where you can unlock blue pikmin immediately.
4. At this point, every treasure in all previous areas are available, any 12 of which unlocks the Distant Spring, which you land able to access every ship part

In Pikmin 2

1. In the tutorial day in the Valley of Repose, get the courage reactor and unlocks red pikmin
2. Landing back to the Valley, you access the Emergence Cave to unlock purple pikmin
3. You use the purples to collect the Spherical Atlas to unlock the Awakening Wood
4. You enter the Hole of Beasts to get more purple pikmin
5. You use the extra purples to crush the bag to access the white flower garden
6. You unlock white pikmin
7. You use the white pikmin to break the wall to the Geographic Projection to unlock the Perplexing Pool
8. You land in the Perplexing Pool, where you can unlock yellow pikmin
9. You return to the Awakening Wood to use the yellows to finally unlock blues
10. Only now is every treasure in the game accessible, however there is no more areas to explore until you pay off your debt

And there is no alternative to this route. The first 2 hours of the game will always be the same. Well what about the rest of the game. Now that we have more freedom, how is the rest of the game

Part 3 The Cave System is a Dandori Poison

Okay Imma be honest, I lost stream to finish this so in the mean time

To Be Continue