Trivia / Pikmin 2

• Blooper:
  • Olimar's notes mention that the Doodlebug belongs to the Flint Bug family in the English version, but it's actually supposed to be a member of the Flint Beetle family. The Switch version corrects this.
  • A transparent image of the President appears during the cutscene after the debt is repaid. The inside of his curl of hair is solid white, which got corrected in the Switch version.
  • Some treasures' descriptions have typos and grammatical errors in the English European version. Most of them would get fixed in the Wii version.
  • When exiting a cave in the Perplexing Pool, you can see where the sky box ends. This only happens in the Wii and Switch versions, as the image wasn't likely intended to be seen in a 16:9 ratio.
• Dummied Out:
  • The game contains several unused cave levels and floor layouts, seed values for enemies that are never found above ground (and thus can never be taken to an Onion to sprout more Pikmin), some unused treasures and old treasure textures, and cutscenes for the various Onions activating (which are unused, as unlike the first game, all of the Onions are already active when you find them). A lot of treasures are either retextured or completely changed for different regional versions of the game, especially in the case of licensed products (as many EU and NA players would be unfamiliar with most of the original Japanese products).
  • There is data for a Game Over screen, though it was never used. The next game would eventually feature the series' first, and so far only, Game Over screen when finishing a day without juice.
  • The Pikpik carrots that can be thrown at monsters in the Piklopedia are actually coded as a type of Pikmin, but can't be obtained unless they're hacked into your squad.
  • Hidden within the game's data are the discs for Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin (2001), and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. They were intended to be treasures, but can't be obtained. Funny enough, the disc for Wave Race Blue Storm would eventually be a treasure in Pikmin 4.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: The sound effect for the Gatling Groink's bullets flying through the air is the same sound effect that Bullet Bills make in Super Mario Sunshine.
• Late Export for You: The New Play Control! version of Pikmin 2 for the Wii was released in every region except North America in 2009, which did not receive it until 2012. It is speculated that this was due to licensing reasons, as the contracts for the real-world products probably had expired by 2009, and thus they needed to be renegotiated. This is also seen as why the product placement was dropped altogether for the 2023 HD rerelease.
• Milestone Celebration: Minor example in the HD re-release for the Nintendo Switch, but the new unbranded logo for the Hypnotic Platter reads "19th Anniversary"; the Switch version was released 19 years after the original game.
• Refitted for Sequel: The game was originally planned to feature GameCube discs for Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin (2001), and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as treasures, only for them to go unused. The idea would eventually be implemented in a pared-down form in Pikmin 4, where the disc for Wave Race Blue Storm can be obtained as the Glinty Circular Disc treasure after completing the Engulfed Castle (itself a homage to the Submerged Castle in this game).
• Screwed by the Lawyers: In the Switch port, Pikmin no longer sing "Ai no Uta" when twenty of each type are brought out onto the field, and none of the treasures carry any real life brands on them anymore. This is likely due to licensing issues.
• Troubled Production: The game supposedly had a pretty rough development cycle. The game was originally set out to release in 2002, merely a year after the first game. Delays were made however after half the team got shifted to help out in developing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which was also having development issues of its own. More trouble would come after Shigeru Miyamoto became displeased with the current state of the game, claiming it to be too similar to the first game, forcing the team to completely overhaul the game and its general structure and delaying the game's release date once again. Despite all of this, it's quite a shock that the game was still generally well received amongst fans and reviewers alike, even in spite of all its faults that very likely sprouted from its strained development, such as its flawed implementation of the Randomly Generated Dungeons and its excessive reliance on Trial-and-Error Gameplay.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Very early in the game's lifespan, it was originally rumored that should a save file hit day 300, it would automatically be deleted, akin to the time limit in the first game. In reality, this is false, with the rumor getting so bad that the Pikmin wiki had to clarify otherwise on the page for the Ujadani.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Prerelease materials show situations and creatures absent from the final game, such as a Ranging Bloyster in the Perplexing Pool (in the final game, they're only encountered in cave levels), regular and dwarf variants of unused yellow Bulborbs, and dwarf blue Bulborbs. Interestingly, the internal names for Orange and Hairy Bulborbs (and their dwarf kin) are bluechappy and yellowchappy respectively, which points to either the blue and yellow colors being placeholders or changed mid-development.
  • Some pre-release screenshots show the max Pikmin counter◊ going above the usual 100 limit. Presumably, even with more optimized code, going above 100 was still too much for the GameCube to handle.
  • In the internal code for the game, Purple Pikmin are referred to as Black Pikmin, which is supported by prerelease screenshots showing a black arrow above the cursor when Purple Pikmin are selected◊. Pikmin 3 would eventually introduce a Black Pikmin in the form of the Rock Pikmin, whose Color Motif is dark gray.
  • There's code that indicates that the Waterwraith was originally going to spawn in every cave after a certain amount of time, making it more of a case of Stalked by the Bell, as seen in more traditional roguelikes.
  • A large portrait exists for the Fiery Bulblax, which is usually reserved for boss creatures in the Piklopedia. This suggests that it was originally intended to be a boss.

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