-- The three characters in the game are male. This might have been acceptable had they not also added comments in Olimar's journal along the lines of how his wife and daughter back home can be kept happy with gifts of jewelery. It made the game feel like it was set in 1956.

-- The puzzle-oriented Adventure genre is dead, and I for one don't miss it. And yet Pikmin 2 actually had me wishing for more puzzles. The treasures in the game are easily found and retrieved (except for the fighting involved). With the time limit gone, the need to plan your moves carefully was eliminated, as well.

-- A lot of the treasures in the game are the detritus of our culture, including bottle caps and food containers with identifiable brand names. It's a shameless example of product placement.

-- When you collect a certain number of treasures, your mission (and the game) ends. However, after the end credits, the game continues. A new area opens up and exactly how many treasures and creatures haven't been entered in your encyclopaedia are revealed (turns out there's quite a few). It's a bonus for finishing the game. But it's like having another thirty minutes of a movie appear after the credits have rolled. It makes you wonder why Nintendo didn't just make this part of the main game. Nintendo is usually good at knowing when and how to reward gamers, but here there's so much optional gameplay left over. It may not seem worth mentioning, but for a company that's been known to under-ship consoles to give the impression that stores can't keep up with demands for their products, you have to wonder what they're trying to accomplish with such a strangely unbalanced bonus.

Although these may seem like a lot of negatives, none of them spoil the gaming experience. Pikmin was a great game, and since Pikmin 2 is so much like it, it's impossible not to like the sequel. But if Nintendo is going to turn this title into a franchise, they're going to have to start making additions that impact more on the gameplay.

(I didn't mention the graphics or art design because this is a Nintendo title through and through. Either you'll find it insufferably cute or, if you're like me and don't care about the hipness factor, you'll find the cartoonish creatures strangely charming.)