Grassdigger | Creating an "Impossible" Pikmin 2 Save File @grassdigger8695 | Uploaded May 2018 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
At last, I have finally found a way to make a file in Pikmin 2 that is impossible to beat!
This video is inspired by Stryder7x's video here: youtube.com/watch?v=MClCaFkhRt0
I quote from his description: "What if games had an "Impossible" difficulty setting? I'm not talking about difficult bosses or tight platforming segments, I mean solving a puzzle! A bit of (perseverance) combined with glitches allows us to make our own puzzle in (Pikmin 2) - but just how difficult can we make one? The answer: theoretically impossible!"
The Violet Candypop Buds in Emergence Cave are programmed to disappear if the player has at least 20 purples. The developers probably did this to avoid making purples too easy to get. However, these candypop buds are also the only way to get purples before we can access Awakening Wood. So we have objects that are necessary for progression that can theoretically disappear... this just screams of softlock potential.
In order to make this impossible file, I need to utilize a glitch that allows me to obtain purple Pikmin without unlocking them. This glitch was first documented here: youtube.com/watch?v=E2khRpMt3Zo
Normally, if I pluck a purple Pikmin, I am unable to pause until purples become unlocked. However, if I play a cutscene right after I start plucking, I will gain the ability to pause and escape the cave right after the cutscene plays. Doing this means that I can get purples without unlocking them.
When purples are unlocked, their numbers appear on the pause screen, and I can access them inside the ship. However, neither of these things can happen before purples are unlocked. But purple Pikmin will enter the ship at the end of the day. Thus, these purples that I obtain can end up stuck inside the ship until I unlock purples, since I am unable to call them out.
Now, all I have to do is get 20 purples stuck inside the ship this way. This is easier said than done. Remember how a cutscene has to play when I pluck the purple Pikmin? Well, I can only play 2 cutscenes in this situation. One cutscene occurs when I collect my first corpse, but this only plays once in any given file. The other cutscene occurs when a captain is down. Thankfully, this cutscene can play many times.
So getting 20 purples went something like this. First, I got 2 purples by playing the corpse collection cutscene. Then, I had to play the Louie is Down! cutscene a total of 18 times, collecting 1 purple each time. This also meant I had to progress to the next day before I could obtain the next purple. Thus, obtaining each purple took between 5 and 10 minutes... meaning this took about 2 hours to do. But once I finished, I had 20 purples stuck inside the ship with no way of generating new purples, since the Violet Candypop Buds in Emergence Cave were now gone.
Thus, this file is impossible to complete, to the best of our knowledge. There's seemingly no way we can obtain the purples we need to lift Spherical Atlas. Even if I paid off the debt by farming snow bulborb corpses, I would still be stuck in the Valley of Repose.
Is there a way we could theoretically beat this file? Maybe. If we could find new glitches that would allow us to reach Frontier Cavern, there are Violet Candypop Buds in there that we can use to make purples, and then we could finally collect Spherical Atlas and move on from Valley of Repose. Note that normal Violet Candypop Buds will spawn whether or not purples are unlocked.
I should mention that the Ivory Candypop Buds in White Flower Garden sublevel 3 act differently than the Violet ones in Emergence Cave. They should disappear when I have at least 20 whites, but alas, if whites are not unlocked, they will still appear. It seems that the devs thought ahead on this one! (As an aside, the Ivory Candypop Buds in White Flower Garden are the only ones that can spawn before whites are unlocked. This is another difference between Violet and Ivory Candypop Buds.)
One other thing. I did this impossible file on the Wii version, but it is technically possible on the GC version too. However, it's actually harder. I showed 2 techniques for killing Louie in this video:
1. Have him follow me while a bulborb chomps on him.
2. Dismiss him by a group of bulborbs.
I don't believe that technique 1 works on GC. This is because I don't think Louie will continue to follow me in that situation. Technique 2 is possible on GC, but much more luck-dependent than technique 1, since Louie will often frantically run around.
At last, I have finally found a way to make a file in Pikmin 2 that is impossible to beat!
This video is inspired by Stryder7x's video here: youtube.com/watch?v=MClCaFkhRt0
I quote from his description: "What if games had an "Impossible" difficulty setting? I'm not talking about difficult bosses or tight platforming segments, I mean solving a puzzle! A bit of (perseverance) combined with glitches allows us to make our own puzzle in (Pikmin 2) - but just how difficult can we make one? The answer: theoretically impossible!"
The Violet Candypop Buds in Emergence Cave are programmed to disappear if the player has at least 20 purples. The developers probably did this to avoid making purples too easy to get. However, these candypop buds are also the only way to get purples before we can access Awakening Wood. So we have objects that are necessary for progression that can theoretically disappear... this just screams of softlock potential.
In order to make this impossible file, I need to utilize a glitch that allows me to obtain purple Pikmin without unlocking them. This glitch was first documented here: youtube.com/watch?v=E2khRpMt3Zo
Normally, if I pluck a purple Pikmin, I am unable to pause until purples become unlocked. However, if I play a cutscene right after I start plucking, I will gain the ability to pause and escape the cave right after the cutscene plays. Doing this means that I can get purples without unlocking them.
When purples are unlocked, their numbers appear on the pause screen, and I can access them inside the ship. However, neither of these things can happen before purples are unlocked. But purple Pikmin will enter the ship at the end of the day. Thus, these purples that I obtain can end up stuck inside the ship until I unlock purples, since I am unable to call them out.
Now, all I have to do is get 20 purples stuck inside the ship this way. This is easier said than done. Remember how a cutscene has to play when I pluck the purple Pikmin? Well, I can only play 2 cutscenes in this situation. One cutscene occurs when I collect my first corpse, but this only plays once in any given file. The other cutscene occurs when a captain is down. Thankfully, this cutscene can play many times.
So getting 20 purples went something like this. First, I got 2 purples by playing the corpse collection cutscene. Then, I had to play the Louie is Down! cutscene a total of 18 times, collecting 1 purple each time. This also meant I had to progress to the next day before I could obtain the next purple. Thus, obtaining each purple took between 5 and 10 minutes... meaning this took about 2 hours to do. But once I finished, I had 20 purples stuck inside the ship with no way of generating new purples, since the Violet Candypop Buds in Emergence Cave were now gone.
Thus, this file is impossible to complete, to the best of our knowledge. There's seemingly no way we can obtain the purples we need to lift Spherical Atlas. Even if I paid off the debt by farming snow bulborb corpses, I would still be stuck in the Valley of Repose.
Is there a way we could theoretically beat this file? Maybe. If we could find new glitches that would allow us to reach Frontier Cavern, there are Violet Candypop Buds in there that we can use to make purples, and then we could finally collect Spherical Atlas and move on from Valley of Repose. Note that normal Violet Candypop Buds will spawn whether or not purples are unlocked.
I should mention that the Ivory Candypop Buds in White Flower Garden sublevel 3 act differently than the Violet ones in Emergence Cave. They should disappear when I have at least 20 whites, but alas, if whites are not unlocked, they will still appear. It seems that the devs thought ahead on this one! (As an aside, the Ivory Candypop Buds in White Flower Garden are the only ones that can spawn before whites are unlocked. This is another difference between Violet and Ivory Candypop Buds.)
One other thing. I did this impossible file on the Wii version, but it is technically possible on the GC version too. However, it's actually harder. I showed 2 techniques for killing Louie in this video:
1. Have him follow me while a bulborb chomps on him.
2. Dismiss him by a group of bulborbs.
I don't believe that technique 1 works on GC. This is because I don't think Louie will continue to follow me in that situation. Technique 2 is possible on GC, but much more luck-dependent than technique 1, since Louie will often frantically run around.
