Grassdigger | Pikmin 2 Glitch: Creating an Invincible Pikmin (At What Cost?) @grassdigger8695 | Uploaded July 2018 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
It has been previously shown that Pikmin can walk into poison while a treasure is being collected: youtube.com/watch?v=dgJCf2-HB4k
However, strange things happen when the "Pikmin are Suffering" cutscene plays afterwards. If the Pikmin is already dead by the time this cutscene plays, then no Pikmin appear in the cutscene. But if the Pikmin was in the process of dying from poison when the cutscene plays, more interesting things happen (once the cutscene has ended).
Basically, the game treats the Pikmin as if it's still in the process of dying from poison; but now, it will never finish this process. This means that the Pikmin cannot be interacted with in any way. As a result, the Pikmin is immune from attacks, such as explosions. Unfortunately, the Pikmin is also frozen in place, and leaders cannot pick it up, whistle it, bump it, or dismiss it. Thus, this glitch is not useful at the moment.
Different things happen to the poisoned Pikmin depending on if I delve deeper or pause and escape the cave. If I simply pause and escape the cave, the Pikmin dies. In the video, my Pikmin count went from 15 to 14 after I paused and exited the cave. However, if I delve deeper, the poisoned Pikmin is shown jumping down the hole with the rest of my army, and it appears with me on the next floor as if nothing even happened. While the Pikmin lives, it actually incremented my number of deaths. This is referred to as a False Pikmin Death, which was discovered by Sonic8000: youtube.com/watch?v=7mu5dfuqa4k
As you can see, the False Pikmin Death in my video and in Sonic's video occur exactly the same way. In both videos, we delve deeper after poisoned Pikmin start dying, but before their ghosts appear. The only difference is that in my video, the Pikmin was stuck in this state. (If you're interested, I used False Pikmin Deaths to get 1000 deaths in Dream Den, something you're never supposed to do in regular gameplay, which bugged out the results screen at the end of the cave: youtube.com/watch?v=CGjlDQJPZBQ)
Now, this Invincible Pikmin Glitch is a part of a larger group of related glitches. We still don't know the full breadth of this class of glitches. I shall give this class of glitches the name: Object Restoration Failure. In general, an Object Restoration Failure glitch occurs when a cutscene focuses on an object, and the cutscene ends when the object is in an irregular state. Then, it seems like the game tries to restore the object back to the world, but it fails, often by perpetually keeping the object in its irregular state when the state was supposed to be temporary. Here are the 2 other Object Restoration Failure glitches:
1. Ghost Bag...
v1: youtube.com/watch?v=WKbO8-YvHfY
v2: youtube.com/watch?v=KLQCTs8F30I
The "You Appear Lost" cutscene focuses on the paper bag. If this cutscene finishes while the paper bag is being crushed, v2 of the glitch happens. The game seems to treat the bag as if it's still being crushed, but this state is now permanent. On the other hand, if the cutscene finishes after the paper bag is crushed, v1 of the glitch happens. More info on the "You Appear Lost" cutscene and its effects on the paper bag can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=YSiGdVAktXo
2. Glitchy Spray Drop: youtube.com/watch?v=kHO56TppCRk
More of this glitch: youtube.com/watch?v=6FDqn0LihkI
A cutscene plays that focuses on a spicy/bitter spray drop that is shrinking because the secondary leader is drinking it. If the cutscene ends while the spray drop is shrinking, then the game fails to restore the spray drop to the world: the spray drop is forever stuck in its "being drank" state. Thus, a captain will start drinking it, but he can't stop drinking it without some intervention. Stay sober, kids.
There is one more glitch that acts like Object Restoration Failure, but I'm not sure if it's the same. Some cutscenes force captains to stand up, even if they're napsacked, softlocked, or dead: youtube.com/watch?v=wU6_DJCCJIk
However, this glitch seems to occur because the cutscene requires them to stand, not because of how they are restored to the world after the cutscene.
The reason I bring this all up is because I feel like there's more Object Restoration Failure glitches to be found. Take the set of all objects such that there exists a cutscene that focuses on the object. Each of these objects have glitch potential if we can put them in an obscure state while the cutscene focuses on it.
Fun fact: At the end of this video, I went to Dream Den level 8 on a file with every treasure collected, but as you can see, I had skipped many tutorial cutscenes in my playthrough. This is because this was actually the file from my completed A-Button Only Challenge, where I couldn't use sprays, and hazards were insta-deaths (youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvveNRCMXH9pU5FQ3zhwhKnz).
It has been previously shown that Pikmin can walk into poison while a treasure is being collected: youtube.com/watch?v=dgJCf2-HB4k
However, strange things happen when the "Pikmin are Suffering" cutscene plays afterwards. If the Pikmin is already dead by the time this cutscene plays, then no Pikmin appear in the cutscene. But if the Pikmin was in the process of dying from poison when the cutscene plays, more interesting things happen (once the cutscene has ended).
Basically, the game treats the Pikmin as if it's still in the process of dying from poison; but now, it will never finish this process. This means that the Pikmin cannot be interacted with in any way. As a result, the Pikmin is immune from attacks, such as explosions. Unfortunately, the Pikmin is also frozen in place, and leaders cannot pick it up, whistle it, bump it, or dismiss it. Thus, this glitch is not useful at the moment.
Different things happen to the poisoned Pikmin depending on if I delve deeper or pause and escape the cave. If I simply pause and escape the cave, the Pikmin dies. In the video, my Pikmin count went from 15 to 14 after I paused and exited the cave. However, if I delve deeper, the poisoned Pikmin is shown jumping down the hole with the rest of my army, and it appears with me on the next floor as if nothing even happened. While the Pikmin lives, it actually incremented my number of deaths. This is referred to as a False Pikmin Death, which was discovered by Sonic8000: youtube.com/watch?v=7mu5dfuqa4k
As you can see, the False Pikmin Death in my video and in Sonic's video occur exactly the same way. In both videos, we delve deeper after poisoned Pikmin start dying, but before their ghosts appear. The only difference is that in my video, the Pikmin was stuck in this state. (If you're interested, I used False Pikmin Deaths to get 1000 deaths in Dream Den, something you're never supposed to do in regular gameplay, which bugged out the results screen at the end of the cave: youtube.com/watch?v=CGjlDQJPZBQ)
Now, this Invincible Pikmin Glitch is a part of a larger group of related glitches. We still don't know the full breadth of this class of glitches. I shall give this class of glitches the name: Object Restoration Failure. In general, an Object Restoration Failure glitch occurs when a cutscene focuses on an object, and the cutscene ends when the object is in an irregular state. Then, it seems like the game tries to restore the object back to the world, but it fails, often by perpetually keeping the object in its irregular state when the state was supposed to be temporary. Here are the 2 other Object Restoration Failure glitches:
1. Ghost Bag...
v1: youtube.com/watch?v=WKbO8-YvHfY
v2: youtube.com/watch?v=KLQCTs8F30I
The "You Appear Lost" cutscene focuses on the paper bag. If this cutscene finishes while the paper bag is being crushed, v2 of the glitch happens. The game seems to treat the bag as if it's still being crushed, but this state is now permanent. On the other hand, if the cutscene finishes after the paper bag is crushed, v1 of the glitch happens. More info on the "You Appear Lost" cutscene and its effects on the paper bag can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=YSiGdVAktXo
2. Glitchy Spray Drop: youtube.com/watch?v=kHO56TppCRk
More of this glitch: youtube.com/watch?v=6FDqn0LihkI
A cutscene plays that focuses on a spicy/bitter spray drop that is shrinking because the secondary leader is drinking it. If the cutscene ends while the spray drop is shrinking, then the game fails to restore the spray drop to the world: the spray drop is forever stuck in its "being drank" state. Thus, a captain will start drinking it, but he can't stop drinking it without some intervention. Stay sober, kids.
There is one more glitch that acts like Object Restoration Failure, but I'm not sure if it's the same. Some cutscenes force captains to stand up, even if they're napsacked, softlocked, or dead: youtube.com/watch?v=wU6_DJCCJIk
However, this glitch seems to occur because the cutscene requires them to stand, not because of how they are restored to the world after the cutscene.
The reason I bring this all up is because I feel like there's more Object Restoration Failure glitches to be found. Take the set of all objects such that there exists a cutscene that focuses on the object. Each of these objects have glitch potential if we can put them in an obscure state while the cutscene focuses on it.
Fun fact: At the end of this video, I went to Dream Den level 8 on a file with every treasure collected, but as you can see, I had skipped many tutorial cutscenes in my playthrough. This is because this was actually the file from my completed A-Button Only Challenge, where I couldn't use sprays, and hazards were insta-deaths (youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvveNRCMXH9pU5FQ3zhwhKnz).
