HOW TO DOWNLOAD PIKMIN SQUARED
this is a romhack i’ve been recommended time and time again as a better way of playing pikmin 1, without it being buggy and jank! and hoo boy it’s a good one. it’s just regular pikmin 1, but running on pikmin 2’s engine, along with some quality of life features lost in the switch port like cutscene skipping. (it’s also got an entire side campaign with louie if you’re into that!) this makes the game way more fun in my opinion. if you’re into romhacks, or don’t have a switch, i’d suggest playing pikmin this way. HOWEVER. getting pikmin squared to work on windows was incredibly confusing for me my first go-around, so here's a step by step for others who want it!
first, you'll need an emulator. dolphin is free and is the one i use, so that's the one ill be basing this tutorial off of.
I just downloaded the newest version, but if you have issues with getting it set up later, i've heard from others that the beta versions are more stable. don't quote me on that though! once you've downloaded it and extracted the zip, look for the application and open it. don't do anything yet!
next you'll need pikmin squared, which you can get pretty easily from pikhacker's website. extract it, and then look through until you find the patchers folder, and then the windows folder. once you open the windows folder it should look something like this, but without the third and fourth files.
since pikmin squared runs off of pikmin 2's engine, you'll need a pikmin 2 USA rom.
now, for some reason most pikmin mods only accept plain .iso roms, so basically any rom you can find in normal places wouldn't work. if the rom is an .RVZ, .CISO, or .NKIT file, it will NOT work with pikmin squared. it just wont. however, its extremely easy to convert NKIT files into plain old regular .iso files. i dont know if any other converters exist, but vimm's lair has one! just download the NKIT 1.4 + gamecube recovery files, its the second download link on the page.
as for the pikmin 2 NKIT rom itself, i legally cannot link it. do not under ANY circumstances poke around vimms lair some more to find it. its incredibly illegal and daddy nintendo will kick down your door and kill u. wink wink nudge nudge
anyway, you got all that downloaded? good. take a look inside the converter, it should look like this:
you're gonna wanna right click your pikmin 2 NKIT rom, go to more options, and open it with ConvertToISO. it probably wont show up as one of your first options, so click "choose another app" and rifle through your folders to find the converter. itll do its thing, and once its done, you'll have a nice .iso copy of pikmin 2!
make sure to put it in the folder with the pikmin squared stuff, and drag it onto the labeled .bat file. let THAT do its thing, and you should have a copy of pikmin squared! dont ask me how any of this actually works please, i have no idea!
getting dolphin to run it is pretty easy. itll ask you to select a directory folder, and i personally just used the windows one from before since it has the roms in it already. you should see something like this:
don't be worried if you dont have regular pikmin 2 as well, i dunno why i have it. you should be able to open the game now!
you'll need to set up your controls before you can actually play though, and dolphin has a variety of options. you can even use an actual gamecube controller with an adapter! i just use a regular wired xbox controller though... so ill just tell you how to set that one up.
open up controls. itll give you this menu!
you can ignore all the wii stuff, just make sure to set your controls to the usb port that you're using. the "standard controller" option is the one thatll work with xbox and playstation controllers! click configure, and youll be met with this menu, with different stuff selected obviously.
THIS IS SUPER SUPER IMPORTANT!!! make sure the device section at the top left is set to your xbox controller and NOT your keyboard. its gotta be on and plugged in for dolphin to recognize it as a device. otherwise, you wont be able to set any of your inputs!
now you can set your buttons to whatever you want em to be. id suggest following the format of the physical controller, but who knows! maybe you like going backward to go forward or something. the screenshot above has my controls if you need something to copy off of. save once you're done setting your controls, and then open up pikmin squared! you can play now! finally, after hours of hardship!
i hope this guide helps anyone who was confused about how to play this mod. god knows i was! now go play pikmin squared, you've earned it campers.
