captain olimar is going to the pikmin planet to do field studys. on the pikmin planet, a dark ball comes out of the ground and hits a pikmin, transforming it into a shadow pikmin. it then goes and makes more pikmin into shadow pikmin. then, it leaps up and hits olimar's ship. then olimar wakes up as a pikmin. with the help of more red pikmin, he makes a hideout. soon after, olimar encores shadow pikmin and finds a way to purtify them. with a blue candypop bud, olimar finds blue pikmin. after making a fort for both pikmin colers, he goes back to the red pikmin and takes them along with a raft. once he gets there, he finds a big wogpole. using blues, he shunk the wogpole back to original sise.