Much better than Lost in Blue 1, gives you the satisfaction of building a life from scratch!
Other minigames include cooking which is quite logical - just don't throw all types of food into the recipe, choose carefully i.e. all fish together, or two fish and two cocounts. The other minigame is building furniture, this game can be challenging at time as you have to use logic to find out where to place the wood.
Your partner is much more useful in this game than in the first Lost in Blue, he/she will collect firewood and food if you ask, and they are essential for turning raw materials into useful things such as rope. They also can survive better if you leave water and packed lunches in the cupboard.
It will probably take you about 25 game days to be ready enough to think about escaping the island, there are 5 different endings which means you can play again to get all the different endings. Again common sense can be used to trigger these endings - i.e. getting to the highest peak on the island to spot a helicopter. But there are also more obscure endings - i.e. diving for a map, or retrieving a radio from a gorilla...
Exploring the island is very fun, there are lots of hidden things that can be found and events that can be triggered. Even when you are prepared enough to leave the island, you will want to stay as there are plenty of things to do such as building treehouses to live in and making all your furniture as good as it can be.
Unlike Lost in Blue 1, you can be either gender, which is good for us females. For those who have played LiB1, I would say this game is much easier as although the island is bigger, you can create many shortcuts that shorten the journey time. It also seems like its easier to stay alive as there is more food available and forms of storing food in packed lunches and bottles, I always used to spend 2 or 3 days preparing for a journey in LiB1 and still die very quickly. However there are of course some downsides, collecting materials can be tedious and you have to wait a few gamedays for it to respawn. Dying still happens if you aren't careful, and this can mean that you have to replay whole days. Also the game does become boring after a while, I wouldn't say it is the kind of game I would like to restart completely, once you have done everything there is to do (built both treehouses, upgraded all furniture etc) then the cartridge will most likely just sit gathering dust. I haven't played the multiplayer mode, but it is only available through wireless (No wi-fi) and as far as I'm aware it just consists of three minigames (goat milking being one..). Serious Survival Mode is available once you've completed the game once, it is the original game except you have no partner to help you, meaning it is harder.
Overall this is a very addictive game, when you first start playing you may find it a bit overwhelming but after you've got used to it you won't be able to put it down once you've escaped from the island!