Information on Pikmin 3

With all that has been revealed across the Nintendo Directs this year, and the new Pikmin 3 website: pikmin3.nintendo.com/  There are plenty of new concepts to talk about. In this blog entry, I'll list a few that I thought were particularly noteworthy.

1. New Pikmin:

This had to be here of course. In Pikmin 3, two new pikmin types have been added. Rock Pikmin, who are immune to being crushed and can be thrown to shatter crystals, and Flying Pikmin, who are bright pink (and may be my new favorite type of pikmin) and are able to carry items and fight in the air. They can also fly over water and lift obstacles out of the way.

2. New Captains:

Can't deny that it saddens me to say goodbye to our beloved Olimar and Louie (at least for the story mode). In their place now, we have Alph, Brittany and Charlie. It should be noted hat none of them are Hocotations. They are from a new, starving planet called Koppai. They don't look very different from Hocotations though. The main differences I noticed are that their eyes are more wide open, and their noses are a bit smaller. As for the individual captains:

First up is Alph, a mechanical genius dressed in blue, who's grandfather designed this game's ship: the S.S. Drake. He seems to be the main captain this time around as well.

Second is Bittany. Dressed in pink, she is an expert on plantlife and a very enthusiastic eater. I must say that I'm glad they added a female protagonist to these games. I look forward to seeing how she turns out.

Last up is Charlie. He is dressed in Green, and is the most seasoned member of the crew. He appears to be fairly burly and is larger than the other two members. It should also be noted that he always takes a rubber ducky with him on missions for good luck.

The only other thing I think should be mentioned about the captains is that they talk again now. The text bubbles are no longer the ship talking to the captains, so I look forward to seeing if these characters develop. Also, it has been confirmed that Olimar will be playable in the game's bingo battle mode.

3. Collecting Fruit:

I saw early on in the Nintendo Directs that the captains were only collecting fruit. At first I thought it wasn't a great idea, and I figured they just wanted it to be different from the previous two games. But, I kept my mind open. When Nintendo revealed why, I personally thought that this concept was the best they could have come up with. Nintendo explained that the captains' home planet, Koppai, is starving. And the captains are here to gather the planet's large fruits. When they do so, they collect the seeds to be sent back to their home planet. Also, they keep the juice for themselves so that they have their own food supply on their journey. What this amounts to in gameplay is that you have to keep collecting fruit in order to keep up your own food stocks. If you don't collect enough fruit, then you will be forced to return to your home planet. I think this creates a perfect balance between the absolute time limit of the first game, and the infinite time of the second game. Cheers to you Nintendo!

4. Purple and White Pikmin? :

In all of the previews of the game, our favorite little cave dwellers were not to be seen in any of the videos. When asked, Nintendo stated that the pikmin are in the game however. It was only in the past couple days that the exact meaning of this was revealed. Purple and White pikmin seem to only be in the game's challenge mode. So far, there have been no signs of the captains needing to go in caves in this game, so this makes sense. I can't deny, since white pikmin are my favorites at the moment, I'm gonna miss the little guys in story mode. I'm glad they are in the game at least, but I hope that there will be some way for them to appear in the story mode. Perhaps after you have completed the game in some new game +.

5. Other noteworthy changes:

The new battle mode has been refined so that your goal is to collect treasures and enemies in order to form a bingo. It's difficult to explain in words, but here is a link to the page: pikmin3.nintendo.com/bingo-bat… I also noticed that one of the enemies listed to collect in the screenshot was a bulbmin, which means they are at least in this game. Also, in this mode, both sides can now get multiple types of pikmin. What distinguishes what side a pikmin is on is the color of their leaf/bud/flower.

It also seems that this game, both in battle mode and challenge mode, will be only up to 2 players. Although, there is a 2v2 option for battle mode, but this may just mean that each player controls two captains.

Last of all, it seems that their is one, multicolored "onion" in this game, although, it doesn't look much like an onion. It looks very mechanical to me. But, it is constantly changing colors, and seems to house all of the pikmin. I'll be honest, I don't know if I like this concept, but we'll have to see the full game to know how it works.
_______________________________________________________________________________

I think that about covers it. Overall, Pikmin 3 looks like a fantastic game to me. It comes out in 3 days, on August 4th, 2013. I'm sure I'm not the only one that cannot wait to get their hands on this new game. To be honest, it's the main reason I got a Wii-U (which I must say is worth getting. Great console).


Either way, what are all of your opinions on the next Pikmin game? If you like, leave a comment below stating your opinion or perhaps adding to what has been listed here.









- Ventus