We plucked a set of story mode impressions.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressions/34882
Pikmin 3 begins with the story of the planet Koppai. Its people have destroyed their ecosystem and are getting close to starving. They send out "SPERO" probes in search of food, and just when their search seems to have failed, they find a match. A team is sent out to investigate, but before landing, the crew is ejected from their ship, the Drake. They all survive, but initially crashland on different continents and must find each other.
The story follows Captain Charlie, Alph the engineer, and Brittany the botanist in their search for fruit. They juice the fruit, saving the juice for their own consumption and storing the seeds to be planted on their home world. Though the targets are now fruit rather than treasure, you'll still need to find and use a variety of discarded bits of humanity to complete your goals.
The planet they've landed on is the planet of the Pikmin, who the crew quickly meet. The first stages introduce different Pikmin sequentially, starting with the Red Pikmin, Rock Pikmin, and Yellow Pikmin. The colored Pikmin retain their elemental abilities, with red Pikmin resistant to fire and yellow resistant to electricity. The Rock Pikmin are heavy and can be used to shatter crystals, glass, and enemies' shells.
It's clear that somebody has been there before, from telltale signs on previous rocket launches and scattered data files that describe Pikmin behavior. It is revealed that Captain Olimar had been there earlier and had left those files.
Pikmin 3 plays much like Pikmin 2, except that there are three explorers and teams of Pikmin to control instead of two. Levels are crafted in interesting ways such that sometimes you can set one team on a job and switch to another or you may have to coordinate multiple teams to reach otherwise unreachable locations.
The general gameplay doesn't deviate greatly from previous Pikmin, but various elements have been refined, such as the camera system. Some simple changes have been made that allow quicker management of your Pikmin. For instance, the different Pikmin Onion ships now merge together, housing multiple types of Pikmin. The touch screen map makes it easier to locate your Pikmin so you're less likely to leave your cohort to die from predation or drowning.
With regards to time pressure, Pikmin 3 seeks to strike a balance between the fixed 30 days of Pikmin and the lack of limit in Pikmin 2. While there is no fixed day limit, if you run out of juice, it will be game over. Thus, the gameplay oscillates between exploring and recovering fruit. The day system is still intact, and you need to make sure that your Pikmin are safe before the day ends. However, some changes remain across days -- for instance, damage you do to bosses is retained, allowing you to spread out battles across multiple days if necessary.
Pikmin 3 includes a very flexible set of control schemes. You can use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the GamePad's classic controls, or the Pro Controller. The GamePad is used in each of these schemes as a secondary screen that includes status information, helpful tips, an overhead map. You can also play the game without a TV using any of the three control schemes. In the Remote and Nunchuk case, you can point at the GamePad screen's integrated sensor bar to play the game.
The GamePad also can be used as a camera, and the natural settings and amusing Pikmin behavior make for interesting shots that you can post. Pikmin 3's graphics are greatly improved, though I wouldn't say they've hit photorealism. Still, the camera allows for some creative shots.
The game appears full of little references. The planet is referred to as PNF-404, which appears to be a reference to the WWW's "Not Found" error code. The character's names also appear to be loosely based on the NATO alphabet, and their home planet Koppai is part of Nintendo's original name, Nintendo Koppai.
While the original Pikmin games appeared to take place on a future Earth where mankind has gone extinct, Pikmin 3 seems to take place even further into the future. Though the game takes place in Koppai's year "20XX," the landmasses appear to be positioned in a way that plate tectonics predict will occur in around 250 million years. The first level takes place in "East Asia", which is now tundra, the second in "Antarctica," which is jungle, and the third in "Australia," the latter two of which have collided.
Pikmin 3 expands upon its predecessors in some pretty logical ways, but the new characters and story could open some interesting new avenues. Even in the early levels, it was pretty clear the solving puzzles will require a range of coordination and multitasking activities and I'm exciting to see what else it will bring.
Topic: Pikmin 3 Impressions (Read 3532 times)
