Miyamoto Says Pikmin Returning to Its Roots

By Javier Jimenez 02.01.2013 10

Miyamoto Says Pikmin Returning to Its Roots on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

In an interview with GamesMaster, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that he disagreed with removing the anxiety inducing daily time limit for Pikmin 2. Miyamoto stated that "I couldn't agree with that direction... That kind of nature of Pikmin 1 was exactly what I wanted..."

When Pikmin 3 development began, Miyamoto says he "gathered the main members who worked on Pikmin 2 and talked about how I thought it was important to get back to the basics of Pikmin 1. Or I should say that half of my job at that time wasn't just to talk, but rather to persuade them to understand what I intended to do and to agree to my idea."

Pikmin 3, long requested by fans for the Nintendo Wii, was first announced in development way back at E3 2008, and then confirmed for Wii U at E3 2011. It was originally to be a "launch window" title for the Nintendo Wii U, however has recently been pushed back to 2nd quarter of 2013, between April and June.

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Box art for Pikmin 3
Developer

Nintendo

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Strategy

Players

4

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  10/10 (353 Votes)

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So basically "Miyamoto Says games should stop advancing, always be exactly the same as the first notable entry in the series" because it seems that way with Mario and Zelda sometimes-

Jokes aside, I kinda get where he's coming from. Having no time limit on Pikmin 2 definitely took away from the desperation and anxiety, both were important elements of the first game.. however, back to basics? Not to mention the utter frustration of messing up irreversibly in Pikmin 1.

I hope they know what they're doing..! Both Pikmin games were amazing, so either way I'm really looking forward to it. I just want the series to evolve and grow as well.

Twitter | C3 Writer/Moderator | Backloggery

Well we can already see the series is advancing with more focus on AI. I totally get what he's saying though. Sometimes giving people what they want, leads to a worse game.


  • For example No More Heroes 2 fixed everything that people complained about in the first game, is it as good, no. Without the tedious bits, you don't get that sense of achievement when you get to the next boss.
  • People complained in the older resident evil games that it was difficult to kill zombies, there was hardly any ammo and camera angles made it difficult to see. Resident Evil 4 fixed these issues and at the same time sucked all the atmosphere out of the game.
  • In Metroid Prime 2 people complained about the amount of backtracking, Metroid Prime 3 removes that and we're left with a series of disconnected worlds.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next sin and punishment is twice as long because everyone bitched about it being too short. Sometimes people need to shut up and let the creators, create.

( Edited 02.01.2013 19:35 by JayUK )

Gaaah, but the time limit is the one thing I didn't like about Pikmin 1, loved that it was gone in Pikmin 2! :/ Miyamoto seems to be only holding games back for the last generation or so. 

Hm, that works both ways, Jay. You win some, you lose some; whether that's by listening to feedback or not. That said, Resi 4 was the game that actually brought me back in to the series properly. At the time, I preferred Echoes to Prime (actually beat Echoes first, since I was stuck on the final boss in Prime for too long). And I preferred NMH2 to the first for doing away with the more tedious stuff. So whilst some changes seem bad to you, they can be good for others.

Maybe it's just me, but I think there are much better ways to create anxiety or stress. Having the environment or enemies do that (like in the later caves of Pikmin 2) is much more satisfying than an artificial time limit.

My personal opinion is that this is great. I felt Pikmin 1 had better level design, better puzzly stuff, and the time limit was a compelling, fun mechanic. Pikmin 2's caves were tedious and the powerups somewhat broken. We'll have to wait and see just how good Pikmin 3 is, however the E3 vids look great. I am excite!

Iamsupercrazyy (guest) 03.01.2013#7

Maybe giving people the choice...to choose between their preferred style of play might be cool.
It would be a super complex thing to make I guess?

ercbeer (guest) 03.01.2013#8

I personally hate timed games...If this is how Pikmin 3 is going to be...I might have to skip.  It's what I hated most about Pikmin 1---never had the opportunity to play 2.  I like my games to be fun...not frustrating.  Time is a way to ultimately make a game frustrating.  

Darkflame (guest) 04.01.2013#9

Timed? no thanks.
Guess I have less reason to want a WiiU now (just Lego City Stories), save my wallet.

Monolith + Retro, its all up to you now to make me want a WiiU ! 

jres80 said:
My personal opinion is that this is great. I felt Pikmin 1 had better level design, better puzzly stuff, and the time limit was a compelling, fun mechanic. Pikmin 2's caves were tedious and the powerups somewhat broken. We'll have to wait and see just how good Pikmin 3 is, however the E3 vids look great.

Agreed on those points, while I'm not a fan of Miyamoto clinging to the past, Pikmin 1's stage design definitly felt better to me, and the caves of Pikmin 2 were tedious as hell.

Plus.. the waterwraith..  one of the most fascinating but terrifying creatures ever. I hope Pikmin 3 has terrifying creatures like that and the smoky progg.

Twitter | C3 Writer/Moderator | Backloggery

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