The Problem with Most Pikmin 3 Ideas

[ILUVGames0920]

Look at this: [link=http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/35222/pikmin-3-ideas/]http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/35222/pikmin-3-ideas/[/link]

It's an article about some "new" Pikmin ideas the community has thought up.

But, as I was reading, I noticed something just wrong about how the ideas were put together. Something every single horrible ([link=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YMMV]YMMV[/link]) Pikmin idea has in common.

They are too complicated.

Now, I have seen some ideas, ranging from bad, to worse, to awful, to God-awful, to Oh-my-gawd-I-really-wanna-kill-this-person awful. Now, I don't want to point anyone here out, but just keep these things in mind.

I mean seriously people, the author of the article said it himself: "This is beginning to sound a bit Pokemon...."

And that's the problem here! This is freaking Pikmin we are talking about! Not Pokemon, or Mario Galaxy, or even The Legend of Zelda! PIKMIN.

And Pikmin, for the most part, is known for being innovative. Pikmin provides a fresh new twist on the Real-Time Strategy Genre by providing you with some set goals and actually putting you in charge of the captain yourself rather than some omnipotent higher being.

Pikmin can also be described as being unique. What other game puts you in charge of a spaceman who crash-lands on an unknown planet and has to rely on small plant-animal aliens to help him fix his Ship and blast off back to his home? I think when it comes to uniqueness, Pikmin is the master.

But most of all, Pikmin is simple, to which a lot of fans are completely missing the point of. Now, I wouldn't call Pikmin the sort of game you "pick-up-and-play", but I do believe that Miyamoto is able to prevent the game from becoming so complicated that it becomes unappealing to newbies, so complicated that it would only grab fans of Pikmin and Real-Time Strategy.

Now, I should probably talk about the "terrible" ideas people are giving to Miyamoto, that he probably won't even bother wiping his butt on. They fall into a few categories:

New Pikmin:

No, I am not saying that Pikmin should have no new Pikmin. What I should've titled this part was, "New Overpowered Overcomplicated Pikmin", but that would have been too long.

Anyways, most new Pikmin ideas provide terrible examples of new Pikmin. Overpowered, overcomplicated Pikmin that would probably make the game too easy to play through with. Imagine a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Dynamite. Not know what that is? It's a variation on Rock-Paper-Scissors adding a 4th Item, Dynamite. The problem with Dynamite is, it beats out rock and paper but loses to scissors. That means that scissors beats out two items, dynamite beats out two items, but rock and paper only beat out one item. Unfortunately, there just isn't a four-way game of rock-paper-scisors that prevents every item from getting an equal advantage.

That's probably the reason why Miyamoto doesn't want to add too much Pikmin into the game. One might get an unfair advantage over the others.

New Creatures:

New creatures aren't bad either, but some people have a different idea of "good Pikmin creatures" than others. What I really dislike are enemies that one-hit kill all your Pikmin. Not like the Volatile Dweevil, those come out of nowhere and surprise you, I like that. But some fan-made enemies are made out to be way too overpowered. Like OVAR 9000 overpowered. As said above, I would rather have new enemies and Pikmin that require more strategy than just enemies that are easy to kill but have an overpowered attack. Also, I would prefer humans not be in the game as a boss, because I cannot imagine killing a human and taking its remains to the Onions to make more Pikmin. Just... no.

New Areas:

I am also not saying that new areas are bad, but also in the link above, some people are suggesting new entire planets, though I would say that I would prefer we actually explore the entirety of "Earth" instead of making other planets that only serve as one set of places. Instead of new planets, maybe add in the other 6 continents to the game since Pikmin 1 and 2 both supposedly take place in Africa. So again, all I am saying is that I don't really want this game to end up like Mario Galaxy 2, where one galaxy only serves one small purpose, instead of possibly fully exploring the planet Earth and learning more about civilization.

New Gameplay Mechanics:

Sure, I do like new game mechanics and all, but still, as I have said before, Pikmin is simple. I really don't want to end up with something that's too complicated to work out. For example, the upgrade-ish system of Pikmin 2 was nice because it was light and unique. I don't want to go through tons of screens, searching for things I need to collect and checking how many Pikmin are still with me. Likewise, I wouldn't want this game to be too meaty as to no one will bother searching for 100% completion because there is simply too much stuff with not enough motivation to find, or in other words, having the game be so stale that no one will bother finding everything the game has to offer. New is good, and simpler is better.

 

[Tropic-Gin]

Finally. I dunno if my idea thread falls into these, my game idea threads are pretty simple and relatable.

But yes, over the years of reading pikmin ideas, and such,is the fact that there are some that are pretty unrealistic or ridiculous at times.

Things like that can make great fic and story devices, but as functional game pieces, they are really too over the top. A giant all killing mega giant death worm that can 1 hit kill your army would be something as a final boss in story, but including it in a game would be a bit crazy. 10/20+ new pikmin sounds cool, but could you really even keep track of them in the game?

The WiiU AR ideas would be great...for a side game 3DS pikmin thing with minigames, etc, raise your own Pikmin. Most of em anyways. I could see the drag around thing as a possibility on a 3DS/WiiU release, maybe not the main scheme for WiiU, but for 3DS, it'd be perfect and I've always thought that would be cool.

But there are a few down to earth ideas like a fire, desertbeach rocky area. Those are definately areas that might be possibilities. Beach would make for such an interesting thing.

Make it for Nintendo 3DS

No, do not, you can do all that side little games and spinoff things and easter eggs...but don't do Pikmin 3 on it, unless you also release it on WiiU...sorta like the Smash Bros thing.

I'm almost tempted to post on there and share some of my ideas...hmm...

 

[spigelwii]

Good thread, Games. It's about time somebody other than me recognizes that this community is filled with ideas that need improving. I'm actually not in favor of adding new colors so much as I am adding new gameplay mechanics. What if there was an air shaft that you had to throw your Pikmin into to get across a ravine? Or certain areas where you can only take specific colors of Pikmin, like Reds into a volcano? What if there were Pikmin that fought against your Pikmin, or...gasp! What if Pikmin 3 was actually co-op? One person could play as Olimar, and the other would have to play as the President.

New moves perhaps. What if the Purple Pikmin learned a sort of automatically executed 'body slam' that is more powerful against smaller enemies, rather than simply stunning them. Could you find items that allowed Blue Pikmin to shoot streams of water at enemies? Even Olimar himself could learn some cool moves like jumping or maybe rolling the Pikmin like bowling balls so they can get underneath various small openings.

Pikmin 3 is also begging for a story other than "Find the ship parts so you can live" or "Find the treasure so we can be rich". Maybe Olimar's son is kidnapped somehow, and Olimar has to travel to different planets with the Pikmin in order to rescue him. Think about all the creative opportunities this affords the gamemakers.

These are the kinds of ideas I would like to see from the Pikmin Board, but I haven't seen any of these before. These ideas don't make the game more complicated, really, just more interesting.

 

[Tropic-Gin]

I've talked about the idea of a co-op story mode a few times actually.


But we have been pretty scarce in really any sort of ideas on this board in a while. Ideas boomed from like 2006-2009, now things sorta just seem like fic/rpg game related ideas with the idea thread thrown in between.

 

[zachpikminman]

I think they should only have 2 types of new Pikmin at the very most. Co-op story wouldn't be too complicated I probably wouldn't use it much but it would be nice. I had a creature Idea which wasn't too complicated which was that their should be a creature like a snitchbug but instead it plucks pikmin that are planted in the ground and eats them but it can only eat the pikmin with the same colour as it if it ate a different coloured one it would die but only a pikmin of the same colour as it could attack e.g blue pikmin on blue pluckbug (not sure of a name but hey I tried)

 

[spigelwii]

I think they should only have 2 types of new Pikmin at the very most. Co-op story wouldn't be too complicated I probably wouldn't use it much but it would be nice. I had a creature Idea which wasn't too complicated which was that their should be a creature like a snitchbug but instead it plucks pikmin that are planted in the ground and eats them but it can only eat the pikmin with the same colour as it if it ate a different coloured one it would die but only a pikmin of the same colour as it could attack e.g blue pikmin on blue pluckbug (not sure of a name but hey I tried)

See, in my opinion, that's too complicated. The plucking is fine, but why would it accidentally eat a Pikmin of a different color? Think of the extra programming the enemy would have to have. And different colors? That's a bit much. The original idea is simple and well done, so why make it more complicated than it has to be?

 

[zachpikminman]

I think they should only have 2 types of new Pikmin at the very most. Co-op story wouldn't be too complicated I probably wouldn't use it much but it would be nice. I had a creature Idea which wasn't too complicated which was that their should be a creature like a snitchbug but instead it plucks pikmin that are planted in the ground and eats them but it can only eat the pikmin with the same colour as it if it ate a different coloured one it would die but only a pikmin of the same colour as it could attack e.g blue pikmin on blue pluckbug (not sure of a name but hey I tried)

See, in my opinion, that's too complicated. The plucking is fine, but why would it accidentally eat a Pikmin of a different color? Think of the extra programming the enemy would have to have. And different colors? That's a bit much. The original idea is simple and well done, so why make it more complicated than it has to be?

I suppose but the idea if too simple will not be any good. I do see your point though. It could just be their are different coloured ones but they can eat any pikmin but only a certain colour Pikmin can attack them.

 

[Patwhit01]

I think 3 new Pikmin should be added. They have some sort of pattern:

Pikmin 1: 3 Pikmin (Red,Blue,Yellow)

Pikmin 2: 2 Pikmin Added
Pikmin 3: 3 Pikmin Added

C wat I did thar?

Ok, no overpowered Pikmin, that's Purple's job.
One of the most common ideas iv'e seen is Orange Pikmin with shells, impervious to explosions, but have the same speed as Purples. Good idea, but they should have Blue/Yellow attack power. To make it fair.

I don't care what they add, I just want the game released.

 

[Tropic-Gin]

I think 3 new Pikmin should be added. They have some sort of pattern:

Pikmin 1: 3 Pikmin (Red,Blue,Yellow)

Pikmin 2: 2 Pikmin Added
Pikmin 3: 3 Pikmin Added

C wat I did thar?

Ok, no overpowered Pikmin, that's Purple's job.
One of the most common ideas iv'e seen is Orange Pikmin with shells, impervious to explosions, but have the same speed as Purples. Good idea, but they should have Blue/Yellow attack power. To make it fair.

I don't care what they add, I just want the game released.

Actually, Pikmin 2 has 3 new ones, including Bulbmin.

I would like to see a beast or beasts that sting poison into pikmin and they are basically rescued by whistling too. Maybe an enemy covered in poison barbs, only defeatable by white pikmin.

 

[zachpikminman]

I think they should get rid of bulbmin. I really didn't like them. Caves were so easy when you had them. And Bumbling snitchbug I hated those things. They weren't challenging they were just annoying.

 

[Patwhit01]

I think 3 new Pikmin should be added. They have some sort of pattern:

Pikmin 1: 3 Pikmin (Red,Blue,Yellow)

Pikmin 2: 2 Pikmin Added
Pikmin 3: 3 Pikmin Added

C wat I did thar?

Ok, no overpowered Pikmin, that's Purple's job.
One of the most common ideas iv'e seen is Orange Pikmin with shells, impervious to explosions, but have the same speed as Purples. Good idea, but they should have Blue/Yellow attack power. To make it fair.

I don't care what they add, I just want the game released.

Actually, Pikmin 2 has 3 new ones, including Bulbmin.

I would like to see a beast or beasts that sting poison into pikmin and they are basically rescued by whistling too. Maybe an enemy covered in poison barbs, only defeatable by white pikmin.

Dang it. I forgot about Bulbmin. Make that 4 new Pikmin then! Just kidding. That idea sounds great. *thinks of name* Toxic Bulborb! So original.

 

[Tropic-Gin]

I think 3 new Pikmin should be added. They have some sort of pattern:

Pikmin 1: 3 Pikmin (Red,Blue,Yellow)

Pikmin 2: 2 Pikmin Added
Pikmin 3: 3 Pikmin Added

C wat I did thar?

Ok, no overpowered Pikmin, that's Purple's job.
One of the most common ideas iv'e seen is Orange Pikmin with shells, impervious to explosions, but have the same speed as Purples. Good idea, but they should have Blue/Yellow attack power. To make it fair.

I don't care what they add, I just want the game released.

Actually, Pikmin 2 has 3 new ones, including Bulbmin.

I would like to see a beast or beasts that sting poison into pikmin and they are basically rescued by whistling too. Maybe an enemy covered in poison barbs, only defeatable by white pikmin.

Dang it. I forgot about Bulbmin. Make that 4 new Pikmin then! Just kidding. That idea sounds great. *thinks of name* Toxic Bulborb! So original.

Thorny Bulborb?
Purple Bulborb?

 

[Patwhit01]

Steveborb.

 

[taiwanman0610]

I want a little hub world in pikmin, like the comet observatory in SMG. I want to just goof around with the pikmin from time to time, but there are those time limits...

I dunno. Maybe it could be the spaceship that Olimar travels in.

 

[ILUVGames0920]

I shall now review some of the ideas here.

...new gameplay mechanics. What if there was an air shaft that you had to throw your Pikmin into to get across a ravine? Or certain areas where you can only take specific colors of Pikmin, like Reds into a volcano? What if there were Pikmin that fought against your Pikmin, or...gasp! What if Pikmin 3 was actually co-op? One person could play as Olimar, and the other would have to play as the President.

New moves perhaps. What if the Purple Pikmin learned a sort of automatically executed 'body slam' that is more powerful against smaller enemies, rather than simply stunning them. Could you find items that allowed Blue Pikmin to shoot streams of water at enemies? Even Olimar himself could learn some cool moves like jumping or maybe rolling the Pikmin like bowling balls so they can get underneath various small openings.

Hmm... I dunno. It seems a LITTLE bit too complicated, but would depend on what the controls would be. As I have said before, I wouldn't want to have too many controls to bother with.

I would prefer Captain upgrades rather than Pikmin upgrades, btw. I wouldn't know how you would be able to upgrade Pikmin, anyways. Like, you can simply tweak the Captain's suits to make them stronger, but Pikmin? I dunno.

...I had a creature Idea which wasn't too complicated which was that their should be a creature like a snitchbug but instead it plucks pikmin that are planted in the ground and eats them but it can only eat the pikmin with the same colour as it if it ate a different coloured one it would die but only a pikmin of the same colour as it could attack e.g blue pikmin on blue pluckbug (not sure of a name but hey I tried)

Okay, I liked the first part better. Making the enemies different colors would overcomplicate things. How about just one type of that enemy, that can be easily defeated by all types of Pikmin. So basically your thinking of gping back to your base and seeing that bug eating up your Pikmin? Maybe there should be a way to monitor that.

I think 3 new Pikmin should be added. They have some sort of pattern:

Pikmin 1: 3 Pikmin (Red,Blue,Yellow)

Pikmin 2: 2 Pikmin Added
Pikmin 3: 3 Pikmin Added

C wat I did thar?

Ok, no overpowered Pikmin, that's Purple's job.
One of the most common ideas iv'e seen is Orange Pikmin with shells, impervious to explosions, but have the same speed as Purples. Good idea, but they should have Blue/Yellow attack power. To make it fair.

I don't care what they add, I just want the game released.

Sounds alright. But maybe change the shell part, I think it should be a facial feature like the other Pikmin.

I want a little hub world in pikmin, like the comet observatory in SMG. I want to just goof around with the pikmin from time to time, but there are those time limits...

I dunno. Maybe it could be the spaceship that Olimar travels in.

Nah, the ship would be too small. I see your idea, but where would the hub be?

 

[ILUVGames0920]

Bump

 

[Tropic-Gin]

We could do a hub world of sorts, well, more of a creative menu. Think of Mario Party with it's creative ones. We could do it somewhat like that and have different modes represented as different parts of the ship. Story mode would be the entrance to the captains seat, options would be in the control room, challenge mode would be a different room, special movies would be a small tv or something. It could be possible.

Maybe even a small training ground, just an area where you can just screw around in it, different things in it, practice enemies, pellets, bridges,walls, etc, sorta just made for fun, you lose nothing, gain nothing, well, besides some experience and controls. I dunno, it could be a pointless addition or could be a useful one depending on how it's done.

 

[zachpikminman]

New pikmin is always a problem because everyone wants green ones however I doubt they will look any good. Also what will there powers be? I find the best idea are the new enemies ones.

 

[nhkawaguchi]

I think the leaders should have some unique abilities too.
throw distance, speed, etc.

 

[QBZpik]

Only Pikmin ideas I have ever pitched:

Nectar Spray - It kills me walking by piles of nectar that can't be used. Have the ability to collect it as a spray which will move the Pikmin from leaves to buds and from buds to flowers. It is a logical nerf that ensures it isn't overdone.

Caves that Lead Elsewhere - The main complaint of Pikmin 2 were random caves that were repetitive. To fix this, make caves each have custom themes -or- make the caves necessary to unlock new areas or new parts of a map.

Night Time Exploration - Because it'd be effing amazing.

Pikmin Colors - I am not saying there need to be new pikmin types, but I am saying that, if there were new colors, those colors would have to be black, orange, and green. My slight OCD wants them to finish the two color wheels they started [primary (Red / Blue / Yellow) secondary(Purple / GREEN / ORANGE) and monochrome (White / BLACK)]

 

[ILUVGames0920]

Only Pikmin ideas I have ever pitched:

Nectar Spray - It kills me walking by piles of nectar that can't be used. Have the ability to collect it as a spray which will move the Pikmin from leaves to buds and from buds to flowers. It is a logical nerf that ensures it isn't overdone.

Meh, I suppose, but why have a Nectar Spray when we already can upgrade our Pikmin with regular Nectar? I mean, you can find eggs and grass pretty much anywhere, unless you mean when you're in the midst of a battle and need to heal your Pikmin quickly or something. In which case, yes.

Caves that Lead Elsewhere - The main complaint of Pikmin 2 were random caves that were repetitive. To fix this, make caves each have custom themes -or- make the caves necessary to unlock new areas or new parts of a map.

Sounds good.

Night Time Exploration - Because it'd be effing amazing.

Erm, I guess that could be okay, but it sort of takes away the strategy element to the game if you can spend the night portion of the game as well in order to collect stuff. I mean, in the first two games, you sort of have a rush because you know you need to get everything done before night falls, but if you can explore during night, then it sort of takes away that rush, see what I mean?

Pikmin Colors - I am not saying there need to be new pikmin types, but I am saying that, if there were new colors, those colors would have to be black, orange, and green. My slight OCD wants them to finish the two color wheels they started [primary (Red / Blue / Yellow) secondary(Purple / GREEN / ORANGE) and monochrome (White / BLACK)

Well Pikmin 1 and 2 both introduced 3 new Pikmin types, and since I have slight OCD as well, Pikmin 3 should introduce 3 new types also.

We could do a hub world of sorts, well, more of a creative menu. Think of Mario Party with it's creative ones. We could do it somewhat like that and have different modes represented as different parts of the ship. Story mode would be the entrance to the captains seat, options would be in the control room, challenge mode would be a different room, special movies would be a small tv or something. It could be possible.

Maybe even a small training ground, just an area where you can just screw around in it, different things in it, practice enemies, pellets, bridges,walls, etc, sorta just made for fun, you lose nothing, gain nothing, well, besides some experience and controls. I dunno, it could be a pointless addition or could be a useful one depending on how it's done.

Yeah, whatever, just a simple training ground would sound nice.

I think the leaders should have some unique abilities too.
throw distance, speed, etc.

Makes sense, and sort of what I was trying to say.

 

[fireball6224]

srsly if pikmin lvd up then all I need is a lv100 red to own everything!
THIS IS NOT POKEMON IDIOTS! 20 diffrent pikmin? wtf?
train piks? No...
worst of all.... pikmin........ BREEDING? What is that! Its called an onion dufus!

some things just don't add up.... what I want? I don't want to revolutionize EVERYTHING! Make it a pikmin expansion pack of the sorts. More areas to explore. More treasures to find. New caves, and such. More foes to find. More traps to avoid.

we don't need too much to make p3 epic.

 

[nhkawaguchi]

I'm not too worried about it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were new playable characters.

 

[slick76jakers]

i have read all over the internet, and black, green, orange, and pink pikmin keep showing up. sounds good to me.
and about night exploration? NO. simply have a sort of survival mode to it. say, the ship malfunctions right at dusk, and you need to defend it and yourself with up to 100 pikmin until the morning. it would rock on multiplayer, and personally, i think it would completely MAKE multiplayer. XD

 

[zachpikminman]

We shall see if anyone's came true or similar ones arose soon enough.

 

[fireball6224]

well pink appeared.. and now everyone woill be making "pikmin 4 idea" thereads

 

[DSP3333]

I think colors for ''pluckbugs'' should be ok, but for example, blue pikmin would be immune to blue pluckbugs. But all other pikmins would be affected by the blue pluckbug's attacks. While plucking, the creature would spray the pikmin with water. (Or another element depending of the creature's color, blue, red, yellow, or white-purple for poison) it would be like the Dweevil family. There could even be a ''volatile pluckbug'' that would try to reach you and explode. Oh, and for the green pikmin, they could be immune to mud! Like blue pikmins but green. They would also be faster at building and digging.
...or they may mostly be brown pikmin...

I dunno.