Miyamoto: Pikmin 3 Was Tested On Nintendo Handhelds But Just Didn’t Feel Right

Pikmin 3 has made a solid debut in the UK charts placing at number 2, but previous to making the Wii U its current home, the colourful fruit collection game was also tested for the DS and 3DS, as we reported last month. In an interview with 4Gamer, with translations from KameDani, Shigeru Miyamoto has now revealed the reason behind its evolution to the Wii U and why it just didn’t work on Nintendo handhelds.

“The truth is we were doing prototype tests of Pikmin for the DS and 3DS but it turned into unit management with only the touch pen and no matter what it just didn’t seem like Pikmin. We concluded that Pikmin is a game that revolves around action based on its controls and the strategy sits on top that.  Although there are elements that are built on the strategy, there are other overall things that have to be well considered.  This complete experience is an important element of Pikmin.

“The truth is when we made 1, we were trying to make the easiest to control 3D game around. The focal point was Olimar walking around on screen but the majority of the interface was those controls.  They didn’t interfere with anything else.  There weren’t many 3D games that were that simple to move around in since you could play without even having to control the camera.”

Miyamoto concluded that,  though the title can seem difficult at first, the controls are relatively easy to get to grips with: “Even if you find using the pointer difficult, there is a control method using the GamePad similar to the previous GameCube titles that we’d like people to utilize. To that end, we hope people are able to look at this as a carefree, easy action game.”