Pikmin 3 goes 'back to the basics,' adds more stress

Nintendo games are generally known for ease-of-use, but producer Shigeru Miyamoto felt the series went a little too far in Pikmin 2 and wants to get back to the core of the series with Pikmin 3. More specifically, he wants to stress you out a little, because that's what makes a good strategy game.

"First of all by looking at Pikmin 1 we noticed that it wasn't a very easy game for people to play, and from time to time they had to feel some stress," Miyamoto told the UK magazine GamesMaster (via OXM UK). "Our main aim in Pikmin 2 was to get rid of any stress as much as possible, so that it would be very user-friendly. Well, I myself couldn't agree with that direction perfectly. That kind of nature of Pikmin 1 was exactly what I wanted to reproduce and I was actually intentionally doing so, so that Pikmin 1 could be a strategic game."

As a result, Miyamoto says that when they started this new project, he met with the Pikmin 2 team members to persuade them. "When we started creating Pikmin 3 I 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," he said. "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."

So those of you who felt Pikmin 2 was too easy, rejoice. The upcoming Wii U game should provide more of a challenge.