The Long-Awaited Sequel Touches Down with New Pikmin Types, Gorgeous HD Graphics and a Variety of Single- and Multiplayer Modes

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– The sense of discovery from exploring a beautiful alien planet. The exhilaration of battling an imaginative array of strange creatures. The heartache of losing some of your devoted Pikmin to a hostile world. The satisfaction of leading an army of loyal Pikmin to victory. These are some of the feelings experienced when playing Pikmin 3, launching in stores and in the Nintendo eShop on Aug. 4, exclusively for the Wii U console. From the mind of Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of iconic series like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong, Pikmin is back … and the intergalactic adventure of a lifetime is about to begin.

Pikmin 3 tells the story of three space explorers – Alph, Brittany and Charlie – who crash land on an alien planet and must collect fruit for their starving home planet. To accomplish their goal of collecting fruit, the explorers must gather and lead an army of different Pikmin creatures, battle the local wildlife and work to solve puzzles, all before the sun goes down at the end of each day.

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Project Ravensdale, an “outrageous run&gun platformer” from Black Forest Games, may come to Wii U. The studio recently told us that “there is actually a good chance” of the game being brought over to the console.

Black Forest launched its Kickstarter for Project Ravensdale earlier this month. Currently, $43,000 of the $500,000 goal has been raised with 16 days remaining.

It’s not clear how a potential Wii U version would be affected if the title isn’t funded by August 16.

Project Ravensdale wouldn’t be Black Forest Games’ first Wii U title. The company is on the verge of releasing Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams for the eShop.

Most Smash Bros. fans likely didn’t expect Nintendo to announce Wii Fit Trainer as a playable character in the new Wii U and 3DS games. Yet, during E3 2013, Nintendo did just that. The company also revealed the Animal Crossing Villager, a character that you wouldn’t exactly peg as a fighter under normal circumstances.

Masahiro Sakurai told GamesTM this month that the their inclusion isn’t simply a means of surprising players. Rather, he feels that they “are very unique characters and they lend themselves well to the Smash Bros. family because they bring things we don’t already see.”

Sakurai said:

“The Wii Fit Trainer and the villager from Animal Crossing, there may be some people out there being like, ‘Okay, great, now you’re going out on a limb, you’re trying to do something strange or unusual, but there’s really no meaning behind it, you’re just doing it for…’ I don’t want to say shock value, per se, but just to surprise people. And that’s really not the case. I think these are very unique characters and they lend themselves well to the Smash Bros. family because they bring things we don’t already see.”

Thanks to joclo for sending this our way.

For the new Smash Bros. titles on Wii U and 3DS, Masahiro Sakurai posts new one new screenshot Mondays through Fridays on the game’s official website. He also shares each image on Miiverse and occasionally posts a message.

Sakurai’s latest notice covers the origins of the daily screenshot. He wrote:

The “pic of the day” originally started as a fun internal update for the people developing the game – we would put up a daily shot on our own corporate website. We soon decided that we wanted to share the fun with the general public, so that’s where we are today. Please keep in mind, though, that this is just meant to be a little bonus feature – we’ll continue to release other information about the game on the website.

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Update (7/31): Party’s over! Amazon changed the price back to $50.

Some have said that The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was too easy. For Wii U’s HD upgrade, it sounds like the game will be receiving a boost. A portion of a product description on Amazon mentions that Zelda: Wind Waker HD will include “a more challenging difficulty level.”

Speaking of Amazon, you can save 0 by pre-ordering with the retailer. Unlike other pre-order listings (such as Best Buy and GameStop), Amazon is taking reservations for $50 as opposed to $60. I’m not quite sure if this will end up being the standard MSRP, but you could always go with Amazon just to be safe.

Thanks to Jake and Andres for the tip.

Rune Factory 4 still doesn’t have a final release date. But with any luck, we’ll see it in late September or October.

North American publisher XSEED attributed the long wait to a longer QA process to ensure the game’s quality for English players. Rest assured that the company is “dying” to release the 3DS game.

“We’re dying to get it to you, but the game is absolutely massive and taking much longer to QA (play through the English for quality assurance) than we originally anticipated. Right now we could be looking at a late September or October release, but it will definitely be worth the wait.”

Rune Factory 4 was originally slated for summer, but XSEED wasn’t able to nail down an exact date. Now we know why.

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Precursor Games pledged support for Wii U in a big way when it announced Shadow of the Eternals for the console (and PC, later followed by PS4). Yet not all companies are willing to put out new titles for Nintendo’s system. There’s no denying that the Wii U is struggling, which is one of the big reasons why third-party support has been slim.

So what is it about the Wii U that drew Precursor to the console? Chief creative officer Denis Dyack pointed to a number of reasons in an interview with GameSpot:

“We like the Wii U. …Well, I think first of all we’re great friends with Nintendo. We love Nintendo. Also, Eternal Darkness got its roots with Nintendo and I think a spiritual successor should follow those roots and I think that was just natural. I also think that the controller and the system itself is very, very unique and leaves a lot of possibilities for us.”

Later in the interview, Dyack went on to speak about Nintendo’s recent struggles and said of the console race: it’s “way, way too early to tell.”

“I’m always very cautious about saying Nintendo’s put themselves in a corner or made a lot of huge mistakes because I’ve never seen a company surprise so many people and come out of nowhere to win and I think certainly this console race with the Wii U is way, way too early to tell. The people at Nintendo are extremely smart, really great people. We’ll see where it goes. I think it’s just too early to tell…”