ShareThis
Today’s Nintendo Direct wasn’t only about game announcements– during the broadcast, Nintendo revealed that it would also be releasing Shigeru Miyamoto’s animated Pikmin shorts on the eShop immediately following the presentation.
The films, dubbed Pikmin Short Movies, run about 20 minutes total and can be purchased through either the 3DS or Wii U eShop for $4.99. 3DS owners will be able to watch their movies in stereoscopic 3D, the way they premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival, while their Wii U counterparts will be displayed in high definition. Fans will also be able to see the storyboards that Miyamoto drafted for the films, which were drawn using FlipNote Studio.
Miyamoto also announced that Nintendo will be releasing a demo of Pikmin 3 in the Wii U eShop. Any progress made in the demo can be transferred over to the full title.
Are you going to purchase Pikmin Short Movies? Will you be watching them on 3DS or Wii U? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Nintendo Direct
My kids love Pikmin, and I’m quite curious about these videos. Having 3D video would be awesome, but because of the intended audience we’d almost certainly choose the Wii U versions instead.
However, is $5 for 20 minutes of video a good deal? Doesn’t really feel that way. I’ll wait for some review opinions before deciding.
I grabbed these on 3DS right away, and will probably get the HD version on Wii U too. I can’t get enough Pikmin, and these shorts are absolutely gorgeous and adorable.
I understand the price concerns and agree to an extent (for that same $5, Nintendo sells plenty of games that last a whole lot longer). But I enjoyed these short films more than any $5 fast food I’ve eaten, and can and will watch them plenty more times.
I wonder if Nintendo will throw these in with a Pikmin 3 DLC pack at some point, since it sounds like maybe they’re not quite done adding stuff to that (similarly gorgeous and adorable) game.
So I downloaded these for my kids, figuring that $5 isn’t too bad if they end up watching them a bunch of times.
For anyone curious, there are three animated shorts running about 2/8/12 minutes. We watched them all and brief, spoiler-free impressions posted below.
The first movie was cute, but lives up to the “short” name and basically boils down to a single joke. The second short was our favorite, a cute tale showing how Pikmin work together. The third seemed to lack focus and fell flat for both me and my kids – maybe it’s a good representation of what life is like for Pikmin, but it never felt engaging.
Were they worth $5? Honestly, I’m not sure. Pikmin seem like a perfect subject for short films, and fans of the series will probably enjoy them. But two of the three scripts weren’t really strong enough to be worth repeat views (at least not for us).
My kids both felt like playing the game would be more engaging then spending more time with the short movies; in retrospect, my money would’ve been better spent on DLC for the actual game instead of downloading these short films.