Pikmin 3: The Lost Explorer

Pikmin 3: The Lost Explorer is a game for the Wii U that will be released in Fall of 2017. It is a stand-alone expansion to the game Pikmin 3. The game stars the cut D hero from Pikmin 3, now named Dalton.

Story

When the S.S. Drake crash-lands on PNF-404, one of the crew members, Private Dalton, is flung from the ship, miles above the planet's atmosphere, onto the other side of the planet. He wakes up 26 days later to a group of Blue Pikmin. He landed in one of the planet's oceans and was brought to shore by the docile Pikmin, belonging to a 52-year old male Koppaite named Romeo, who joins Dalton on his adventure. Now, as his friends have left the planet already, Dalton must find ship parts, as well as acquire food for himself, before he starves or is eaten. He must explore the planet's opposite hemisphere and somehow make his way home.

Gameplay

The game involves Dalton utilizing the many species of Pikmin found on PNF-404 to collect food and ship parts in order to stay alive and escape the deserted planet. The Multiplayer Mode of The Lost Explorer is quite similar to its parent game, however, it introduces a new game mode called Army Battle, which are 2-player battles (implemented once into story mode) where the challengers have two days to collect up to 500 Pikmin in the game's stages and then duke it out to see who can destroy the other's army first. Survival also now has an extra element of strategy, as Dalton will need to decide which fruits to eat and which to turn into drinkable juice, as he will need both to survive. There are seven main locations, each with a dungeon and a new Pikmin type (Not counting Blues in the Revival Springs, the starting location). Two of these areas are underground, which is where Whites and Purples are discovered, along with that area's other Pikmin. The dungeons are like the ones in Pikmin 2, but without bosses. However, each one has an optional ship part at the end and are meant to test your skills with that region's Pikmin. Most of the bosses are different species of the Pikmin 3's bosses (example: Armored Mawdad (Pikmin 3)= Crystalline Mawdad (TLE)), each with a new gimmick that makes it more challenging (i.e. Scornet Orchestra's Fire Scornets or Crystalline Mawdad's crystal spike armor). After each successful day, Dalton writes down what he discovered, be it a fruit, a Pikmin, an enemy, etc. This function, called Dalton's Journal, replaces the Piklopedia of previous games. The KopPad does return from Pikmin 3, however, but with a new function: the Map Markers, which allow players to set points on the map for what they wish to get done that day.