During yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata announced that Pikmin 3 would contain a feature that allows players to take screenshots from the Pikmins’ point of view by using an in-game camera, and then share those photos on the Wii U’s MiiVerse. To demonstrate the camera feature Iwata showed off several of the screenshots from the game, which revealed that the Pikmin’s world is beautiful, slightly phallic at times (as evidenced by the screenshot above), and also a bit frighting. This is especially true whenever you are staring down the business end of a Bulborb or watching a giant crab munch on a handful of Pikmin.
One thing to take note of as you are browsing through the gallery of Pikmin 3 screenshots below, is that the game’s textures turn into a blurry mess when viewed at an angle — the difference between the texture viewing angles is most easily seen in the screenshot that has three yellow Pikmin standing/sitting on a rock. As pointed out by the gamers on the NeoGAF forum, this is because the title does not use anisotropic texture filtering.
What’s that? You don’t know what anisotropic texture filtering is?!?!?! Well, don’t feel too bad because I had no idea either. Turns out anisotropic texture filtering is a process that enhances the image quality of textures when they are viewed at oblique angles in relationship to the angle that the texture is projected. The rock screenshot (pointed out above) is a perfect example of this as the front looks fantastic, while the top looks like something out of the GameCube era.
So yes, Pikmin 3 does have some texture issues. With that said, the screenshots still look amazing in my book and the game is certainly one to keep on your radar.
Check out all the new Pikmin 3 screenshots in the gallery below, and we will let you know as soon as Nintendo finally nails down the game’s second quarter release date.
