New Play Control! Pikmin

New Play Control! Pikmin
Also known as: Wii de Asobu Pikmin (JP), Pikmin (KR) Developer: Nintendo EAD Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Wii Released in JP: December 25, 2008 Released in US: March 9, 2009 Released in EU: February 6, 2009 Released in KR: October 27, 2011 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused text. This game has regional differences.

New Play Control! Pikmin is the New Play Control! port of Pikmin, featuring a new control method to play with. Who'd've thought.

This article was brought to you by Big Brain Academy®.

=Two in One Version?

The folder /pikmin12/message is present in both this game and New Play Control! Pikmin 2 and is, for the most part, the same. It contains strings present in both ports, as well as a particular string that mentions both ports as a single item:

 Pikmin 1 and 2 on Wii.
 Pikmin are back, and this time on Wii!

The string is found in /pikmin12/EngEU/message/pik12message.bmg. This hints that, at one point, Nintendo might have intended to release both games on a single disc, a la Metroid Prime: Trilogy, and that a possible name was "Pikmin 1 and 2 on Wii".

This .bmg file also contains some other oddities.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Leftovers

To do: Check if the US version contains the same remnants, but refer to the game as "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree".

Wii Degree must have been used as a base for the pik12message.bmg file, because there are a couple of leftover strings from that game.

 There are not enough empty blocks
 in the Wii System Memory. Big
 Brain Academy for Wii requires
 3 blocks to save. Return to Wii
 Menu to manage save data now?
 
 Would you like to create a
 Big Brain Academy for Wii
 save file?

Unused Strings

To do: Document the "JP ONLY" strings on the Japanese version, as they've been replaced with interesting stuff.

These strings were presumably used during development.

 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 
 ××××
 
 *** JP ONLY!!! ***

The latter two appear several times on the file. There's also a string containing the characters present in the game's font, likely in order to test it.

Unused Content

To do: Check if the Japanese NPC!P still has dataDir/SndData/cntA_S.h4m.

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Try to get the Pikmin debug menus and such to work here.

All of the unused content in Pikmin is still here, and still unused, with the following exceptions:

• dataDir/SndData/cntA_S.h4m, the earlier version of one of the tutorial videos, is only present in the Japanese version of Pikmin, so it's absent in the American and European New Play Control! versions.

GameCube Cursor

The model for the GameCube version's cursor is still present on the disc, under /pikmin1/EU/dataDir/shapes/cursor.

Regional Differences

To do: Check if the original Pikmin regional differences are still here.

In the European version, Wollywogs, Yellow Wollywogs, and Wogpoles have been renamed to Wollyhops, Yellow Wollyhops, and Wolpoles, respectively. This change didn't exist in the GameCube version, but the trend continued for the European version of Pikmin 3.

This likely happened because Nintendo feared British players would find "wog" offensive, since "wog" is slang for a dark-skinned person.