This was true of both the original 3DS game and especially the Hollywood movie. Detective Pikachu Returns very much continues along those same lines. It’s more of the cute, wholesome, kind of clever, writing that characterized the first game and the movie, with some fun characters, a fun if unsurprising story, and some very straightforward gameplay that even the youngest of players can wrap their heads around. 

"Tim Goodman is trying to find his missing father with the latter’s partner Pikachu, who awoke with a pretty strong sense of amnesia about the incident that led to the disappearance, and also an inability to use his moves."

If you didn’t play the original – which launched on the 3DS very late in its life – or did not watch the movie (which launched right after an Avengers movie, so it didn’t set the world on fire), then you don’t really need to worry about not being caught up with the story with this game. It does a good job of getting you onboarded with the events of the game (and even the movie, with some playful in-universe teasing about where it diverged from the story of the game) at the start, and the story is written to stand well enough on its own with minimal context or information necessary. 

And the premise is pretty much the same – Tim Goodman is trying to find his missing father with the latter’s partner Pikachu, who awoke with a pretty strong sense of amnesia about the incident that led to the disappearance, and also an inability to use his moves. However, Tim can understand what Pikachu says – and with that ace up his sleeve, the duo set out to investigate various cases and mysteries, with Tim getting testimony and accounts from people, and Pikachu getting them from Pokemon. The two then put the information they have together to try and figure out what the solution to the case might be.

So the broad setup is the same, and it plays out pretty much the same as the first game. The cases are simple, if fun, involving the unique intricacies of the world of Pokemon in some fun ways, and giving us more of a loom at what life in it might be like. Familiarity with the various Pokemon you encounter only makes the interactions with them, and the deep dives into these cases, more fun – this is definitely a game for fans first and foremost.

"Detective Pikachu Returns very much continues along those same lines. It’s more of the cute, wholesome, kind of clever, writing that characterized the first game and the movie, with some fun characters, a fun if unsurprising story, and some very straightforward gameplay that even the youngest of players can wrap their heads around. "

One thing that has changed this time around is how the story itself is structured. The original game presented the central conflict very early on, and every case you tackled was explicitly with the intention of chipping away at the central mystery more and more. In Detective Pikachu Returns, the story structure is more episodic, where you take on a bunch of problems, and get the full picture for how they come together in the story the more you play. In that sense, uncovering what the story is itself becomes a game this time around, especially for younger players – as mentioned, the story isn’t going to catch you off guard.

Older players will probably pick up on where it’s going. That said, it’s done well, and it’s great fun to follow along with anyway, and the resolution is earnest and satisfying. The writing itself, while being primarily kid-friendly, does have some bite for older players too; as mentioned, it gets delightfully meta and self-aware a lot of the time, and sometimes it starts referencing, if not outright tackling, some surprisingly dark and hefty (for Pokemon) subject matter too.

The gameplay side of things has seen some big changes as well. How cases are tackled is totally different this time around thanks to the new case diary mechanic. This is… I suppose it makes sense from a contextualization perspective, but it actually simplifies gameplay a bit too much. Essentially, all you have to do is talk to the witnesses and investigate the relevant areas, and then you’re just going to go into the diary and select one from numerous possible theories in response to the facts and evidence you have gathered that answers the question on hand. If you pick wrong, Pikachu chides you gently, and you get to pick one from the remainder. 

This means the actual gameplay is extremely simplified now, since the puzzle solving aspects of the first game are all but gone. You do get some fun QTEs during some segments, which I guess make for some more active gameplay, and there are some fun segments where you can team up with other Pokemon and use their powers in some fun ad hoc mini games, but other than that, you’re talking to people, and you’re picking the right choice in your diary.

Which is why it’s a good thing the writing keeps things fun and interesting enough, at least for Pokemon fans. The critical path is pretty fun, the side quests you can pick up have some of the cleverest and most amusing writing, and it is, of course, always a joy to just chat with Pikachu unprompted and get his pearls of wisdom (which almost all have to do with coffee, or his great detective skills and prowess).

"The game also has a surprising amount of voice acting, which ranges from being inoffensive to surprisingly well done. The star of the show is Pikachu himself, and his voice work is great."

In other areas, gameplay has remained mostly unchanged. You’re still navigating in thinly disguised grid based environments (which feels a bit jarringly dated), and there are still a lot of loading screens separating the various areas (thankfully none of them is too long).

The graphics are… fine. They do look distinctly simple and have a lower budget feel than something like, say, New Pokemon Snap did. On the 3DS, Detective Pikachu was actually one of the better looking games on the system. Returns has definitely made some improvements to the visuals over that game, but it still looks markedly on the lower end of what the system can offer. The good thing is the performance remains steady, the best that I could tell – although, of course, in a slow paced adventure game like this, even if there were frame rate drops, it wouldn’t impact much. However, thankfully that is a moot point.

The game also has a surprising amount of voice acting, which ranges from being inoffensive to surprisingly well done. The star of the show is Pikachu himself, and his voice work is great. Unfortunately, the cutscene direction and music both let down the good voice work a lot of the time, and it comes off as feeling more stilted and awkward than it otherwise should.

Should you play Detective Pikachu Returns? If you are a fan of Pokemon, and enjoyed the original game, you will probably get something out of this one. While there are some changes to what the first game did, on the whole, the boat has not been rocked too much, and you will still get more of that same formula here. Younger players especially will probably like this game a lot and be drawn to it, with its charming characters, fun story, and simplistic gameplay. For older players, the recommendation has more caveats, but if you’re down for getting a deeper look at the Pokemon world than you otherwise get, you’ll find what’s here fun enough.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Later this year, we see the very first Hollywood take on the Pokemon universe launch when Detective Pikachu, based on the unlikely Nintendo 3DS video game of the same name, releases. However, it seems like the movie makers are pretty confident in how the movie will go for them, because it sounds like they are already working on a follow up.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the sequel is being written by Orien Uziel, who is best known for the fantastic 22 Jump Street, and most recently, for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie (which, unlike Detective Pikachu, does not look like it will turn out all that well at all).

Sequels being announced before a movie is even out are a big thing for franchise-minded Hollywood—the Fantastic Four reboot had a sequel announced before it was even out, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a bevy of follow-ups and spin-offs planned. The financial flopping of both movies led to those plans being scarpered. All of which is to say, a sequel here isn’t given, if Detective Pikachu ends up disappointing. Thankfully, what we have seen of it looks great enough.

Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures — whom you may recognize as the three creators of Pokemon, as well as the three companies that comprise The Pokemon Company — have apparently filed a brand new, rather intriguing new trademark application. As Japanese Nintendo reports, the three companies have filed a trademark application in Japan for something called — stay with me here — Monpoke.

Yes, Monpoke. That new Pokemon game on Switch is really going to turn things around for the series, huh?

Anyway, we don’t actually know what this is, but we have a logo, which you can see for yourself above. Common speculation online seems to be that this is referencing a merchandising line, which I can see— Pokemon is a merchandising monster, after all, and this would be right in keeping with that. Of course, never doubt the franchise’s ability to throw something out of the left field at you, too— for instance, who in the world expected something like Detective Pikachu?

Whatever it is, I guess we’ll find out soon.

The very first live action Pokemon movie will launch next year with Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, a movie based on the Nintendo 3DS game that released earlier this year, starring a wisecracking, womanizing Pikachu who can talk and who fancies himself a detective. You may need to sit down after reading all that.

So, what gives? How is it that the very first Pokemon live action movie is based on a premise this surreal (albeit fantastic, judging by the video game), as opposed to following the more traditional story of Ash Ketchum, and his never ending quest to be the very best, like no one ever was? Speaking to IGN, Rob Letterman, who is attached to the project as its director, explained the rationale behind going with Detective Pikachu as the base for the upcoming movie.

“The Pokemon Company, they’ve already made many, many movies of Ash, and they came to Legendary with this idea of using a new character,” Lettermain said. “So when I came onboard, I was pitched this character of Detective Pikachu, and I fell in love with the story behind it.

“It’s a really great story. It was something with a lot of heart, and it was just very unique. And because there’s already been so much work done with Ash, for the first live-action movie I thought it was a really good idea to try something new with a new character, but bake it into the universe of Pokemon. So it still follows all the rules, and we get to see a lot of our favorite things.”

Honestly, I found Detective Pikachu, the game, to be far more effective at daily life world building when it comes to the world of Pokemon than any other bit of media so far has been, so I’m all on board with using its ideas as a base to expose them to more people. Detective Pikachu is available now, exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS, with the movie due out next summer.

We’ve already known of the Detective Pikachu movie, based on the surprisingly endearing Nintendo 3DS game, and starring none other than Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu, for a while now, but today, we got our first official announcement for it. At the Pokemon World Championships, The Pokemon Company announced that the movie shall be named Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, and announced that it will be launching some time in Summer next year.

The original release date for the movie was just a couple of weeks after the launch of Avengers 4, which would have been disastrous for its prospects at the box office, so it is good to see that that has been pushed up a little bit. We also got the official logo for the movie shared, which you can see for yourself above. It’s pretty neat… but, I mean, it’s a logo. There’s not much to discuss here. Sadly, we didn’t get any trailer for the movie. I’d have loved to see that.

Detective Pikachu, the game, is out now on Nintendo 3DS.

Stop what you’re doing, Trainers: Mr. Ishihara just announced the title of the upcoming live-action Pokémon movie: POKÉMON Detective Pikachu! #DetectivePikachuMovie

— Pokémon (@Pokemon) August 24, 2018

For some reason that I am not yet able to fathom, a movie is being made on Detective Pikachu. Detective Pikachu launched earlier this year for the Nintendo 3DS, starring a wisecracking, womanizing, coffee loving Pikachu with a Danny de Vito complex, who can talk, and fancies himself a detective, helping the game’s protagonist Tim solve a number of cases.

It was a lovely, charming, heartfelt game with some sharp writing, and I actually can see it working well as an animated movie- once you get over its ridiculous premise, anyway. And sure enough, a lot of big name talent is attached to the movie, including Ken Watanabe, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, and Ryan Reynolds (yes, that Ryan Reynolds) as Pikachu.

Now, Hollywood Reporter is, well, reporting that, as part of a larger deal surrounding the distribution of Legendary Pictures’ (the studio producing Detective Pikachu) movies, this one will be distributed by Warner Bros., instead of by Universal, as was originally planned. It will be launching next year on May 10, which is just after Avengers 4, so that should be interesting.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the mood for some Pokemon fueled laughs, Detective Pikachu is out now on the 3DS, and it is absolutely worth a playthrough.

Detective Pikachu is a brilliant game—in my opinion, it’s a game great enough that every fan of the Pokemon series owes it to themselves to play the game. That said, given the title’s rather bizarre premise, as well as the fact that it is a 3DS game in 2018, I can understand if it you might have some hesitations in picking it up.

Apparently Nintendo understands that too—because they have put up a free demo for the title on the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS. I urge you to give the demo a chance for yourself—the sheer charm and wit of the title will probably end up winning you over.

Detective Pikachu is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS. A movie based on the game, starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu (no, seriously, this is a thing), will be releasing in May next year.

Search for clues in #DetectivePikachu with a free Special Demo Version, available now on Nintendo eShop for the #3DS family of systems! https://t.co/lZvNrQoFhM pic.twitter.com/IemrwoT8FG

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 5, 2018

The success of Pokemon GO continues to astound us on an almost daily basis now. Yesterday, we reported that the game had broken all manner of records on iOS and Android– as of today, the game is the most successful mobile game in US history, judging by daily average users- as a matter of fact, it is so successful on that front that it now has more active users than Twitter, and is within sniffing distance of Snapchat and Google’s own Google Maps.

SurveyMonkey reports that this means that Pokemon GO is now more successful than Slither.io and Clash Royale, and that it has now surpassed the peak that Candy Crush Saga previously achieved, too. At its current rate of growth, Pokemon GO should soon surpass Snapchat and Google Maps in the coming few days.

As of right now, Pokemon GO reportedly has 21 million active users in the United States alone– at this rate, it may soon become the most played video game of all time, worldwide. I don’t think even Nintendo or Google could have expected this kind of success for the game when it was announced last year.

Pokemon GO may be all the craze right now, but the true attraction, at least for long time series fans, comes later this year, when Pokemon Sun/Moon finally launch on the Nintendo 3DS. The game is going to be the seventh generation of Pokemon, and so far, not a whole lot is known about it, in spite of the gameplay footage we have received for it in copious amounts.

But now, a major leak, apparently originating in China (via NeoGAF), has spilled the beans on some major details from the game. From this point on, there will be heavy spoilers about Pokemon Sun/Moon– so hit that back button on your browser right about now if you would rather go into the game blind.

• Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio evolve into an archer, a wrestler, and a siren respectively (and the implication is that Litten will be another Fire/Fighting starter, contrary to speculation)
• In addition to the recently revealed Salandit, there are new Pokemon based on a mushroom, a dolphin, a sea cucumber, a snowman, and something that is being called a rugby monkey. If and when these Pokemon continue to be revealed over the coming months, the veracity of this leak should be established
• Apparently, special areas known as ‘Districts’ which house powerful Pokemon called ‘Overlords,’ which may either refer to very strong Pokemon, or legendary Pokemon.
• In what might be the most dramatic change to the series’ structure yet, there will be no Gym Leaders. It seems that the plot of the game involves forming a League, with each Island being protected by an Island Leader. An actual Elite Four will eventually appear, though, perhaps in the post-game.
• The diamonds seen in the logo can also be seen in the bracelets the playable characters wear. They are collectible and they will apparently unlock what is being billed as the ‘moves’ equivalent of Mega Evolution, in a mechanic known as ‘Super Move.” More details on the feature aren’t exactly clear yet, but it is being speculated that this mechanic may be used to access Ash-Greninja from the anime.
• You can ride almost any Pokemon- what this means in terms of the extent of Pokemon that can be ridden, and how, remains to be seen. However, Pokemon X/Y and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire both explored riding Pokemon in some form or another, so this does not necessarily sound like much of a stretch.

Pokemon Sun/Moon are due out exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS this November.

Well, that came out of nowhere.

Years after it was originally teased, it seems like Pokemon: Detective Pikachu is now a reality. What is it, you ask? It’s a brand new game in the Pokemon franchise featuring, well, a talking Pikachu that fancies itself a detective, and I assume helps solve crimes.

I am not lying. Look, you can check it out for yourself in the reveal trailer below.

This year is Pokemon‘s 20th anniversary, so I definitely was expecting brand new games in the series- and, I mean, we are even getting some, in the form of Pokken Tournament on the Wii U, and Pokemon Go for iOS and Android devices. What I was not expecting was… this. I don’t know why, but a Pikachu talking in human language makes me… uncomfortable. It goes from being cute to sort of grotesque.

I imagine this will be announced for the west some time soon, as well. I really hope not, though.