A Bolt of Brilliance: Detective Pikachu Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): Nintendo 3DS

As a franchise gets more and more popular, it will naturally get more and more spin-offs. Spin-offs, in my experience, are generally lackluster and feel like more of a way to keep cashing in on a successful name. This is exactly what I expected out of Detective Pikachu and was surprised to find a legitimately enjoyable game.

Pikachu being silly in a Pika Prompt.

Now before I get knee-deep in my review of this charming little experience, there are some things that need to be said up front, all of them revolving around a singular point: the game is, first and foremost, designed for kids. The difficulty and progression in the game is designed specifically for a younger audience, and as such will be markedly easier than other adventure games.

Pikachu tends to misbehave in the detective office.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in. Detective Pikachu is a traditional detective adventure game, but in the world of Pokémon. You play as Tim, the son of the famous detective Harry Goodman. Harry has gone missing following an accident, and Tim has made it his mission to put his own detective skills to the test as he tries to unravel this mystery and discover the whereabouts of his father. Near the beginning of the game, he will run across Harry’s trusty hat wearing partner: Pikachu. This Pikachu is very special though, because he can speak to Tim. The odd thing is that only Tim can understand him, though this point is never properly addressed.

You often have to sift through clues to see what makes sense.

This ability to communicate ends up creating a very fun environment since you can communicate with both Pokémon and people. In all honesty, that is one of the most charming aspects of the game. The conversations with people are fine and dandy but aren’t particularly special if you have any experience with detective stories. What’s far more interesting is what the Pokémon have to say. The Mystery Dungeon series has explored the concept of communicating with Pokémon, but I can’t think of any Pokémon game that has ever allowed us to see things from the Pokémon’s perspective in an environment where both people and Pokémon are living seamlessly. It’s fun seeing how the various Pokémon think, what their priorities are and what their relationships with their partners are like. It’s not only one of the most compelling things about this game, but it really brings the Pokémon world alive in a way that no other game has ever done. It makes me long for this kind of an experience in the next mainline game in the franchise.

That is one mean looking Ice Beam.

The game is extremely linear. Each section involves you walking around in a limited area, gathering evidence and testimony to solve a particular case. This isn’t a bad thing, since it makes each case feel like its own contained experience. Many of the cases may not seem directly related to the main plot, but by the end of the case it always makes some kind of connection, further raising awareness of the bigger picture. It works almost like a good television show, which makes sense considering the target audience. Your interactions with people and Pokémon will give you a selection of conversation topics to choose from. Naturally, you’ll want to select each option to get the most information possible but giving the player the freedom to choose helps establish a more immersive story.

The Pokémon interactions are the best parts of the game.

Speaking of story, I’m a little mixed about it. The story is solid, appropriately developed and fun. For kids, it’s great since it provides twists that won’t be as easy to decipher. For adults, the game will be extremely predictable. I was able to predict the outcome of every case with ease. I emphasize again though, that this game is not meant for us adults, it’s meant for kids. As an example, I walked through the first case with my 5-year-old nephew, a case revolving around a missing necklace. While I was able to figure out very easily what was going to happen, he found the outcome to be appropriately surprising and, in his own words, he ‘felt like a real-life detective!’ There’s even some ‘action’ sequences, though they are all simple context sensitive scenarios that only involve pressing a single button. Essentially a simplified format of what many Telltale adventure games do.

Tim often outs the culprit in group meetings.

No adventure game is complete without a good setting and set of characters though, and Detective Pikachu isn’t lacking in any of this. The human cast is colorful, and the Pokémon all have very different personalities. To top it off, the voice acting is decent. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t get worse than being passable, and at times is really good. Tim is a little dry and monotonous, but Pikachu himself is silly and fun, which ends up creating a fun dynamic between them that covers for the dead quality of Tim’s acting. In an odd decision, the developers decided to use the anime-standard of having the Pokémon say their names instead of having a wild cry like the main series does. I found this to be a little grating, personally, since I find the anime style to be extremely annoying. Despite this, I can appreciate that they did this to appeal to the younger crowd, who is more likely to have seen the anime than to have played the video games. In the end, it’s a mixed bag for me. There are some Pokémon that made me laugh really hard though, namely Loudred. He screams his name loud and it would make me bust up laughing every single time. On a quick side note, you can choose to play the game in Japanese or English, which is always a welcome feature.

A bolt of brilliance!

To help add to the charming aesthetic, the game is visually gorgeous. There’s a lot of detail and being able to see Rhyme City on ground level, with all the wacky Pokémon and various environments, makes the game a pleasure to look at. The great effort into making the game pretty also has an adverse effect: it helps show the age of the 3DS. There are a lot of jaggies and sometimes lower resolution textures, which are clearly there only because of the limitations of the hardware. It’s not a huge complaint, and it looks amazing considering the hardware, but compared to other portable systems like the Nintendo Switch and PS Vita, it is certainly a bit lacking. That being said, to round out the package is an absolutely fantastic soundtrack.

I absolutely love how mean Scraggy looks.

There’s not much to do beyond completing the game, so the replay value is a bit lacking in Detective Pikachu. As you play through the game you can tap on Pikachu on the lower screen to see various silly skits unique to each area of the game called Pika Prompts, which are unlocked for view at any time in the main menu. These don’t pop up with you just being in the chapter, and have a certain probability attached to some of them. You’d have to stick around in each area for a while to assure you get all of them. To facilitate this, you can scan the giant Detective Pikachu amiibo which released alongside the game. It unlocks any Pika Prompts you missed in any chapters you’ve completed, which is welcome considering there doesn’t seem to be any consistency on how to unlock them ‘naturally.’ It’s also nice that the amiibo doesn’t unlock any crazy features, and only speeds up the process of what you can already do in the game, though it may make the steep price tag for that amiibo to seem unnecessary.

One of the context sensitive action sequences.

My only substantial complaints about Detective Pikachu are twofold. First off, it often forces you to go into your case information screen when you learn new information, only for Pikachu to literally repeat exactly what was told to you one second ago. It’s a rather unnecessary thing that disrupts the flow for no conceivable reason. It would be understandable at first, since this screen is where you can see all the clues you’ve gathered and solve the mysteries, but it doesn’t need to keep happening throughout the game. It doesn’t seem to have any consistency either, sometimes forcing you and sometimes not. It’s not a huge issue but is annoying enough to deserve mention. The other issue is with one of the major plot points not getting any resolution. It’s clearly meant to set up for a possible sequel, but it’s made out to be an important part of the entire game, only to be left hanging at the end with no real clues or resolution.

Is that Murkrow's feather? Or are we being fooled?!

A good set of progressively more challenging cases and puzzles, an interesting cast of characters and a very enjoyable story make Detective Pikachu an easy recommendation. I put in about 15 hours into the game before finishing it, with the average time for most players being around 9-12 hours. While it may be a bit predictable for older audiences, it gets the job done for younger audiences quite well. The game even offers an easy mode that holds your hand a bit more for even younger audiences. All-in-all Detective Pikachu is one of the best spin-off titles in the franchise I’ve had the pleasure of playing, and I hope this is a sign for how the series will be moving forward.

- Teepu

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Gameplay: A
Graphics: A
Sound: A-
Value: B-

OVERALL: B+

Pros:
+ Extremely charming use of the Pokémon license creates a believable world.
+ Mysteries are appropriately unique yet still connected.
+ The challenge level progresses quite naturally.

Cons:
- Is mostly easy and predictable for older audiences, which can be a turn off.
- Game sometimes forces unnecessary repeat of explanations.
- Lack of 3D is a missed opportunity for such a pretty game.

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