Blair Loveday
I never checked out the original Detective Pikachu game, despite being super curious about it.
A detective adventure game with a talking Pikachu, it couldn’t sound more up my alley. After watching end enjoying the movie far more than I should have, I still didn’t play the game. Now the sequel Detective Pikachu Returns is out, I figured I’ll jump in.
The game kicks off with a short synopsis of the first game, which turns out was pretty close to what happened in the movie. Tim meets Pikachu who not only talks, but is a great detective. The kicker, only Tim can understand him. They are doing some investigating when an issue of rampaging Pokémon leads to them finding a mysterious drug called R has been getting released. So pretty much what we saw in the movie.
Detective Pikachu Returns kicks off 2 years later. There is a celebration of what Tim and Pikachu achieved two years earlier when a raging corviknight attacks. Here Tim and Pikachu need to get to the bottom of it. The reason I am not touching the story much is because a lot of the story is pretty obvious, and a lot of it is also in the movie. It’s an odd choice, but yeah, it is what it is.
The bulk of the game is walking around, talking to people and getting past puzzles. The puzzles themself are consistently incredibly easy, and I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s clearly an excellent entry point for our younger nerds to get into detective games which is cool. But it would have been awesome if it needed a little bit more brain power and let there be accessibility options and hints for younger players.
The art style is, well, fine.
They have used some chunkier styles to make it simple and look OK, but it just never gets past OK. Like, it’s not bad, it’s just not good. Not a lot of detail, not the cleanest lines, again, just kinda OK. The voice acting is pretty similar as well, with being totally fine. Pikachu’s deep voice really threw me off as I was expecting Ryan Reynolds voice to come out, but yea, it’s good enough.
Whether you will enjoy Detective Pikachu Returns will really depend on your mood, or age. If you want a chill as, silly, detective adventure, there is fun to be had here.
If you’re younger and want to try something different, this is a great gateway into the genre. If you want to engage your brain, this won’t be what you’re looking for.
Released: September 2023
Rating: G
Platforms reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Creatures
Publisher: Nintendo