So here’s a cosy crime comeback that you might not have expected: a sequel to the peculiar Pokémon spin-off that inspired the Ryan Reynolds-voiced live-action movie. Like the film and the previous game, it gets most of its comic mileage from transforming Pokémon’s cuddliest critter into a hard-boiled sleuth with a deep and gritty voice. Only his assistant Tim can hear it, though. To all other humans, it’s just the usual nonsense “Pica, Pica” patter.
Still, this makes Tim and Detective Pikachu one mighty crime-solving duo, as they work the not-so-mean streets of Ryme City, tackling numerous mysteries and working to prevent another sinister anti-Pokémon plot. Ryme City’s unique feature is that it’s the one place where the friendly beasties and ordinary people co-exist, but dark forces are out to change that, whether that means “managing” the Pokémon problem or taking more direct control of them for fiendish ends.
Our detective heroes have their work cut out, spending each chapter interviewing witnesses and suspects, solving simple puzzles, and deducing the facts from what they learn. Their strength isn’t so much their powers of observation or and brilliant reasoning – despite the deerstalker hat, Detective Pikachu’s no Sherlock Holmes – but the fact that they can talk to both humans and Pokémon, giving Slowpoke the third degree or getting the intel direct from the Growlithe’s mouth. With the right info and enough evidence, they can piece the case together and make an accusation. Or simply escape some deadly peril, if it comes to that.
There’s a lot of fun to be had here, as the game toys with the cliches and conventions of detective fiction while making sure you get a chance to interact with your favourite Pokémon. Fans will love the way you can chew the breeze with creatures you’d normally be battling with or catching, and many have their own pint-sized problems you can solve along the way. The script plays things a little safe, but it’s still often genuinely funny, and if Tim can be both dull and dull-witted, Detective Pikachu packs in the personality and laughs. If the kids are looking for an entertaining Pokémon experience to keep them tided over between the usual gotta catch ’em all epics, this will more than do the job.
But you can’t help wishing Detective Pikachu’s comeback was more ambitious. While you get some interesting cases to solve, including outings outside Ryme City, most take place across a handful of confined locations with a few characters to question and precious little footwork needed. This means Ryme City never quite comes together as a setting, and some of the clever background work around its social world and politics goes to waste. Perhaps Detective Pikachu Returns could have gone big on a more absorbing open-world setting. I suspect that there just wasn’t the budget.
Bolts of brilliance
More importantly, the actual detection is a little disappointing,. A new mechanic has our heroes scrawling all their clues into a notebook, from whence they can work out the facts once Detective Pikachu announces it’s deduction time. Little changes if you make the wrong call, and most of the time the facts are so obvious – and Detective Pikachu himself so vocal – that there’s barely any opportunity to fall foul of a red herring. This won’t be a problem for the youngest fans, but it limits the appeal to older kids and adults. Where, say, the Ace Attorney games or Professor Layton mysteries give yout little grey cells a workout, Detective Pikachu Returns seems to think you need more steering in the right direction.
This won’t be a problem for huge sections of the Pokémon fanbase, and even some of those who may want tougher cases will be just too charmed by the critter cast’s antics to care. But where Pokémon Detective Pikachu Returns could have been a Pokémon Poirot thriller full of ingenious twists and turns, it’s happy to coast along like an episode of Murder, She Wrote, always amiable, rarely brilliant.
