Review: DETECTIVE PIKACHU RETURNS Has Fun Gameplay with a Predictable Story

Nintendo recently released Detective Pikachu Returns, developed by Creatures Inc, on the Nintendo Switch. This is the long awaited sequel to the 2016/2018 (Japan/Worldwide) fan-favorite game Detective Pikachu for the Nintendo 3DS. The game is available now from the Nintendo eShop and your favorite retailers including GameStop (affiliate link) now with an MSRP of $49.99.

In this cinematic adventure, tough-talking Detective Pikachu and his partner Tim are set down a path filled with mystery (and plenty of coffee!) as they search for Tim’s missing father Harry. Along the way, the detective duo will work with other Pokémon to help crack cases across Ryme City – including following scents with Growlithe, smashing rocks with Darmanitan and peering through walls with Luxray.

Why did Tim’s father go missing? And what is causing the Pokémon-related incidents in Ryme City? Answer these questions and more by searching for clues, investigating scenes and making deductions alongside the personality-packed Detective Pikachu.

Detective Pikachu Returns is a direct sequel to the original and takes place two years after the 3DS title. This is where I disclose that I never played the original Detective Pikachu game. I would strongly recommend not being like me. If you haven’t played Detective Pikachu before, find a way to do so. This is one of the biggest shortcomings in my opinion. I’m genuinely surprised that Nintendo hasn’t ported Detective Pikachu to the Nintendo Switch. Between the movie releasing in 2019 and the sequel releasing now, those are two prime windows to release a port. This is especially true now that the 3DS eShop has been closed. Regardless, you can play Detective Pikachu Returns without playing Detective Pikachu and get most of the story, but I felt like there were many times where I felt having that background information would’ve been helpful.

Throughout Detective Pikachu Returns, you play as Tim Goodman and the great Detective Pikachu. You continue your journey to uncover what happened to Tim’s father and Pikachu’s partner Harry Goodman and along the way you end up solving a few other mysteries like the theft of a precious jewel, uncovering the secrets of some ruins, discovering who framed Pikachu and other innocent Pokémon in a series of crimes, and more. It all culminates into solving the ultimate mystery of Harry Goodman. I’ll save my review of the main story for the end of this review as I’ll have to get into spoiler territory to do so.

From a graphics standpoint, I was honestly disappointed in Detective Pikachu Returns. It looks to me like a port of a 3DS game or maybe a Wii U title. The overall art style doesn’t really bother me, but it doesn’t look as good as other Switch titles. Even my wife who almost never gets bothered by graphics commented on how the game doesn’t look great. The textures are fairly basic and given how much I liked the textures of Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet, I felt disappointed by the fact that the Pokémon look like colors and patterns are painted on instead of having depth and life. This next one might be due to language differences, but at least while playing in English, the gestures and lip flaps don’t seem to align very well with what is being spoken.

When talking about audio, I think the best part of this aspect is the music. The music team did a great job with the various tracks to convey the mood. The voice acting in this game is hit and miss. Some of the voice actors do a decent job, but some of them sound like they really phoned it in.

The gameplay for Detective Pikachu Returns is fairly simple. You walk around looking for clues and then make deductions based on the clues you’ve gathered. It reminded me a lot of Ace Attorney if you actually moved Phoenix Wright around instead of using text boxes to move. The overall gameplay isn’t bad although there were times when I figured something out before I gathered all the clues and so I had to perform all the steps which just felt tedious. When you consider that the target audience is young children, I can forgive the tediousness.

One of the best parts of the game though is the simple fact that you can ride certain Pokémon. Of course, the best use of this is in the first main mystery when you get to ride Growlithe. That is possibly the peak of the game for many. It’s adorable. That said, there’s also Luxray, Pangoro, and Galarian Darmanitan with each one providing aid in a different fashion to help you progress through the mystery. This is a positive element in my opinion and a point in the game’s favor.

I guess it’s time to talk about the story. If you don’t want any spoilers, just know that it’s okay. It wasn’t anything fantastic if you ask me. Just scroll to the very bottom to see my score.

Now that we’re in spoiler territory, the gloves are off. If you’ve watched the 2019 film Detective Pikachu, you pretty much know how the story goes. Pokémon are being framed by the cops so that they can be arrested and then used to study the effects of control cubes so that the crazy scientist can fuse with a powerful Psychic-type Pokémon (Deoxys in this case) so that the world can run as they think it should. Oh, and Detective Pikachu is really Tim’s dad, Harry, fused with Pikachu. I know that there’s a decent chance that this was planned from the start of the first game, but due to the fact that Detective Pikachu Returns took seven years to launch after the initial launch of the 3DS game and four years after the film, it feels a lot more like “copy my homework but change it a little.”

I do like the idea that it was a controlled Ditto that framed all the innocent Pokemon. I also enjoyed the mini mysteries including the mansion heist and exploration of the ruins. It really is just how the big mystery wraps up that really just bummed me out.

At the end of the day, if you’re a fan of Detective Pikachu, you will probably enjoy Detective Pikachu Returns as long as you don’t mind a predictable storyline. I was disappointed by the graphics and voice acting, but I do dig the music. What did you think of this game?