It’s been a long while since I’ve invested time in a Pokemon game. Kind of fallen off the series, but I hope to return to playing a Pokemon RPG at some point in the future. Until then, I am always willing to check out anything Pokemon, including Pokemon spin-offs, especially since those don’t tend to be as time demanding as a mainline Pokemon title. So when Detective Pikachu appeared, I was already curious about what the game was about, since it was an adventure title with voice acting. With one of those voiced characters being Pikachu, and not just saying its name but speaking full sentences. A unique take on Pokemon, and one that I was not disappointed in having checked out.

Like I mentioned before, in Detective Pikachu, the very familiar Pikachu character is featured and speaking. The story revolves around this Pikachu, who is a detective, and the boy he meets up with named Tim Goodman. Tim bumps into Detective Pikachu and realizes that he is able to fully understand Pikachu for some reason, but not other Pokemon. After proper introductions, it is revealed that Tim came to the city in order to find his missing father, Harry Goodman, who is also the owner of Detective Pikachu. Harry went missing while investigating the multiple Pokemon related incidents that were suddenly occurring all over the city. So Detective Pikachu and Tim must solve various mysteries in order to figure out what is happening with the Pokemon in the city and with Harry’s disappearance.

THE GOOD: The game plays out like a simple adventure title. You’ll be faced with several objectives, and you’ll need to move around areas in order to fulfill these objectives and progress the story. You’ll complete these objectives by interacting with the many objects in the area or speaking with all the individuals and Pokemon you meet. Thanks to having Pikachu with you, you are able to speak with other Pokemon too. So each chapter will have you facing many different obstacles and mysteries. It’s straightforward and easy to get into.

There are also some brief portions of quick-time events. They are also quite simple in their design. Mostly revolving around a button tap at the proper time, or tapping the button multiple times. Just some small stuff to help keep you engaged during certain moments. Also, you can’t really fail at these, since missing a timed button prompt will actually still give you a result and continue the story. There are some moments though that will immediately let you replay it if you fail too. So the game is very forgiving and doesn’t do much in preventing you from moving on with the story.

This is a Pokemon title, so you can expect to see lots of Pokemon. As someone who has missed out on the last two generations of Pokemon, there was quite a bit of Pokemon I was unfamiliar with. It was actually kind of nice to be introduced to these unfamiliar Pokemon in this way, and did make me kind of curious to check them out in their proper games where they were first introduced. Seeing Pokemon that I was familiar with was also a treat. So being able to interact with the many different kinds of Pokemon in this new way was kind of neat. Certainly felt like going through something you would normally see play out on the anime show of Pokemon.

Much of that is also due to the fact that there’s quite a bit of voice acting involved. These mainly occur during the cutscenes, and watching these definitely feels like watching the anime. Game audio can be set to English or Japanese. I mainly stuck with English and found it to be very well done. Falls in line with what you’d expect from an English dub of the Pokemon anime. I enjoyed it, especially with the work done with Detective Pikachu.

THE BAD: Given the nature of this game and who it’s mostly aimed for, it’s no surprise that I found the game easy to get through. It can be too easy though at times. That’s mainly with the mysteries you need to solve. There were multiple cases where I’ve figured out the mystery way before we were close to that point in the chapter. So the real challenge was figuring out what needed to be done in order to reach that point. Like who I needed to talk to or what I needed to interact with in order to progress. So this can make things feel a bit dull and dragged out since the adventure portions require a lot of reading to get through.

My only other complaint is a very minor one. As is the case with Pokemon titles, there’s no 3D present. For the main Pokemon titles, this has always been the case for most of the game. I’ll admit, I hardly play 3DS games with the 3D on nowadays. I just found the omission a bit weird this time around for how simple of a game and look it has. I think seeing the game in 3D would’ve been neat. Unfortunately, this is a 2D only game.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: I would say I had a good time with Detective Pikachu, even if it was a breeze to get through. I was able to solve many things fairly early, but I was still tempted to move on with the story. The voice acting during the many cutscenes was just like watching the Pokemon show. Also, the story itself was interesting to go through. It’s certainly meant for a younger audience, but if your expectations are in the right place, the game can be properly enjoyed and I found to be very charming overall. Even more so if you’re a Pokemon fan. Took me around 13 hours to complete, which is more than I would’ve expected, so it’s a nice game to check in on every now and then when on the go. Could also be a nice game to relax to since it is so easy to play and get into. I would even say that you don’t need to be overly familiar with Pokemon in order to check this game out. It will certainly help, but I don’t feel it’s required. It’s a unique take on Pokemon and I found it to be an enjoyable experience.