The Nintendo Switch is the talk of the town, but we shouldn’t count out the 3DS quite yet. The aging handheld still has plenty of great games on the horizon, and perhaps none are more adorable than Detective Pikachu. The game is only a month away, and Nintendo has released a new trailer showing off the little Pokémon’s crime-solving skills.
“It’s been two months since my dad disappeared,” human sidekick Tim Goodman says in the trailer. “I came here to Ryme city to start looking for clues.”
Pikachu is more than up to the challenge of finding Tim’s father, Harry, as well as investigating the strange behavior of Pokémon — and whether or not it’s all linked to the powerful Mewtwo. His voice is much deeper than we’re used to, for comedic effect, and he speaks in full sentences. It’s surreal, but that’s exactly what we want out of a game with a premise this ridiculous.
Detective Pikachu combines adventure gameplay with puzzle solving, which we get a taste of in the trailer. Pikachu and Tim are tasked with finishing a mural of Charizard as well as reaching a high-up ledge. But the real fun comes when Pikachu begins questioning persons of interest. Both Pokémon and humans can be interrogated, but you might not like what you discover. In the trailer, Pikachu looks under the mysterious Mimikyu’s cloth shroud, only to scream in horror.
The Detective Pikachu game isn’t the only crime-solving Pokémon title in the works. It’s also being turned into a movie starring Ryan Reynolds, who will both voice and provide motion capture for the character. An online petition had been started to get veteran character actor Danny DeVito to play the role, but DeVito wasn’t interested and admitted he didn’t know what Pokémon was.
A full-fledged Pokémon role-playing game is also in the works for Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has kept fans in the dark about the project so far, but we expect to hear more at E3 this June.
Detective Pikachu launches exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS on March 23. An Amiibo figure is being released alongside the game, featuring Pikachu in his deerstalker cap. Using it will allow you to access special cutscenes more quickly.
