Detective Pikachu Returns Review: Ace Attorney for 8-Year-Olds

Detective Pikachu Returns is a muffled and monotonous sequel to the quirky 2016 Detective Pikachu video game that struggles to keep pace with the rapidly evolving world of Pokemon and ultimately is one of the least-engaging Pokemon games in quite some time, at least for adults. When the original Detective Pikachu game came out in 2016, the series won praise for its quirky lead character and depiction of a lived-in Pokemon world, leading to a relatively quick live-action adaptation just three years later. But while Ryme City and Detective Pikachu seemed ripe for a foray into other media, there was shockingly little buzz when Creatures Inc. (best known as the makers of the Pokemon Trading Card Game) announced a sequel game a few years later. Part of that was that the original Detective Pikachu video game wasn't really ... compelling to adults once you looked past the memeworthy main character. The mysteries were straightforward to solve and almost always involved interacting with every character, the puzzles were simple (even for a Pokamon game), and the only characters with any real personality were the Pokemon themselves. 

Unfortunately, all those criticisms extend to Detective Pikachu Returns. While billed as a mystery game, it's more of a "collect information by speaking to various NPCs and then regurgitating that information in various interactive menus" game. Despite Detective Pikachu's so-called "bolts of brilliance," players are led to Point A to Point B to Point C in every mystery in straightforward fashion, with the characters, the menu, and even the HUD screen telling you where to go and what to do next. Occasionally, players will be asked to mash a single button or time a button push correctly to progress the storyline during action sequences, but there's seemingly no consequence for failure. Even the occasional search for clues is hilariously easy to solve, as players are presented with a static screen and a cursor that changes when there's something to interact with. For a grown-up, the game is mind-numbingly easy to work through and the linear approach to the game (even the NPC side-quests can mostly be boiled down to "find this Pokemon/person and interact with them) makes chapters a drudge to play through. 

New to Detective Pikachu Returns is the ability to "team up" with certain Pokemon to clear either obstacles or help solve mysteries. Growlithe can visualize scent trails, Galarian Darmanitan can punch through objects, and Luxray can see through walls. While it's marginally more fun when Pikachu is paired up with a Pokemon instead of his personalityless partner Tim if only because you can actually "hear" the Pokemon speak instead of receive Pikachu's interpretations, the individual chapters and locations are far too small to really do anything interesting with the new mechanics. While Ryme City was depicted as a vibrant world in the movie, it's limited to a handful of crime scenes and a few side alleys in the new game.

While the original Detective Pikachu game had some charm for its use of interesting Pokemon who rarely appear outside of battle sequences and for fully depicting a world where both Pokemon and people co-exist side-by-side, that charm has largely been passed by simply because the newer Pokemon games (Pokemon Sword and Shield and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet) depict the Pokemon world in much the same way. With every Nintendo Switch Pokemon game showcasing a much larger Pokemon world in the same way that Detective Pikachu originally did, the game mostly relies on the charm of Detective Pikachu himself (who is still voiced by the fantastic Kaiji Tang) to get by. Sadly, there's no other characters in the game that exhibit anywhere close to the same charm, which I feel would have gone a long way in making the game a bit more enjoyable. It's a shame that the villains are perhaps the most memorable part about Detective Pikachu Returns outside of Detective Pikachu himself, as the game would have benefitted from some stronger personality.

As much as I was bored by Detective Pikachu Returns, playing the game in a house full of children helped provide a different perspective to the game. I found the mysteries tedious and linear, but my 8-year old son ate up the storylines, shouting out answers to questions, gasping at very telegraphed twists, and cackling at Detective Pikachu's shenanigans. It was about halfway through the second chapter of Detective Pikachu Returns that I realized that this wasn't really a game meant for adults. It's a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game made for 8-year-old Pokemon fans who might be a little too young to enjoy a full-sized Pokemon game. While I probably would have preferred a Pokemon game that involved a bit more deductive reasoning, testing basic memory skills and training attention to detail are probably perfect skills for a younger Pokemon fan to enjoy. Even my two toddlers seemed to get a lot more joy out of Detective Pikachu Returns than I did, which firmly signaled that I was not the intended demographic for the game series. 

Unless you're a Poke-Fanatic or a young child, Detective Pikachu Returns probably won't hold very much for you. Detective Pikachu is still a joy to watch, but his shenanigans are hardly worth the $50 price tag. However, I think that this game would be a great fit for younger Pokemon fans who aren't looking for deep multi-layered mysteries. As much as I wished that Detective Pikachu Returns had a stronger storyline, Detective Pikachu still has plenty of charm and the kids seem to enjoy his shenanigans as much as they did during his movie.

Review Score: 2.5 out of 5

Detective Pikachu Returns was reviewed on a Nintendo Switch OLED. A review copy was provided by Nintendo.