Review of Pokemon Detective Pikachu (from someone who played the game, too!) (spoilers)

I went and saw Pokemon Detective Pikachu today. Let me start by saying it was better than I thought it would be! The Pokemon designs were integrated well and the humor, and action were pretty good. Before the movie was released I was concerned that it would have too much that lined up with the Detective Pikachu game but would change the details so much it would be weird to me, but I don’t think that was an issue. (In particular I noticed that the movie had a lot of characters who clearly corresponded to someone from the game but had a different Pokemon, but they were all different enough that it was clearly not meant to be 1:1 and really Detective Pikachu was the only character I’d say was in both the game and movie, even if Tim Goodman shared his name between them.) I liked what they did with the story, both in taking things from the game and making new plot points.

I have a friend who has been somewhat vocal about not liking the realistic designs of the Pokemon, saying they should be more cartoony like the original designs and it’d be fine just suspend your belief they’re cartoons they should look like cartoons just put ’em next to real humans! I for one am glad they went the direction they did, though. I think it looked really well–immediately I felt like those Pidgey or PIdgeotto or Pidgeot or whatever were a part of the real world, as were the Bouffalant. Bouffalant? They’re starting with later gens already, cool! It wasn’t always perfect, but it made it feel more real than Pokemon ever has been.

Now, the game had a pretty formulaic setup. It was divided into chapters, and each chapter generally ended and began with Tim going from the apartment to the police station and sometimes the cafe. (Oh, right, Ludicolo was the only other character who had the exact same role as the game. I’m a bit sad they didn’t make Ludicolo’s partner a character like in the game but I suppose that wasn’t really necessary.) Obviously the movie wouldn’t be styled like that so it makes more sense they were more on the own and apart from any authority here. The identity of the villain kind of reflects this, although in both cases it’s someone who acts like they’re helping but are actually misleading them.

Lickitung is precious and I love it. I hope the home release has an hour of deleted scenes with it.

When the original trailer released some people were like “ryan reynolds as pikachu??? how crazy!!” But it sounded completely normal as a Pikachu to me because I’d played the game where he had this super deep voice and it was way funnier. I think ultimately they made a good choice for the more serious moments–a silly deep voice works when Detective Pikachu is talking to you a lot but here I think it works. I was kind of vocal about liking the game’s voice more so this is a turn for me.

Mr. Mime was also amazing. Just make a sequel starring Lickitung and Mr. Mime. It was goofy and expressive, making it a bit more cartoony than most of the Pokemon in the movie, but given it was Mr. Mime I think that works.

The action was actually way better than I was expecting! I wasn’t expecting much action at all but I think it was done well and smoothly. This movie, being made to mimic the real world a lot more than the game, makes sense to have a seedy underbelly where there are Pokemon fights in a city where they’re not allowed. It made a lot of stuff more sinister, really–while the laboratory was clearly more of an evil operation, the laboratory in the game actually consisted of scientists doing good things, and there just happened to be one bad apple who discovered R.

One thing I actually wasn’t a fan of in the movie was the giant Torterra scene. I was talking with a friend afterwards though and I’m less harsh on it now. As much as I liked the action in the scene I felt it dragged on a little bit, but my main issue was that I felt these kaiju Torterra would BE EASILY NOTICED BY PEOPLE MAYBE?? But my friend points out it was probably Psyduck’s headache blast that woke them up, especially since they lay back down shortly after, so it makes enough sense for me to be okay with it in retrospect.

I was worried that Mewtwo was going to be made into the bad guy in the movie so I’m glad he wasn’t. (I tend to have an issue when a legendary is made the bad guy because they’re often shown as being one-of-a-kind, which means this Pokemon species is just evil. Just make it a random Pokemon like a Honchkrow or Shinx.) In the game it’s clear he had something to do with Harry’s disappearance and Pikachu’s loss of memories, but he’s just there to make sure R is all disposed of, so he’s definitely more of a presence in the movie. Also in the game R is purely made to increase Pokemon’s battle capabilities and sell it. When the dudes organizing that are stopped it’s all over, but surprise! We still don’t know what happened to Harry Goodman! But then the movie goes and introduces R as a way for humans and Pokemon to merge, which is no doubt how Harry and Pikachu merge to begin with. But the games? Well…

I have a friend who suggested that maybe they’d planned the game to be three episodes, as the full release included what was originally a separate release of the first few chapters, and that the third episode would have them find Harry and solve that mystery. Which makes me wonder–was the original plan to include this human-Pokemon merging as a plot point in the final episode of the game? Was the movie actually based on the game’s plot a lot more than it seems?

Half of this review is just me explaining differences in the game and movie and throwing out fan theories I guess. But ultimately I give this movie the approval of both an old Pokemon fan and a player of the Detective Pikachu game. They leaned into the Pokemon references without going so far that it got annoying. (Although I still think having Looker appear played by David Tennant would have been amazing.) It had decent action and humor and some good silliness here and there.

Now I hope they make a sequel where Detective Pikachu gets married and has a kid and then that kid gets merged with Pichu accidentally and it’s called Pokemon Detective Pichu! Make it happen, whatever company made this movie! I don’t remember!!


If you follow me on Twitter or Mastodon you may have noticed I started writing a Waluigi story a few weeks ago. His disclusion from Smash Bros. is a disillusion on my part. I mean, I can identify with the guy. Not the mean, nasty parts–well, not all of them–but his self-pitying feeling that everyone does better than him. If he can just find something to give him an edge, that one thing to give him a boost (which for him is usually cheating), he can show the world that he’s the greatest and then lord it over everyone who said he’d never make it!

Of course, I’d never do that, noooo.

Anyway, if you follow anything Nintendo you’ve probably heard of the memes, the rotten memes, the harassing, but maybe you’ve also heard of the more artistic, good stuff. This is none of that. This is more of a look at Waluigi. I was talking with a friend about him the other day and thought the resulting discussion was interesting.

WA more

Game Review: Detective Pikachu

Wow, this game is a lot newer than the last one I talked about! It’s only been what, a month? Well, I finished Detective Pikachu and the Case of the Coffee Cup, or whatever, so let me say a few things about it. SPOILERS AHEAD


Game Review: Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

Think about it. It’s been 2/3 A WHOLE YEAR SINCE THIS GAME CAME OUT. It’s been known about for almost a whole year. For almost a whole year Mario and Rabbids have been together. Yeesh.

So anyway I got this game at Clichemas and finished it like a week ago–well, I beat the final boss, anyway. I haven’t 100%ed it yet, and it’s not particularly high on my to-game list, but it’s still on there. So what are my thoughts on this game?

Well, to be honest, the Rabbids are the least problematic part of this game. They’re easy to hate, but there are a few moments where they’re good and even cute. Pretend I got the footage of that, I don’t think I ever downloaded it. No, the gameplay is worse than the Rabbids. All games of this type have randomness built in, but there were absolutely moments where I only won because luck happened, or the opponent got a lot of luck to win. And let me tell you, replaying fights is the worst. Okay, maybe not the worst, but when you do it over again you want to get going quickly and instead it just slowly pans over the area like the first time you start with no way to skip that. I’m nitpicking, perhaps, but blah blah blah.

Speaking of quickly, maybe I’m just impatient but there were many times where I moved the cursor to a spot and clicked on it to make a move, only to realize I didn’t go to the exact spot I wanted it to go to and the wrong thing happened. So that was annoying and the camera movement in the battles is kind of off, it snaps to a square but that usually just means it snaps to the square before the one you want.

The difficulty is also really weird. There were a few instances where a chapter spikes in dififculty with a hard fight that takes me several tries, and then the difficulty goes back to where it was with some pretty easy fights. I suppose it could be based on how I upgraded characters, which was usually not focused on HP because look at all this other good stuff I can get. That said, one thing annoying about the level-up system is you can actually undo all the bonuses and redistribute them, but you can’t just undo one thing at a time? Just seems like it’d be a big time waster then…

Also, when’s the DLC to play as these guys, Ubisoft?

All that said, it was a fun game and fun to look at, too, and if you like turn-based strategy games and if you like Mario, I’d recommend it. Actually, isn’t that pretty much like how Fire Emblem plays?

is fire emblem+rabbids next?

Pokemon Moon Comic 64: Metamorphosis

Gen 7 was very good for Bug-types, which is good considering the terrible showing it had in gen 6. And Araquanid is kind of ridiculous for a Pokemon that evolves on level 22.

Also, happy I get to draw Ribombee now. Like Cutiefly, its appendages are very fluid and wobbly.

Pokemon Moon Comic 63: Crack in Time


Coincidentally, the new season of Doctor Who started last weekend! For a while now I’ve actually kicked around the idea of Pokemon Time Lords, basically Time Lords but they’re Pokemon, with the unique feature that upon regeneration they become entirely different Pokemon. The Doctormon is a Wobbuffet but upon regeneration becomes a Smeargle. It’s a concept I’d still like to do something with someday, but as I have the art skill of… well… *looks up* I couldn’t go about drawing it myself.

Pokemon Moon Comic 61 and 62

I really like how this one came out. The book, Oranguru considering it was my first time drawing it. Some of the Pokemon were cramped, especially around Dewpider and Wishiwashi, but it worked out well. I also realized the circles on the book should’ve been angled a bit but oh well. I liked it enough to make a version without names.

This one is just silly.

Pokemon Moon Comic 51-60: Travels of Akala Island


Read 10 more comics!

Pokemon Moon Comic 41-50: Refreshing Glass of Bugbus


Pokemon Sun & Moon Comic: Actually Just Moon

I said I was gonna do it!


I really like spinning. I’ve said this twice now. I still don’t know if I want to post these here every day (I expect to have one nearly every day, anyway), but I do know that I will post them on Twitter as I finish them and upload them to DeviantArt. Twitter can be found at the side of the page there, and DA is here. For this weird undertaking I finally set up a new DA account under Duth Olec. I dunno where else to post it, I’ve never really felt like using Tumblr, like, at all. Maybe I could just put them on Imgur but that’d be weird. Anyway, for now, here’s a second one in the same night. I doubt I’ll do that often.


please tell me you’ve played mario & luigi: superstar saga

I’m going to go eat some food and then play some game. The funny thing about this comic endeavor is it’ll force me to slow down the playing, althoooough before I even got out of the house I had like 4 ideas including these two so yeah, I don’t even have a Pokemon yet. This’ll be a long trip.