Discover one Pokémon’s love of coffee in ‘Detective Pikachu’ for Nintendo 3DS

By Steven Petite Published January 12, 2018

Solve Mysteries with Detective Pikachu!

Detective Pikachu will come to North America this spring,

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The Pokémon Company has announced. The spin-off adventure starring the famous pocket monster lands on Nintendo 3DS on March 23.

Although Pikachu is the titular character, users will actually control Tim Goodman, a boy of about Pokémon trainer age in search of his missing father. Together, Tim and Pikachu will explore Ryme City for clues to crack the case.

The trailer above shows off the game’s cinematics and a bit of gameplay. Between examining objects and marking clues on your map, Detective Pikachu emphasizes its narrative, exploration, and puzzle solving. Don’t expect to engage in any traditional Pokémon battles, as Pikachu has swapped his moves for the ability to speak to Tim. This gruff, coffee-obsessed version of Pikachu may startle longtime fans, especially considering the deep register of his voice (sadly, it’s not Danny DeVito’s voice).

Detective Pikachu originally launched in the Japanese eShop in early 2016. Rumors of a North American localization have swirled since then, but The Pokémon Company hadn’t definitively announced an English-based version until now.

Bringing Detective Pikachu stateside makes sense considering a film adaptation is in the works. Scheduled to release on May 10, 2019, the movie stars Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu.

If you’re as enamored with Pikachu’s detective cap as we are, you’ll be happy to learn that Detective Pikachu will also have its own special Amiibo. Standing nearly twice as tall as the average Amiibo, the Pikachu Amiibo launches alongside the game. The Amiibo can be used in-game to provide hints via short videos.

As Nintendo continues to shift its attention to the Nintendo Switch, Detective Pikachu may very well be one of the biggest 3DS titles of 2018. Besides the Pokémon spin-off, few big name titles are on the horizon for Nintendo’s aging handheld. Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, an updated version of the excellent DS RPG, launches on February 13. Later this year, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age comes to 3DS, Switch, and PS4.

With the next mainline Pokémon game will come to Switch, it’s possible that Detective Pikachu will be the popular brand’s last major appearance on Nintendo 3DS.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

Gaming

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In April 2024, Nintendo will discontinue online services across its Wii U and 3DS consoles. While the eShops for both systems were shut down in March 2023, this will remove the online functionality of many apps and games, making gaming on either of these platforms an almost entirely offline experience. As a result, many games on those systems will lose important features and never be quite the same to play afterward. So, you'll need to get some gaming time in by next April if you want to refresh and preserve the memories of playing online on these two underdog Nintendo platforms.
While the aforementioned eShop closures make it impossible to buy new games digitally, plenty of games that you likely already own physical copies of or already had downloaded have online features that won't work properly come April 2024. As such, we recommend you play the following games online before the discontinuation of those services next year.
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Kid Icarus Uprising is mostly remembered for its entertaining story, charismatic characters, and odd controls, but it also features a surprisingly fun multiplayer experience in Together Mode. In multiplayer, up to six players can use powerful weapons and abilities from the main adventure in one of two modes. Free-for-all lets players loose on a map, tasking them with racking up the most kills within a set time limit. Light vs. Dark is more complex, as two teams of three face off until enough players are defeated that one respawns as an angel; when that powered-up angel is killed, the match is over.
While far from balanced, Kid Icarus Uprising's Together Mode is one of the most entertaining competitive multiplayer experiences exclusive to 3DS. It can be played locally, using bots to fill in empty spots, so thankfully it won't stop working entirely. Still, it's not easy in 2023 to come across multiple people near you who have copies of Kid Icarus Uprising and want to play. As such, check out this cult classic 3DS game's hidden gem of a mode before praying that the rumors of a remaster eventually become true.
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Gaming

Nintendo is shutting down online services for 3DS and Wii U next April

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Nintendo confirmed it will widely shut down online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games in April 2024, which will be just over a year after it discontinued the Nintendo eShop on those systems.
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Essentially, this means that after April 2024, you won't be able to use any online features in things like 3DS Pokémon games or Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U anymore. Nintendo does say in the Q&A section of its support article that people will still be able to play games offline and redownload updates and games from the Nintendo eShop for the foreseeable future. Pokémon Bank will remain unaffected, so it'll still be possible to transfer Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire all of the way to Pokémon Home. However, SpotPass support and other online-focused applications like Nintendo Badge Arcade will stop working entirely.

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Gaming

Detective Pikachu Returns: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

Pikachu with detective cap smiling and drinking coffee cup

One of the more forgotten entries in the monster-catching franchise is also the most unique. Detective Pikachu was originally a 3DS game (and a feature film) that cast Pikachu as a smooth-talking (that's right, he talks!) detective who teams up with a kid named Tim Goodman to solve various mysteries. Rather than play like an RPG, this entry was more of an adventure game, focusing on story and, naturally, solving mysteries. After the success of the game and film, it was only a matter of time before a sequel game was announced. The wait turned out to be quite a bit longer than many expected, but now that Detective Pikachu Returns has been officially announced, we've put on our caps and collected all the clues about this upcoming adventure.
Release date

Detective Pikachu Returns is right around the corner. The game will launch on October 6, 2023.
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