Detective Pikachu: The Talking, Coffee-Loving Pokémon Sleuth

He talks, and that's the only extraordinary thing he can do. Detective Pikachu is neither a battle partner nor a Pokédex catch: he's the investigator of one city, Ryme City, where he teams up with a young man searching for his father. His game is one of the rare titles in the series to put a Pokémon front and center and give it a voice rather than an HP bar.

Contents

• A Pokémon that talks, and doesn't battle
• Ryme City, Tim Goodman and the detective agency
• Substance R, and the pact with Mewtwo
• From the Japanese eShop to the Nintendo Switch
• Detective Pikachu at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Pokémon that talks, and doesn't battle

The game presents his ability to speak human language as an unprecedented oddity, one it never tries to explain and that nothing around him matches. It's the only thing that truly sets him apart from the city's other Pokémon.

Everything else points the other way. He can't use his moves, and he walks exclusively on his two hind legs, a gait that costs him all his speed. In other words, a Pikachu stripped of the two qualities the series usually measures him by: power and speed.

Instead, he inherits some very human quirks. Coffee is both his drink and his weakness, and feminine charm disarms him completely — to the point that he pushes his partner to invite the women they meet along the way for tea, even though the young man is anything but smooth with them.

These habits spill over onto the supporting cast. He has a crush on Rita Partridge, who welcomes visitors to the city's lab; Carina Mitchell's violin moves him to tears; and Amanda Blackstone, the agency's secretary, spends her time scolding him.

⚡ The mascot has its own section: see the section dedicated to Pikachu.

Ryme City, Tim Goodman and the detective agency

The whole plot takes place in a single city, Ryme City, where Tim Goodman arrives, looking for his father Harry, who went missing two months earlier. The link between the two protagonists is no coincidence: Harry Goodman was this very Pikachu's former Trainer.

Tim gets hired by a detective agency, and the duo starts handling cases involving Pokémon. Around them revolves Mike Baker, the biggest name in detective work in the city, Harry's friend and colleague, who runs the agency bearing his name, with Amanda Blackstone as secretary and Inspector Frank Holiday as his trusted contact.

Ryme City runs entirely on human-Pokémon pairs, which makes the hero's anomaly stand out even more. Police officer Brad McMaster patrols with a Manectric, Baker works with an Accelgor that is shy but lightning-fast the moment you turn your back, Amanda's Fletchling delivers the mail, and Pablo Millan's Ludicolo dances and serves coffee to the customers of the Hi-Hat Café. None of them talks.

Substance R, and the pact with Mewtwo

The investigation isn't only about Harry's disappearance: it revolves around R, a substance that sends Pokémon into a destructive frenzy. It's the thread that ties together every case in the game.

Its origin is a lab accident. John Waals, who ran the city's research center before resigning, wanted to develop a miracle cure; believing he was working on Mew, he actually took cells from Mewtwo. R was born from that sample mix-up.

The trafficking that follows, on the other hand, is entirely deliberate. Roger Clifford, the main antagonist, set it up to make the GNN network Ryme City's dominant media outlet, and had two henchmen carry out the attacks on the Goodmans. One of them, Keith Norman, a former presenter on the network, had already caused the Fine Park disaster a year earlier: there, his Skorupi had punctured, right above a Charizard, a balloon filled with R. Frank Holiday eventually arrests Harry's three attackers, Clifford included.

One detail remains, and it's the one that gives the hero his true stature. Mewtwo, on the trail of its own cells, picks up their trace in the formula of R and strikes a deal with the detective: it's up to him to track them down. A Legendary outsourcing its quest to a detective on the ground — the series had never cast the roles in that order before.

From the Japanese eShop to the Nintendo Switch

The first version never left Japan. Released in February 2016 under the title Detective Pikachu – Birth of a New Duo, it sold for 1,500 yen on the Nintendo 3DS online store and stopped after three chapters. It was pulled from sale on January 12, 2018.

That same day, The Pokémon Company announced the full version for the rest of the world, both boxed and digital. It came out on March 23, 2018 on Nintendo 3DS and is the second installment in the series: the 2016 version expanded, this time taking the case all the way to the end.

The launch came with an amiibo figure of the detective, much bigger than the usual format at 13.6 cm. Once scanned, it unlocks short video clips in which the player can pick up clues. A feature film and a comic were later adapted from it, and a sequel came out in 2023 on Nintendo Switch: of all the spin-offs in the series, this one is among the few to have branched out so far.

Detective Pikachu at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Detective Pikachu?
  A Pikachu who can talk and who investigates in Ryme City alongside Tim Goodman. He used to belong to Harry Goodman, Tim's father. He doesn't use his moves, walks on his hind legs and loves coffee.
• What console is the Detective Pikachu game on?
  Nintendo 3DS, with a worldwide release on March 23, 2018. It's the expanded version of a Japan-only title from February 2016, which stopped at the third chapter. A sequel came out on Nintendo Switch in 2023.
• What is substance R?
  A substance that drives Pokémon to destruction, and the heart of the game's investigation. John Waals, the former director of the city's research center, created it by accident: he was looking for a miracle cure and took cells from Mewtwo, believing he was working on Mew.
• Why does Mewtwo help Detective Pikachu?
  Because it's searching for its own cells, which R is partly made from. So it strikes a deal with the detective, who is to track them down.
• What does the Detective Pikachu amiibo do?
  Scanned in the game, it unlocks short video clips that may hide clues useful to the investigation. What makes it special is its size: 13.6 cm, well beyond an ordinary amiibo.

In short

Detective Pikachu owes his unique place to something taken away: he loses battling and speed, and gets a voice in return. The result is a Pokémon who single-handedly carries a full crime story, from a lab accident to a trafficking ring run by a TV network executive. It's one of the few games in the franchise to put a Pokémon front and center, even though the playable character is still Tim Goodman.