Highlights
- Detective Pikachu Returns allows players to interact with Pokemon and understand their thoughts and feelings, providing new perspectives on how these creatures act.
- The game introduces Pawniard, the first form in the evolutionary line, and showcases its charm and power through the first case.
- Although often overshadowed by its evolved form Bisharp, Pawniard proves its worth by displaying its strength and determination, emphasizing the importance of its tough training.
Once again, players can solve mysteries with Pokemon in Detective Pikachu Returns, one of Nintendo's surprise releases this year that serves as another treat for fans of the franchise in between Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's DLC releases. Playing as budding detective Jim Goodman, players can team up with partner Detective Pikachu to help solve cases and local problems throughout Ryme City. One of the biggest draws to the first game and its new sequel is that Tim could interview and speak with humans while budding movie star Detective Pikachu could talk with Pokemon.
Detective Pikachu Returns is no slouch when it comes to interactivity with the critters found in Game Freak's hit RPG franchise. While players control Tim, his Pikachu partner translates Pokemon just like Meowth from the original anime would, and when fans get to play as Detective Pikachu, they can understand what the critters are saying almost directly from the creatures themselves. It gives all sorts of new perspectives into how Pokemon act and feel, and for some, like Pawniard, it helps remind fans of what they might have forgotten regarding some creatures.
Pokemon's Pawniard and Bisharp
Introduced in the 5th Generation Pokemon games, Bisharp has been a relatively popular creature for the series since its first appearance. This is mostly due to the fact that Bisharp often gets used in competitive Pokemon VGC, even after its new evolution Kingambit was recently introduced in Scarlet and Violet. Alongside that, many fans enjoy how cool Bisharp looks while dealing with a rather high attack stat. Out of all three of the evolutionary lines, there's no argument that Bisharp is the most popular with Kingambit coming at a close second.
This unfortunately tends to leave out little Pawniard, the first form in the evolutionary line. Despite the fact that a Pawniard has to be trained until level 52 in order to evolve into Bisharp, fans of the metallic critter don't even talk about its smaller version nearly as much, and it seems that the new inclusion of Pawniard's potential in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has only made this problem even worse. Thankfully, Detective Pikachu Returns' first real case features a Pawniard and shows that it has a fair deal of charm itself, too.
Detective Pikachu Returns Turns Pawniard Into an Adorable Force of Nature
The Missing Jewel, the first real case Detective Pikachu Returns players take on, takes a turn to where a "red Pokemon" is deemed a potential suspect for hitting one of the butlers in the mansion where the crime took place. This leads Tim and Pikachu to find the Unova Pokemon behind a rock it uses to train itself. Pawniard is presented as what appears to be its in-game height, as it's just slightly taller than Detective Pikachu, and is given a rather cute voice that only brings out its rather small stature even more.
However, Pawniard's appearance isn't at all perceived as only cute in Detective Pikachu Returns. Its training rock is covered in cuts and gashes, pointing out its power as a strong creature. On top of that, Detective Pikachu gets curious to see this power in action for himself, and asks the Steel-type Pokemon to slice the rock behind them in half, which it does with flying colors right in front of Pikachu, Tim, and the player's eyes.
It definitely helps prove that as famous Bisharp is, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the tough training of the Pawniard it evolved from. Sadly, though, this Pawniard was controlled by someone for an ulterior motive connected to Detective Pikachu Returns' biggest mystery, and it's up to Tim and Pikachu to figure out what that is throughout the game.
Detective Pikachu Returns is available now for Nintendo Switch.
