Pokemon Talk: Let's Go, Detective Pikachu & Melmetal

It has been a busy week for Pokemon! We've got the worldwide release of Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee, the weird combination of a generation 1 remake combined with Pokemon Go mechanics, released on the Switch. And it still manages to be pretty dang charming! I'm not going to be able to give my thoughts about the game due to, well, not being able to play the game until at least December. I'm working abroad at the moment, and I left my Nintendo Switch at my home, so... yeah. I really do think that they perhaps probably went a bit overboard with simplifying the game for a more casual audience, but on the other hand, I've always viewed the Let's Go games as more of a side game akin to Pokemon Ranger and its ilk, it's just kind of a way to capitalize on the Pokemon Go market. I will be pretty cross if the actual next-generation main series games do work on the simplified Pokemon Go mechanics, but on the other hand... the Kanto games are games that I know better than the back of my hand, so I'm honestly not particularly super-outraged that they're making things easier. The experience will at least be different, and I'll reserve judgment until later.

Also, we've gotten the release of Meltan's evolution, Melmetal, a while back. And Melmetal is... a whole lot less charming than Meltan, I think. It blatantly looks like a Regirock expy, and while I did say that Meltan looks charming despite being a Ditto clone, Melmetal just looks... really goofy, with so many random nuts and bolts that don't really look the best. Maybe I just needed time for the design to grow onto me, but I really do think this is such a huge step down from the simplicity of Meltan.

Far, far more interesting, though, is the trailer for the live-action Detective Pikachu movie. When they announced that they were going to do a Detective Pikachu movie, I had thought that it was going to be an animated affair, or maybe some Space-Jam-style live action/animated integrated deal.

Apparently not! They actually fucking made a live-action Pokemon adaptation with CGI and everything, and you know what? That trailer... it looks genuinely decent! Sure, some of the Pokemon look horrifyingly creepy (Mr. Mime for sure) but I honestly think it's appropriate considering how Mr. Mime is. Pikachu looks adorable, Ryan Reynolds' voice somehow works, and a lot of the effects there honestly work amazingly well at translating the Pokemon from their sprite/CG models into animated quasi-realistic monsters.

And that trailer shows that it's not just a blatant random plastering of an IP onto a generic movie either. The sheer amount of detail put into the backgrounds and the gigantic amount of Easter Eggs on random buildings and posters, plus the huge amount of Pokemon cameos in the background... yeah, I'm genuinely surprised to say that I'm actually super-excited by this movie's trailer. I'm going to watch it regardless since it's Pokemon, but at the same time the fact that it actually looks, y'know, really fucking good is a huge addition to me being just super-duper excited.

LOOK AT THOSE BULBASAURS I WANT ONE