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May 10, 2019 · Detective Pikachu isn't perfect, but it's the best video game movie ever made. News by Alex Donaldson Assistant Editor. Published on May 10, 2019. Follow Detective Pikachu....
- alex@vg247.com
- Assistant Editor
- "A bolt of brilliance!" was Detective Pikachu's catchphrase in the game.
- Similar: Mewtwo was in the game, but had a different request
- Different: Mewtwo met Tim’s father with Pikachu but…
- Similar: It was drugs all along, but with different villains and motives
- Different: Charizard was a more sympathetic character
- Different: There were way more mysteries to solve
- Similar: Torterra did cause some shock, but not in the same way
- Similar: Detective Pikachu wasn’t a coffee addict, but he did love coffee
- Different: Lucy wasn’t named Lucy and she wasn’t an intern
- Similar: Tim Goodman still takes the back seat to Detective Pikachu
By Miranda Sanchez
Updated: Apr 29, 2020 8:35 pm
Posted: May 12, 2019 3:02 pm
The Detective Pikachu movie was heavily inspired by its video game predecessor, but in the process of making it to the big screen, plenty of details about Tim and Pikachu’s adventure were changed – though I’d argue many of the changes made their story better for the movie.
This list of changes and similarities was put together based on the most impactful changes to characters and the story.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and Detective Pikachu the game!
In the Detective Pikachu Game, Mewtwo was never captured by a mysterious organization. Instead, a group of scientists came across Mewtwo cells that they confused for Mew cells when trying to create a miracle medicine. They instead created R, a drug that caused Pokemon to go berserk.
This Mewtwo also has a deep distrust of humans.
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During Harry and Pikachu’s R investigation, they fight with a villain unique to the game, only to be thwarted by a severe car crash shortly after. The crash ejected Tim and Pikachu through the front window. Like in the movie, this is when Mewtwo approaches Pikachu and, unlike the movie, tasks Pikachu with recovering his stollen cells. This Mewtwo also has a deep distrust of humans. Mewtwo threatens to destroy, well, “everything,” but Mewtwo eventually reveals that Pikachu convinced him not to. It’s then we assume Mewtwo somehow saves Harry. Mewtwo then watches Pikachu’s adventure with Tim from afar, noting before the end of the game that some humans can be dependable.
Their merging is only implied in the game, not completely confirmed. The game ends with Mewtwo presenting himself to Pikachu to receive the last of his stray cells, and he says something interesting to Pikachu: “Have you decided which one to choose?” Pikachu's answer isn't revealed, but Pikachu faints as Tim comes around the corner. Tim sees Mewtwo, who tells him his father is still alive and can find him eventually provided he doesn’t give up.
This leaves the story open-ended for another game. The movie has a rather different ending, which you can read more about in our Detective Pikachu ending explained feature.
Pokemon goes to some surprisingly dark and serious places – Team Rocket nearly dies rather often in the anime – but it was a shock to find out that, in the game, R was being used to create controversies with Pokemon so that a GNN producer named Roger Clifford could grow the network, research R, and by selling R, gain power and money to seize control of the world. He went so far as to kidnap a scientist and forced him to produce the drug in secret. There was never a secret plan from Howard Clifford to merge Pokemon and humans like there was in the movie.
But like in the movie, R is a threat to a parade at the end, though the game had the drug hidden in more casual balloons, food, and other things around a larger carnival. The drug is never unleashed on Ryme City, and Pikachu gets a quick battle with a Noivern instead of Mewtwo to defeat Roger.
While Charizard got a big battle feature in the movie, Charizard was only seen on tape in the Detective Pikachu game. Like in the movie, the game’s version of Charizard is affected by R, but instead of R being used to power up the Pokemon in battle, it’s used to cause chaos at a theme park. While Charizard was leading a parade. The Charizard does a ton of damage and is taken away. The park shuts down and the other Pokemon who worked in the park now live there in hiding, waiting for Charizard to return. It’s quite tragic.
Footage of Charizard’s rampage actually helps Tim and Pikachu find their first of two culprits in the R case. The illegal battle arena and Charizard’s trainer Sebastian did not exist in the game.
The game heavily relied on Pikachu’s ability to communicate with Pokemon to solve mysteries, but the movie seldom uses it. For instance, the first mystery involves some mischievous Aipom and a stolen necklace. This is where Tim meets Pikachu, and by talking to various Pokemon and investigating clues, they’re able to find the necklace and celebrate ...
In the game, Tim and Pikachu never make it to the original lab where R was invented like their movie counterparts. That lab was destroyed and rebuilt as a new facility where researchers study how Pokemon can work together with humans to better day to day life. For example, one researcher explores how Garbodor can help with garbage disposal while another is trying to find out how Solosis and Duosion can survive in any environment. Tim and Pikachu do find a secret room that remained from the old lab that harbored plenty of R research, but it still lacked the movie’s dangerous Greninja and gargantuan Torterra.
However, a Torterra does appear in the Detective Pikachu prequel ebook! Pikachu gets stuck in a hole in someone’s yard and Torterra rescues him. It was a kind, regular-sized Torterra, and a key part of the mystery Pikachu was solving for an Eevee in the game prequel story.
OK, maybe he was a little addicted to coffee, but he was more of an aficionado. There was even a feature in the game where you could talk to Pikachu and collect his coffee tips among other conversations. (It was surprisingly informative!) The Hi-Hat Cafe was far more prominent in the Detective Pikachu game too. Pikachu and Tim often spent time here...
Lucy Stevens, the spunky intern with a partner Psycduck, is an entirely original movie character. In the game, Lucy’s role was split between two women who worked full-time at GNN. One was a camerawoman, Meiko Okamoto, and the other was Emilia Christie, a GNN reporter who is a little more similar to Lucy. These two worked together to cover the myste...
The game and movie both have a sharp focus on Detective Pikachu, but the game sees Tim as even more as a self-insert character, which makes sense. Tim arrives in Ryme city with the intention of investigating what happened to his father rather than coming to the city with the belief that Harry Goodman is already dead. The details of the rest of Tim’...
- Miranda Sanchez
Jul 3, 2023 · Detective Pikachu is not a complex game; it’s clearly meant to be an all-ages mystery that even the youngest Pokémon fan can play through.But its use of Pokémon’s world is what elevates it ...
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- Paul Tassi
