Great Detective Pikachu (3DS)

**Yoshi** · 07 Nov 2013, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by Joystiq

The Pokemon Company is working on a 3DS detective game with Pikachu as your partner, due out in 2015. The game was outed on Japanese channel NHK, in a program called The Professionals highlighting Pokemon CEO Tsunekaz Ishihara, as spotted by Serebii.

The detective game features a rare Pikachu as the enemy, but the development team "can't see people liking it," the site says. It also stars a blue Pikachu that talks, and Pikachu is being developed with motion capture and facial recognition software.

NHK posted an ad for The Professionals on October 22, showing the detective game and a clip of a motion-captured Pikachu that will haunt our quiet nights alone for years to come. Both bits were graciously giffed by TinyCartridge, if this year's haunted houses just aren't doing it for you.

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Originally Posted by Joystiq

Nintendo's most lucrative electric rat may be trading in his Thunderbolt attack for a Meerschaum pipe, as the publisher has trademarked something called "Great Detective Pikachu."

Normally, trademarks come and go. You're as likely to see a 'mark spawn a full-fledged game as you are to see a company sit on a term or phrase for potential future use. Great Detective Pikachu however, is a bit different as it directly ties to a recent, official video depicting a strange, talking blue Pikachu.

Scant little is known of how the game will actually perform or what Pikachu might be detecting, but it has been revealed that motion capture techniques are being used to properly animate the rodent's facial expressions and speech routines. Whether that sounds adorable or intensely terrifying comes down to your opinion on overly-anthropomorphized Pokémon.

Either way, we aren't likely to know how things play out until Nintendo decides to shed more light on this mystery.

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No bullshit, this is easily the most interesting thing I've seen attached to this franchise.