For Honor

Ubisoft is no stranger to games dabbling in Alternate History, though they’re most famous for their use of it in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Other franchises of theirs that utilize the concept, like Anno, go a little looser with it. No matter how much they play with historical events and time periods, there is an attempt at depicting details with as much accuracy as the setting and gameplay can allow. Today’s game is, as a result, a very bizarre beast because it’s going for insane historical accuracy while, at the exact same time, depicting something completely fantastical.

If knights and samurai fought at some point in our long
History, I'm sure it's never to the extent that they do here.

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released on February 14, 2017, For Honor’s genre is hard to pin down. At its core, it’s a third-person melee fighter, which sees you mowing down weak enemies and using strategy to take down stronger ones. Like a 3D beat’em-up with swords. While the game includes a single-player campaign, it puts a lot more focus on its multiplayer options. There, you can take part in fights as a member of one of the available factions, earn points for your group, and help conquer territories in this endless war.

For, yes, this game is about war. War never changes... Wait, wrong studio. But the spirit is the same. I’m not huge on multiplayer, but I’ll do my due diligence and discuss that part before focusing on the single-player campaign. I’d usually do this in the opposite order, but I’ll probably spend a lot more time on the campaign, so multiplayer first. Or, wait, no. First, I guess I’d better explain the setting.

Fighting Spirits

The base concept of this endless war is that multiple warrior races live next door to each other at the same time and, since that’s all they really know, try taking over each other’s territories. At launch, only three “clans” existed: The Legion (medieval knights), the Warborn (Vikings), and the Chosen (Samurai). Later updates add two new clans: The Wu Lin (based on Ancient Chinese warriors) first, then the Outlanders, travelers from other cultures, who don’t fit the other four and chose to team up against them.

There's probably an entire thesis to be written about every
bit of equipment worn by every member of every
character class. I shall not be the one who writes it.

An interesting aspect of these clans is that they all span several centuries of our world’s History, and it’s reflected in their various classes. And yet, at the same time, classes are about all as time-displaced as can get; an example would be the knights, who feature Centurions and Gladiators based off Ancient Rome fighting on the same side as multiple types of knights who existed anywhere from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. The same goes for armors and weapons, as most if not all of them are inspired by very real equipment worn by each class, to say nothing of techniques and strategies co-existing despite having been invented several centuries apart. Anachronisms is the name of the game, not just within clans, but sometimes within a single character class. I’d probably need a few years of historical studies to understand everything that’s featured here and all the ways in which they shouldn’t make sense when put together.

These anachronisms fly by so easily because the setting is blatantly fantastic. Either way, you’ve at least got to hand that to Ubisoft Montreal, they put in the work.

Gaming Memories: Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 2

Nintento Entertainment System

September 1988

Still to this day, what the American continent originally got as a sequel to the first Super Mario Bros. on the NES stands as one of the oddest entries in the franchise. It's not much of a secret that this game was made by taking another game, namely Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, and slapping Mario characters on it. Actually, I think it's the most-repeated "mind-blowing fact you don't know!!" (clickbait look intentional) in the history of gaming. The reason this was done was allegedly because the actual Super Mario Bros. 2 ("The Lost Levels"), which Japan got, looked identical to Super Mario Bros. 1, with the main difference being that its difficulty was through the roof.

Since it adapts a game with four playable characters, SMB2 marks the first time we can actually play as Princess Toadstool (who wouldn't become known as Peach in the English version of Mario games for a few more years) or as Toad. All four characters play a little differently, as well; Mario plays like usual, Luigi jumps a little higher, the Princess can float thanks to her dress, and Toad has greater strength so he picks items up faster, but his jump is abysmal as a tradeoff.

With its bizarre inception, you could think that this game struggles to fit with the remainder of the franchise, and... well, with its gameplay that involves uprooting plants and tossing things to attack, you'd be right. In this case, it's fairer to say that the Mario franchise retroactively accepted SMB2 (often referred to as Super Mario USA to differentiate it from Japan's The Lost Levels) into its canon. Mainly by transplanting some of the enemies into the larger franchise; Subcon, the game's dream world, is where we first met, among others, Bob-Ombs, Ninjis, Pokeys, Shy Guys, Snifits and Birdo, some of which reappeared as early as SMB3. However, its major bosses have remained divorced from the series, with fewer in-game references to Wart than you can count on one hand. (He does appear in other places of Nintendo canon however, with one notable appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening!)

This game's other major secret is also well-known; namely, that this game was Mario's dream. Beating Wart shows a quick cutscene of Mario sleeping, thinking up the events. Gives Wart's appearance in Link's Awakening an interesting double meaning. However, as far as I can remember, I don't recall ever actually getting to the end of this one. Blame it on the weird mechanics that felt too different from classic Mario fare, but when given the choice, I would usually go for SMB1 or 3 instead. Probably 3. It's been a while so I don't remember perfectly, but I think I never got past Fryguy, the fourth boss and the most annoying of them. Which doesn't mean it's a bad game; it's pretty good. Just not what I was looking for in a Mario game, I who also had access to Super Mario World, making it sit in its corner as the oddity it is.

I definitely played it a lot more than I played The Lost Levels, though! That one's a masochist's game.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

Strain of the Week

I wondered where the names of the GUILTs
came from. Turns out, it's just the days of the
week in Greek. Kyriaki = Sunday,
Deftera = Monday, etc.

When we left off, Derek learned that his mentor, Greg Kasal from Hope Hospital, has been infected by a strain of GUILT, those new super-diseases created by medical terrorist group Delphi.

...Yeah, I just wrote that. What, were you expecting a video game about a surgeon to be normal? We already jumped the shark, it’s all downhill from here.

Dr. Greg is a far cry from the happy man we had
as our mentor. It is only fitting that he
becomes our final exam as a student...

Although the true form of Tetarti is shown in the
picture above, we actively participated to a
testing/research period beforehand, helping
make a cure for the strain.

Since the strain is new, the team at Caduceus doesn’t have a treatment for it. A serum is in the works, but they need more antigen. Several other weaker cases of the new strain, known as Tetarti, have popped up around town. Each one of them seems to be a slightly different virus, so we go around town operating on the people bearing these weaker strains and obtain no less three antigen variants. Victor, ever the smiler, finishes the serum, and then we operate on Dr. Kasal to remove the GUILT. This one comes as three creatures that move around the organ; one green, one yellow and one purple. You must inject each with the serum of its corresponding color, and you must do that before all three disappear at the same time. Their colors also go away after a bit, forcing you to remember which is which (or watch their trails of colored gas to figure it out).

Victor never cracks a damn smile, but he gets
shit done. That's all Caduceus asks for.

Kasal is saved, but this is only the beginning of trouble. Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard Anderson, who doubles as head of Caduceus, is giving a speech downtown when he suffers a cardiac arrest. Hospitalized, it's revealed to actually be another unknown variant of GUILT. Christ, there’s gonna be a hundred of those things by the end. Diseases: Gotta Catch ‘Em All! Since Caduceus does not have the cure for that one, Mr. Anderson courageously says he’ll be their guinea pig so they can study this new disease and counter it. Our first operation on the man is a series of experimentations with the aid of Victor; we don’t cure the secretary, but we have data and samples to work from.

There's the cuts, too. And the little things
this damn disease keeps spawning, as well.

Victor puts Derek through some tests to work on a cure for Pempti, the new disease. This leads to a new liquid, with limited efficacy; it only reveals the core of the virus, another little monster to kill, which the current solution can’t do. More experimentations follow until we have something that can beat Pempti. We operate on the secretary again and kill the disease, but the repeated surgeries have weakened him too much to survive. Before dying, he meets with Robert Hoffman, the director of Hope Hospital, and begs him to take over as head of Caduceus and to go back to performing surgeries. Hoffman had left the practice to focus on managerial duties following catastrophes caused by the use of his own Healing Touch. Hoffman agrees, determined to put an end to Delphi.

Good to see him come back to the practice.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Part 1)

Who needs gloves, anyway?

One of the indie games I’ve played for this blog that I keep a soft spot for is Surgeon Simulator. It’s exactly as wacky as it needs to be. Realism? Forget it, just free the old heart, shove the new one in there, and here we go, patient’s good as new. Patching ‘im back up? We’re way too good for that. What? Those organs left on the floor? Those weren’t important. Who cares about a spleen anyway? Alright, next up we put a new eye in this guy's socket-whooops! Lost it! Good thing we had that miniature 8-ball lying around!

Point being, Surgeon Sim is a lot of fun, but we don’t really need a story to go with the kooky procedures. No need for that sort of glazing while we operate on poor ol’ Bob on the table, in the hallways, in the back of an ambulance, or in a zero-G environment. But what if we had a story? Well, as it turns out, indie gaming came to this second. Before the funny surgery game on PC, there was a series of funny surgery games... on Nintendo consoles.

Developed by Atlus, the Trauma Center franchise was a series of five games released from 2005 to 2010. Today’s game, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, is the second game in the series, but it’s a remake for the Wii of the first game, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, originally on the Nintendo DS. The original touch screen gameplay had to be adapted to the new console’s motion controls. Second Opinion is also notable in that it was a launch title, released on November 19th, 2006 alongside the Wii.

This series combines the stress of performing operations with a story delivered visual novel-style. You know the medical drama genre, right? House, ER, Scrubs, “it’s never lupus”? Well, it’s not gonna help much. Trauma Center is to the medical field what Ace Attorney is to practicing law. I hope you weren’t expecting accuracy and realism, is what I’m saying. What can you expect instead? Oh, just wait...

Dr. Stiles

By the way, I took my screenshots from the Let's
Play on the channel ProZD Plays Games.
Check it out to see the full game!

This 2006 game takes place in the faraway future of... 2018. Technology, including in the medical field, has seen leaps and bounds. We meet our protagonist, Derek Stiles, an up-and-coming new surgeon at Hope Hospital. He is led through his first operations by Nurse Mary Fulton, Hope's surgical assistant, and the hospital's director Greg Kasal (who’ll take on a mentor role and take over if an operation is botched). Derek is quickly shown to be excellent under the pressure of the operating room (...as excellent as YOU can be, that is), but lacking in all other areas of the job. Bedside manners, post-op care, reading and filling the patient files, actually getting to the hospital on time... Jesus, that’s a disaster waiting to happen. We’re starting on the right foot!

VGFlicks: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Clifford

Oh yeah, that's the face of a savior of humanity right there.
Everybody knows that every hero's favorite face to make
is the friggin' Kubrick Stare. It looks so nice and heroic! /s

At the end of Part 3, Tim met with Howard Clifford only to see the man wearing the neural link from PCL on his head. A capsule containing Mewtwo emerges, showing the Legendary Pokémon also wearing a similar device. When Clifford activates it, his body in the chair goes numb, but Mewtwo’s face turns into an evil scowl betraying the new mind that’s taken over. Even its voice, originally a mix of male and female, is now Howard’s. Now that he's in control of the world’s most powerful Pokémon, the old man now can’t help but reveal everything, then gloat or monologue. Bad guys, amirite? It’s like I said earlier, never trust a billionaire.

Mewtwo using its mouth to talk instead of using telepathy
is somehow extra creepy.

He DID hire Harry to catch Mewtwo, but the detective refused the money and did some digging, following a hunch. He discovered the experiments, and he and his Pikachu freed Mewtwo. We know what happens next. When Tim came around, Howard used the son to track down the Legendary beast. As for the evil plan? The R gas makes Pokémon go feral, pushing their minds back. And Mewtwo happens to have the ability to implant human souls (and/or minds, I guess?) within Pokémon bodies, which can be done either through willing participation from the Pokémon or when they’re frenzied.

Right, inhabiting the body of the "world's most powerful
Pokémon" also means access to phenomenal psychic powers.

The parade floats are filled with R gas, and Howard, fueled by his lifelong obsession with Pokémon evolution and “becoming better versions of ourselves”, plans to force every human at the parade into the body of their partner Pokémon. Of course, to do that, Clifford put himself into the body of the world’s most powerful Pokémon, hoping to rule over his new, um, kin. Yeah, guess his son wasn’t wrong calling out his god complex earlier in the film, huh?

Those powers work fast, damn.

Harold-in-Mewtwo shoves Tim aside, then descends into the streets to announce his grand plan to the crowd. He claims his idea is a cure for the weaknesses of humanity. He breaks the floats, releasing the R everywhere. Lieutenant Yoshida, in the crowd, tries to call for backup but is attacked by his Snubbull. Lucy tries to get to a camera to warn the residents of Ryme City not to let their Pokémon breathe the gas. Howard’s rampage catches up to them, leading to the humans’ bodies disappearing, absorbed into their partners.

This feels forced, yet who cares? It looks cool,
and that's what matters.

Pikachu, who has run all the way from the wilderness into the city, arrives just after every human has been struck by Mewtwo’s psychic wave. He meets Lucy in Psyduck’s body, who explains the situation. Knowing he must make things right, Pikachu climbs onto one of the floats in the air and confronts the madman. Apparently, he didn’t just do this long-ass trip in record time, he also learned to master all his moves, from Thunderbolt to Volt Tackle! And this is gonna be one Hell of a fight. Pikachu VS Mewtwo, on top of Pokémon-shaped floats? I could’ve sworn I’ve seen that before.

Harry

Howard Clifford would have a great plan, if it weren’t that it leaves his original body defenseless. Tim has come to the same conclusion; rip the neural transmitter off, bye-bye connection. However, before he can act on this plan, muffled sounds come from the closet; in there, he finds a tied-up and gagged Roger Clifford. Holy Hell, he did that to his own son? When his mouth is freed, Roger yells at Tim about something behind him; Tim turns around, to see the sunglasses-wearing Roger.

Oh good, Clifford's doing human cloning too.
Or he's relying on a very different type of cloning.

Part of the Internet would say, "...Still would."

While I did figure out the film’s main twist easily, this one took me by surprise when I saw it in theaters. Like everyone else, Howard has a partner Pokémon: A Ditto. Normally, those can only transform into Pokémon they’re looking at, but this one was genetically-enhanced to transform into humans and other Pokémon at will, cycling through forms effortlessly. Earlier in the film, we see it turn into a human to become Howard's handler. But I didn’t click that every time we saw someone with sunglasses on, it was the Ditto in disguise. Why the glasses? Like one featured in the anime, this Ditto's only flaw is that its eyes always remain black beads. It’s unsettling. And by the time of the reveal, it’s very likely you’ve forgotten about Ditto. It plays dirty, too, switching between forms and even turning into Lucy to attack Tim.

Meanwhile, Pikachu fights Howard over the rooftops, while the man occasionally flies by his office to encourage his Ditto. When Tim is in danger of falling from the very high floor of the office, Pikachu Volt Tackles the goddamn Mewtwo into the building. Reminder that this is an average Pokémon against something that’s been compared to a god. Hot damn, how much power is Harry’s Pikachu packing?

Badass! Also, watching this on a loop is satisfying.

As for Tim, he’s saved by Roger, the real one. Part of the reason why the twist of Howard being the actual villain works so well is that what little we saw of the real Roger Clifford didn’t paint a very good picture of the guy, making it believable that he’d be behind everything. (As a matter of fact, in the original Detective Pikachu game, where Howard doesn’t exist, Roger IS the main villain.) There was his outburst at the studio, and then his cruel takedown of Lucy when she came to him with the story about the R – he was a dick about it, sure, but he was right that she needed proper sources. Almost every other time he appears, he has sunglasses on. I like when an adaptation pulls a new twist that makes sense in-universe yet is also still in line with the work being adapted. It's a very tough balancing act.

Tim: "I'm about to end this man's whole ploy."

Just in time!

Tim eventually defeats the Ditto by spraying it with R gas from a tank. Howard, too busy with Pikachu, doesn’t realize he’s being distracted, while Pikachu’s partner reaches the billionaire’s body and pulls the neural link off, ending the connection. Mewtwo and Pikachu almost fall to the ground, but Mewtwo regains consciousness quickly enough to halt their fall in time. Tim comes down and reunites with Pikachu, while the Legendary undoes the damage its powers have done, erasing the R gas, and restoring every human’s body out of their Pokémon.

Everyone's back to normal! ...well, or so we hope.
Would be a shame if Mewtwo forgot someone.

Getting Harry back out of Pikachu is all that was left to do.

Howard Clifford is arrested. Roger recognizes Lucy’s work on the story, tells her to give an in-depth report on the story for the news, and ends by stating that he wants to make things right, which includes ending the genetic experiments. But one thing remains. Mewtwo explains that Harry has been around all along... within Pikachu. Yeah, this is the twist I saw coming, it became far too obvious far too quickly. Maybe the intention was for it to be a twist that’s easy to guess for younger audiences? I dunno. Either way, I feel it pales in comparison to the better twists mentioned earlier; but since it's the twist the whole story lies on, it can't exactly be removed. Maybe it could have gained from being more ambiguous.

Pikachu with its normal mind is the cutest thing.
(Shown here accepting to serve as the vessel for Harry's
mind while the body is kept by Mewtwo.)

As it turns out, on the scene of the car accident, Harry’s Pikachu willingly gave its body to allow Harry to survive. For it to happen, the rodent had to have its memory erased, explaining the amnesia. Mewtwo also asked Pikachu to bring Harry’s son... but why? It’s never explained why Tim was necessary to get Harry out of Pikachu, since Mewtwo easily undid every other mind takeover caused by the R gas. Is it because Pikachu did this willingly? Or was it because Harry's wounds were a lot worse? That bit is poorly explained, and without the proper info, Mewtwo asking for Harry’s son to be present feels tacked-on solely for when neither Tim nor Pikachu had the full story, to make Pikachu believe it had betrayed Harry and would betray Tim.

And this is why Detective Pikachu couldn't be voiced by
Danny DeVito.

Also doesn’t explain why Tim could understand his dad in the Pikachu when no one else could, but by that point, we can just assume the psychic powers did something wacky to let it happen. No matter, Harry Goodman is restored, and we see him at the very end, played by Ryan Reynolds. He's taking his son to the train station, but at the last second, Tim decides to stay in Ryme City with his father. They have so much catching up to do. Maybe try his hand at the whole detective thing. And of course, Pikachu follows them along, little hat still on its adorable fuzzy yellow head.

Roll credits – no special scenes in there; I’m thankful they didn’t pull the “sequel hook” card, just in case a live-action Pokémon sequel wouldn’t happen (though we do know such a film is currently in development, they might not have known at the time). On the plus side, we have art of the human characters from the film drawn by Ken Sugimori himself! So cool.

Final thoughts

You could make a game out of spotting every Pokémon
in the movie.

Studying it in greater depth revealed a few things I could take issue with, but those still feel minimal when compared to the tour de force this movie represents. Often seen as the herald of a new era of film adaptations of video game franchises, Pokémon Detective Pikachu both adapts a video game and presents the franchise’s world in live action for the first time, and knocks it out of the park in both ways. The Pokémon are omnipresent, seen in every shot, often added in ways so subtle we won’t notice them until multiple viewings, and we get a feel not just that the Pokémon are there, but that they’ve indeed always existed in that world. All this, topped off by a story and world that tosses in loads and loads of references to the franchise’s lore and games. Even the anime gets a handful of friendly nods.

Then again, interactions between live-action and CGI are
always super-tricky to do.

Pokémon featured in this movie were given a realistic makeover, and while most still look pretty cute or in line with their original counterparts, some don’t benefit from the upgrade – but what worked and what didn’t depends on what you think is cute or not. The special effects work is solid, though, with only a small number of CGI and live-action interactions with flaws, like when Tim puts Pikachu's hat back on him.

Kathryn Newton and Justice Smith were already fans
of the franchise.

When it comes to characters, I like most of the cast, and I think the actors played their roles very well – Tim starts out as a somewhat unlikeable character, but that can be chalked up to his personal issues, and he grows out of it. Lucy and Psyduck are fun, Mewtwo is as impressive as it should be, and Howard Clifford makes for an interesting villain. (Trivia: Before joining the film’s casting, Bill Nighy knew nothing of the franchise, and came out of filming converted into a fan of the series. Gotta love when that happens.)

Perhaps the element I’m more ambivalent on, characters-wise, is Detective Pikachu himself. So busy that he is with quipping left and right at everything he sees, the character’s detective skills end up underused. And don’t get me wrong, Ryan Reynolds’ quips are very funny, often getting as close to PG-13 as they can without crossing the line. But a point comes where the ad-libbing gets sorta obvious – and whereas it works great for a character like Deadpool, after several viewings of Pokémon Detective Pikachu it takes me out of the experience a bit.

Appropriately, a movie distributed by Warner Bros. has
a scene reminiscent of the Looney Tunes.

The movie’s story is pretty good, it has a strong emotional core, and features a lot of memorable scenes. (The reason I had that “best scene” running gag is that it’s hard to choose one! Uh... Okay, fine, my favorite is the Mr. Mime scene.) Lots of good action as well – the Aipom attack, the fight at the Roundhouse, everything at the labs, the "earthquakes" in the Torterra enclosure... Several scenes here are surprisingly intense. To say nothing of how cool the climax is.

Although, with that said, I will admit that I felt some plot elements were wonky, in part due to the film’s attempts at hiding its twists. I know I’m repeating myself, but the twist of Harry’s mind in Pikachu’s body always felt easy to figure out. There’s an attempt to hide it and foster drama through a misunderstanding by having Mewtwo say things that don’t quite fit with the rest, causing plot holes. I much preferred the other two twists – Howard Clifford being the one behind everything, and the Ditto taking on multiple roles, including that of his own son, to carry out his plan and create a scapegoat.

But even with those points of criticism, I believe that what we have here is a very solid movie, deserving of being called one of the better game-to-film adaptations out there, worth your time if you’re a Pokémon fan, and even if you aren't. A sequel is in development; expectations are gonna be high for that one as well, I can already tell.

Next week: I’m finally going back to reviewing video games!

VGFlicks: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Intrepid Reporting

Tim and Detective Pikachu now must find a semi-godly Pokémon hiding in the wilds. No sweat! Good thing they know just the right person who can help. They meet Lucy Stevens at the coffee shop. I guess I should mention that, just like Howard Clifford, Lucy was created for the movie; though in her case, rather than being a wholly new character, she is a composite of two different reporters from the game. Lucy still tries to play the part of the mysterious reporter from a noir, but again, her attempts are a complete failure. Giving up on the act, she reveals her discoveries. Turns out, she’s a great journalist! She investigated her boss Roger Clifford’s files for anything that could help the case. Her find? A research lab called PCL, which does genetic experiments on Pokémon. It had a major incident and had to shut down the previous week, with no media from Ryme City reporting on the event. And yet, that happened on the same night that Detective Goodman went missing.

She’s doing most of the work for them. So much for Pikachu allegedly being a detective...

Psyduck is enjoying this a little too much.

They next morning, they embark in Lucy’s sardine can of a car (what else could she afford with an intern’s salary?), with Pikachu in a baby seat and Psyduck sitting next to him. Pikachu really has a bone to pick with the ‘duck and his (literal) explosive migraines. The avian takes advantage of the rodent’s fear of a blow-up, tricking the mouse into a webbed foot massage. “Do it or I’ll explode”, yeah, totally not under duress or anything.

As she drives everyone to the lab, Lucy discusses her other discoveries: The lab was helmed by Dr. Ann Laurent (probably from Kalos), who was basically a Pokémon neurologist. Well, that’s the nice way to say it; actually, her experiments were a bit more on the “mad scientist” side, looking for ways to control the minds of Pokémon. This was frowned upon by the scientific community, no duh.

Greninja may be one of the Pokémon in the film that's made
more unsettling by the extra detail, entirely on purpose.

They get to the lab and the quartet breaks onto the property. Inside the main building, they see a couple of the experiments being done on Pokémon there. Scary stuff. Greninja being made stronger, Torterra being made bigger... The tone of the movie shifts into slight horror here, with a handful of PG-friendly jump scares. And an Alien reference. Unbeknownst to the heroes, Roger Clifford is aware of the break-in, and is on his way to PCL. Because things weren’t already tense enough, he uses his computer to open the genetically modified Pokémon’s hatches from a distance. Uh oh.

Now, talks about experiments on Pokémon is nothing new to the franchise, it’s been there since Gen 1 – the journals in the Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island, the existence of Mewtwo... but even then, it was always implied, or heard about from papers, hardly if ever shown directly. The players might deal with the aftermath, but always in classic turn-based fashion – so it felt like a bold move to not only show the experiments in the movie, but also emphasize how dangerous the Pokémon become as a result. Horrible accidents, deaths even, shown explicitly.

Nature in Action

Again, those holograms are impressive. It's like Tim and
Pikachu are really there. That's some advanced tech.

Tim and Pikachu activate the archival recordings, watching a holographic recreation of the events. A handful of archives show Mewtwo, in the capsule, with a purple substance being taken from its body. The infamous R they’ve been dealing with, the extract that makes Pokémon go insane for a moment.

(Like a LOT of other details in the movie, this is inspired by the games... sort of; when inspecting Cerulean Cave in Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, you can find an item where Mewtwo used to stand. The item, known as a Berserk Gene, causes permanent confusion to the wearer in battle, but increases its attack. Sounds a lot like the R, doesn’t it? There are tons of similar little details that can be spotted by avid fans of the franchise.)

I'd say "That had to hurt", but I doubt it hurt for long.

Later recordings show the lab mass-producing the R, and the final day shows Dr. Laurent creating a device described as a neural link, to be worn on a human’s head. However, something goes awry, confinement measures get weak, and Mewtwo breaks free. It exploded the containment capsule from the inside, sending glass shards all over the place. The explosion was powerful enough to send Dr. Laurent flying into a round steel door which, when the holograms dissipate, is shown ripped out of its hinges. Holy Arceus, I know Mewtwo is no stranger to killing scientists, but damn – five bucks says that woman died a very family-unfriendly death. (Though it’s a fate that is left ambiguous enough for the sequel...)

Tim and Pikachu go all the way back to the first recorded day, which shows Dr. Laurent giving a mission to Harry Goodman. Not any mission, either: Catch Mewtwo. Which, no matter what you may think of the guy so far, means he goddamn succeeded. We don’t know how (Master Ball maybe?), but damn, that’s one Hell of an achievement in-universe. For bonus points, it’s outright stated that Mewtwo escaped from the Kanto region 20 years prior, meaning it’s the exact same Mewtwo from Pokémon Red/Green. Or maybe the one from Pokémon: The First Movie. ....Yeah, holy crap, I know, right?

Not really visible: The assaulting Greninja. Not pictured:
Psyduck having a fucking PANIC ATTACK. I never related
so much to a duck.

Our duo ends up rescuing Lucy and her Psyduck from the released Greninja. The four run away through the Torterra enclosure, with the ninja-‘Mon hot on their trail. Good thing Psyduck has been accumulating stress the whole time, and is further goaded by Detective Pikachu into having its migraine. You know, the explosive one. And damn, what an explosion. It was enough to knock the ninjas away, and cause the terrain to crack, break, and split!

We've taken a turn into "disaster movie".

Oh wait, no, it’s something else entirely. What, did they piss Groudon off or something? What’s happening now? The topography itself seems to hate their presence. In the next sequence, one of the best scenes in the film, Tim, Lucy, and their partner Pokémon make their way through a gravity-shifting, deadly forest. Tim even jumps between two ledges, one several floors lower than the other, and survives. The team barely makes it out alive before realizing... that’s no forest. They’re on the backs of kaiju-sized Torterra. These things put Dynamaxing to shame. The lab wasn’t kidding about growth experiments.

Sheesh, did we land in Galar by accident?

Meeting Mewtwo

Having a live-action character hold an animated one is
always a tricky effect to pull off. Practical effects can help,
but it doesn't always translate well. This film doesn't do it
perfectly every time, but it was done well here.

Following this discovery, Pikachu is struck and KO’d by a falling stone, and the team falls into the waters below. When they get to solid ground, Tim realizes that his partner needs to be healed, right now. Remembering what he learned from Pikachu, that Pokémon can understand human emotions much better than human speech, Tim manages to get his point across to a wandering Bulbasaur that his friend is in critical health and needs help. The Bulbasaur returns with a whole group of its kin, directing Tim and Pikachu to a healer Pokémon. (Though they won’t let Lucy and Psyduck follow them.)

I never thought of Bulbasaur as super-cute...
...until this goshdarned movie came around.
Baby.

Chansey wasn't available, we'll take the next best thing.

The pack takes Tim a little further down the path, and a group of Morelull (one of only two Gen 7 Pokémon in the movie, the other being Comfey) shows him where to lay down his wounded friend. The natural Pokémon leave, and a voice that sounds like a combination of male and female tones is heard; the genderless Mewtwo has shown up. It blasts Pikachu with energy, curing the little rodent’s ailment. After Pikachu realizes he’s back to good health, he is thanked by Mewtwo for “bringing the son”. Uh oh...?

A quippy villain would gladly look at this and go
"Not so powerful now, are you?" Too bad Roger
isn't the quippy type when he got the glasses on.

The Legendary Pokémon projects a flashback in Tim and Pikachu’s minds; the reason it could escape the lab is that Pikachu short-circuited the place’s system. The next moment they’re shown is Mewtwo floating over the crashed car, beginning a discussion with Harry’s partner about humanity being evil... However, the flashback is interrupted when Mewtwo is captured by a set of white round drones that would make Doctor Robotnik proud. Over them, looking from atop the cliffside, Roger Clifford, bearing large sunglasses, smirking at his new catch. The Legendary is taken into a containment truck.

Not like our heroes could have done much, all shaken that they are by the potential reveal that Pikachu saved Mewtwo, as if to help it strike back against humans. Yikes. Watching this movie with full knowledge of the coming twists is a fun ride, don’t get me wrong. But I had to watch this movie several times to write this review, and I must nitpick. I get that there was an intention to keep the audience guessing up until the end (even if one of the film’s twists is super easy to guess), and this meant revisiting the opening scene with a little more information each time. First the scene as we know it; then, the doctored version shown in Howard’s office, with Pikachu’s memory and Harry’s body taken; and now, Mewtwo’s flashbacks implying Pikachu was aiding in some nefarious purpose.

Gotta have that second-act misunderstanding/betrayal
followed by a third-act return to action.

I get the intention, is what I’m saying, and I don’t know if it’s because of the repeated viewings, but the way the twist is kept hidden feels very clunky now. Some sentences spoken by Mewtwo exist solely to misguide us or add plot elements that aren't necessary. "Humanity is evil", it says; later we know it then adds "but not all humans are bad", which in-context feels unnecessary and completely fails at its attempt to sound serious. "Bring me the son", it also says, but it's never said why Mewtwo would ask this, much less why it needs Tim around to do something it's later shown to be able to do without any similar restraints. The story would have benefited from explaining that bit a lot better. The movie has some extra twists that it handles much better in comparison.

Oh, I tried to get a screenshot of the moment where Tim
gets electrocuted. None was all that satisfactory.

When they leave back through the same fence they came through from, a distraught Pikachu tries everything to distance himself from Tim, the Pokémon thinking he’s the reason Harry is dead/gone and that he keeps hurting everyone around him. Even when Tim tries to grab ahold of his friend, he gets electrocuted. Dunno if Pikachu’s electric powers came back thanks to Mewtwo’s healing or the spur of the moment caused them to return – either way, he further thinks he should stay away before causing more damage. Unable to reason with the fleeing ‘Chu, Tim returns to Lucy and Psyduck and tells them what he saw.

Detective work, at last

In the back there, now that's a Gengar how I like them;
not realistic at all.

The three return to Ryme City just as it’s preparing for the long-announced Pokémon Parade, with huge balloon floats being inflated for the event. Watching this film multiple times, I got to notice that plot elements are referenced multiple times, often in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scenes. The Parade is discussed when Tim first visits CNM, the local news channel, and Howard Clifford is filming a promo for it with his son Roger; however, even before that, we can see it as one of the stories on the newspaper Tim reads on the train to Ryme City. That same newspaper also has a story about a Pokémon going crazy, foreshadowing the R as well. The worldbuilding is consistent, and that helps make the presented universe feel complete.

Tim  instructs Lucy to report on what they’ve found. Considering her own boss is involved, that might be tougher than expected. Not that he gives her much of a choice, as he heads off to Clifford Industries to speak with Howard about their discoveries. She manages to get her hands on a microphone, stealing the place of another CNM reporter on the scene.

I'm supposed to believe that shuriken made of ice and
water could flip a whole car... eh. Pokémon logic has
given us much weirder.

In the meantime, Pikachu, who has pushed everyone away and remains alone in the wilderness (even singing the anime’s first theme song), stumbles upon the original scene of the car accident. He investigates and quickly finds a Water Shuriken where the impact happened. Therefore, the cause of the crash was the Greninja, and not Mewtwo. And, therefore, Mewtwo was trying to protect Harry and his partner. But then... It would mean that Howard used his holograms to lie to them. Which means that the real villain ain’t the one they thought. I feel like Detective Pikachu doesn’t do enough deduction work, for a character whose full name has “Detective” in it. This is one of the few correct conclusions he reaches on his own. Maybe if he spent less time quipping at everything and more time advancing the plot with logic and deductions, it wouldn't feel like his detective skills are an informed attribute!

When Tim walks into Howard Clifford’s office, though, he finds the man wearing the neural link... and looking more like a supervillain than ever before. Uh oh.

Yeah, this oozes "bad guy energy". By now it's not just a
smell, it's a straight-up stench.

Well, we’re at the climactic scene, let’s keep that for a Part 4, shall we?