Detective Pikachu Returns gives Pokémon more personality

polygon.com:

I can’t stop taking screenshots of my playthrough of Detective Pikachu Returns. The new story-driven spinoff of the main Pokémon series, the one that stars a gravel-voiced Pikachu with an unquenchable thirst for black coffee, is full of personality. Or rather, it’s full of Pokémon with personality: Pokémon with jobs, with attitudes, and with a zest for living life as weird little creatures that coexist with humans.

So, whenever the “Great Detective” Pikachu drops a Columbo-style zinger, or I meet a particularly quirky Pokémon — like a Cramorant who speaks like a SoCal surfer bro — on my adventure, I snap a screenshot. When I read what makes a Trubbish tick, I snap a screenshot. Slowpoke saying “Sloooow”? That’s a screenshot.

Pokémon brimming with personality and eccentricity is what sets Detective Pikachu Returns apart from other Pokémon games. This is a game where you finally get to understand what Pokémon are saying and thinking, thanks to your partner Pikachu.

If you haven’t played the original Detective Pikachu on Nintendo 3DS, you shouldn’t feel lost here. Detective Pikachu Returns goes to great lengths in its early hours to digest the events of the first game into a recap and numerous conversations with other characters. Virtually everyone in Returns’ Ryme City recognizes our heroes, Tim Goodman and Detective Pikachu, reminding them just what fantastic detectives they are. (The 2019 movie Pokémon Detective Pikachu is also a pretty good primer for the events of the first game, though that film ends with the mystery of Tim Goodman’s father, Harry, pretty well resolved.)

Tim and Pikachu seem unique in the world of Pokémon, as both can understand what the other is saying. Where the rest of Ryme City’s residents only