Video: Why We Want Detective Pikachu Translated for North America & Europe

Seeing as this is a short and low priced game with the suggestion of more chapters to come, I suspect Nintendo won't translate it until the series is "complete".

Kind of like how Telltale games releases a physical copy of the game for a standard full game price after the game is complete after previously releasing it separately in chapters roughly on a monthly basis.

I'll only get it if Danny Devito voices Pikachu. He's honestly the only logical choice.

@BlueNitrous I third the motion, although I may be willing to compromise for Gilbert Gottfried.

Cool concept, though Pikachu's model is still a little ugly.

Devito could have been Mario, now he can be Pikachu!

Cinematic games are pretty boring, so no buy for me.

They'll most likely make a few of them, then release them internationally as a full retail release.

@Dakt If not Devito I would also accept Joe DiMaggio.

Just to double check; there is absolutely no way of playing this unless you own a Japanese 3DS, right?

@AlexOlney Gaah, curses. I've considered picking up a Japanese 3DS for general language practice, and this nearly pushed me over the edge, but the prices aren't pifflingly cheap, even on the older models. I was hoping there might be a supply of neglected Japanese "OLD" Nintendo 3DSs floating around Ebay for tuppence, but alas.

Were you using Mr. Merrick's console to play the game, or do you have a Japanese system of your own? If so, is there a case to be made for splashing out another £80 for a console you basically already own?

The most publicised exclusive feature of late seems to be the ability to fondle the knights of the realm in FE:Fates, but as an agnostic on Fire Emblem (and the fondling of Fire Emblem fighters), I can't say it's the main appeal.

Devito it!

I needs this

I would be interested for the right price

I'm honestly very happy that I pushed myself to watch this video. I tossed this game to the side like a Pokemon snap, wanting nothing to do with it and caring less about it. But after watching and listening to the reasoning on it, I realize this game is actually pretty sick. A Phoenix wright Pokemon crossover almost. I'll defiantly be picking this up when it gets localized. I also gotta pickup super mystery dungeon soon –

@Maxz Before you rush off to buy an out-of-region 3DS, it's not entirely impossible to play 3DS games (even digital-only releases) on a mismatched-region 3DS without resorting to piracy. That said, it is probably a fair bit of effort setting up access to the Japanese eShop and such, which you may or may not have the patience or confidence to deal with. If your 3DS is on current firmware, though, you're pretty much out of luck.

@ImprobableToast I just imagined Pikachu being voiced by him. Not bad! Also, I love The Brave Little Toaster.

Honestly now, I hope people are ironically staking their purchase on the mere casting of DeVito, since doing so is extremely unlikely, and taking the meme seriously is putting up false expectations.

Its Pokemon! It WILL arrive!!

I dunno for me this new website feels it takes longer to read and load comments oh well. I'd love this game any Pokémon game is welcome and I like professor Layton so this seems like it'll be a game I like

I am excited for this new title!
I think it is a pretty cool idea!
I just hope this game will either offer some replayability or at least up to 10 hours of fun gameplay

@Maxz
Hi Max!
As a fellow Japanese learner, try to make sure that you think carefully before making such a giant leap on getting a Japanese-locked 3DS.
Even though many games are supposed to be children-friendly, meaning that these are also extensively played by Japanese children and young adults who are still coming to grips with Kanji and honing their own Japanese skills, some games will still use some 'heavy Japanese'.
So make sure you are familiar with gaming-oriented relevant vocabularies and can handle well Japanese grammar!
Best of luck!

"If you're still not interested after seeing the game in action you'd better have a chuffing good explanation for us in the comments."

It has no 3D effect.

This reminds me a lot of Professor Layton.

Is this Nintendo's way of making a Snatcher game? That game is also interactive if I'm not mistaken.

@Blynyork @vaguerant Thank you both for your comments.

With regard to accessing the Japanese eShop, I'm afraid I AM running the current firmware, so it looks like the system's colossal amounts of stability will be my downfall. It's interesting to find out that it is, or WAS possible though.

@Blynyork I think you're wise to voice some concern, as I'm sure there's a school of thought that assumes simply 'playing lots of Japanese games' will magically transform the player into a language guru overnight, with little regard for the barriers that must be overcome to successfully play the games in the first place.

I'm now pretty confident in my position as 'Intermediate' in all respects (after spending a long time WANTING to think of myself as 'Intermediate' in any of them), so I don't have any misgivings about pulling apart the vast majority of spoken dialogue. I think my kanji knowledge is reasonably robust, and perhaps more importantly, I've got quite adept at using jisho.org's 'sort by radical' tool to look up characters I need help with.

Do you have any games you'd recommend personally? Either because they're exclusive, or just good for language practice? This game looks ideal in both respects, but it is just one game...

@Maxz
Hi Maxz!
Oh yea, totally! There is even the school of thought that if we watch a lot of anime, it will eventually pay off and we can speak Japanese fluently.
That's awesome that you took your time to learn Japanese up to the intermediate level! Such a wonderful language!
Well, perhaps you could watch some let's plays in Japanese or if you can and have a computer/laptop that is good enough to run games (aim at something more indie~ish) and see how much you can understand.
The other thing is: Do you think you'd enjoy playing the games if you had to stop multiple times to look up unknown words on the dictionary?
I remember playing Mystery Dungeon and Zelda (Zelda was definitely harder to grasp than pokemon) and looking up many words. It was actually exciting! But it does cut the pace, so you might consider whether you'd also consider it exciting or dreadful due to the occasional drastic cut in pace.
Lastly, if you'd like, we could practice some Japanese together, perhaps by email or something. I have also been learning Japanese over the years as a hobby
Cheers! (Sorry if this post is too long )

@Blynyork I'm sure the schools of thought largely overlap.

It's a good point about whether I'd mind being slowed up, and I think it would depend upon what sort of game it were. If it were the type of game where I'd want to skip through the text even in English, then I think it would be unsuitable. Most action games would probably come under this category, as the text is often explanatory rather than particularly riveting, and I'm often temped to bash the A-button just to get to the bits where I actually do something.

This game looks ideal, because it's quite text heavy, but also child friendly, so there's a motivation to understand what's being said. Another suitable title might be Animal Crossing, where the dialogue is a central part of the game but probably not hugely sophisticated, and it wouldn't matter much if you got things wrong.

Mostly, I really want to play this though. It looks so charming!

It'd be nice to work together on something, but I think we'd need a common reference rather than throwing potentially broken Japan at each other and hoping for the best. Occasionally, something pops up here untranslated, so it'd be good to get a second opinion on that. The last thing I can think of is the Squid Sisters concert from Nico Nico Tokaigi, which has a lot of dialogue.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye out on Ebay and see if any cheap consoles float to the surface. Thanks for all your advice.

@Maxz
Alright, have fun!
I was wondering by the way, if you are using or know about Anki.
Basically, you make your own flashcards or you can also use shared decks with images, audio, words, etc and it's a free program.
In preparation for your purchase and venturing into playing games in Japanese, you could perhaps benefit from making your own list with words that you find relevant and come across when watching anime/reading manga, or any other activities that have to do with Japanese and you can find online.

@Blynyork Yeah, I've heard about Anki a lot, but for some reason I've always shied away from using it myself. I know a lot of people do use it, and seem to get a lot out of it, but... yeah, I don't know. My approach has always been a bit more low tech and involved quite a lot of scribbling on various things.

I've just downloaded it, and I'll give it a go, otherwise I'm little more than a stubborn luddite.

If you can think of any ways you'd like to practice that you feel I could help with then please let me know.

EDIT: I've played around with it. It's definitely a very rich resource. It's helpful how people have tailored it to tackling very common and specific points. I'll definitely keep toying with it.

@Maxz
Good to hear that you're liking it so far!
Anki is a software that usually only pays off after continuously using it for a while, because when the person is honest about how well she actually remembers the words, Anki will show up the words you have been struggling with and occasionally the ones you really know, so you also don't forget.
Another neat feature, is the fact that some decks will simply have words that we as individuals won't ever need, have never heard, and can't imagine ourselves seeing such vocabularies in a real-life/gaming context. When this happens, you can set up the device to instantly lock away words that you have failed to remember for the last 3 or 4 times. Once those words are locked, they can only be unlocked manually, so you always have the choice to automatically erase the 'grease' out of a deck overtime
I have just now recalled an amazing and must-have free software that I heavily used when playing Pokemon and Zelda in Japanese - Zkanji. This is a dictionary for offline use, where you can search for the words in hiragana/kanji, see what words start with a specific kanji you want, see what words belong to each Jouyou level, stroke order, create your own vocabulary list (For example: You could create the list - Fire Emblem:Fates or - Detective Pikachu and add exclusively the words you didn't know of onto that list and then review or add them to Anki as well as a software co-op)
Sorry for the long post!
Have fun!