As you likely know, a movie based on Detective Pikachu has been in development for a while now. Based around the same plot as the visual novel and starring Ryan Reynolds as the titular Pokémon, the film promised to move the series into live action, with a setup that looked like it may avoid the issues commonly associated with video game adaptations.
It was a promising project, and given the more plot focused nature of its source material, seemed like it had more to work with than the infamous Mario movie from the 80s (or the Monster Hunter movie also currently in development).
And now, we finally have the first trailer for the film, along with other media for it. So here it is, here is the first trailer for the now renamed Detective Pikachu movie:
In addition to the official website set up by Warner Bros to promote the film:
As you can see, it sticks pretty closely to the story from the game. You’ve got the main character as a detective whose father went missing, you’ve got the setting of Ryme City, a place where humans and Pokémon live in harmony.
Plus you’ve got his team up with Detective Pikachu, as they attempt to find out what happened to his father and whether it ties into other mysterious events happening at the moment. At a glance, it does seem like a loyal adaptation.
In that sense it seems to work decently well. Hollywood ain’t meddling with the plot, the jokes don’t seem to be the average corny jokes seen in every kiddy film comedy in the last ten years or so, and the thing actually resembles the source material rather than some vague smorgasbord of ideas taken from the video game adaptation clichés list.
At the same time however, what may not work out too well here…
Are the more realistic designs for the Pokémon themselves. We get it, a live action film needs more realistic CGI effects if the fantasy creatures aren’t gonna stick out like a sore thumb. In that sense, having them look like this is more visually cohesive than they would be with Pokémon GO/Pokémon Sun and Moon style models.
But it doesn’t really work for all of the species featured. Charizard is… scary, but logically so, yet Pikachu and Jigglypuff just seem a bit off because of the whole affair. Same for Mr Mime, who was kinda creepy at the best of times, and looks no less so as a CGI monstrosity in live action movie than in a sprite based video game.
This may be the stuff of nightmares.
It’s a mixed bag really, and it’s hard to tell whether certain aspects will appeal to the film’s various audiences because of it.
Still, what do you think of it? Are you hopeful this could be the first live action video game movie to break the gaming movie curse? Could this finally be the first Hollywood adaptation to score about 52% on Rotten Tomatoes?
Let us know your thoughts either in the comments or on the Gaming Latest forums today!
Yes. Yes we did. But as hinted at in that article, we’ve got not one, but two new interviews up on Gaming Reinvented now, and this is that second interview.
This guy’s made videos showcasing the development of new custom tracks for the game, showcased all kinds of new custom tracks released in recent days and taken all kinds of interesting challenges to boot, with videos involving things like blindfold challenges and shortcut challenge attempts being fairly common across his channel.
In other words, he’s yet another gaming YouTuber we believe could become the next big thing some time in the near future.
So in a move that no one expected, we’ve decided to interview him right now. Starting with the standard question about his name and personal background…
1. First things first then Kevin. Who are you?
Hello, I’m KevinVG207 and I’m an 18 years old Mario Kart Wii YouTuber from the Netherlands.
2. Where did your username come from? The Kevin part is obvious, but what about the other one?
VG is actually short for my last name. 20 is taken from my birth year, 2000. And 7 is my favourite number.
3. Makes sense. Still, how did you get into gaming anyway?
Oh that’s a tough question already. I vaguely remember playing Lemmings on an old Amiga. Strangely enough those computers were already 15 years old when I was born. Playing old games seems to have been my dad’s hobby so I guess I picked that up at a young age.
4. What about Mario Kart? Did you have much experience with the games prior to Mario Kart Wii?
I only played Mario Kart DS before the Wii version came out. But man, did I play that game to death. Granted, I wasn’t very good at it due to my young age at the time, but I still like MKDS more than Mario Kart 8.
5. Regardless, it’s Mario Kart Wii that you’re known for most now. What’s your history with that game?
I don’t quite remember that well, but I probably started playing the game mid-2008. I was only eight years old at the time. I used to visit my aunt because she owned a Nintendo Wii, whereas we didn’t have one at home yet.
6. What about with the modding scene for it? What was your introduction to CTGP and custom tracks?
Somewhere in 2010 I came across the Custom Mario Kart Wiiki where Mario Kart Wii hackers and modders came together to share their findings and where new custom tracks were released. In 2011 I started to make my own custom tracks for the game, if you could call it that. None of my attempts really worked, but I learnt a lot about how the game works. The very first method for creating custom tracks was to use Microsoft paint or another image editing program, and basically create grayscale heightmaps as geometry. Suffice it to say, my 11 year old self couldn’t really make things work.
As modding progress was being made on the Wiiki, someone made an export plugin for this 3d modelling program called Google Sketchup. I picked that up and mid-2011 I released my first custom track, named ‘Easy’. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my level of English wasn’t fantastic yet haha.
Last year I decided to play my first ever custom track again in a video, after I had basically forgotten about it.
As for CTGP, well I only started playing that custom track distribution in 2012, when it already reached version 1.02 and it included about 180 or so custom tracks. I really appreciate the work that MrBean35000vr and Chadderz (the creators of the pack) put into not only CTGP, but also everything else with regard to custom track creation. It were their tools that were used in the early days of CT making and I don’t know where we would’ve been without them. Respect to them.
7. The Mario Kart Wii modding scene has certainly improved a lot over the years, with custom tracks getting more interesting every year. So what are some of the best ones you’ve ever seen?
Oh yeah, the quality of CTs have improved massively over the years. We went from blocky tracks made with paint to basically Nintendo quality graphics with newer 3d modelling programs.
The two German CT creators Sniki and Sucht93a are considered some of the best CT creators by many (including me). I really like Sucht’s Dragonite’s Island track. It’s styled after the Pokémon games and includes many enemies reskinned to look like actual Pokémon.
8. Any tracks that don’t really hold up these days?
Most custom tracks made in the ‘paint era’ don’t really look nor play that well, especially compared to today’s custom tracks. However, Incendia Castle and the dreaded Mushroom Peaks (both created by the brothers MrBean and Chadderz) still get played often even in today’s Custom Track Worldwide matches.
9. Another thing that’s interesting is how Mario Kart Wii mods aren’t just about tracks and characters now, we also have things like custom missions being implemented too. What are your thoughts on that?
I think it’s really cool that we can now use some unfinished and unused game modes in the game. Even though online tournaments were a thing, MKWii lacked the great mission mode from MKDS. Now we can basically recreate that experience in Mario Kart Wii. Once again, custom missions were made possible by MrBean and Chadderz. (Can you tell why I have so much respect for these two?)
10. Similarly, what impressive mods and additions in that vein have you seen recently?
Remember those online tournaments with their own leaderboards? Well they are still being hosted every two weeks on the custom server Wiimmfi. I never did get to play these competitions when it was possible years ago, so it is really cool to play them now, including some custom made competitions.
11. Onto YouTube now. What made you decide to start a channel?
Back in 2011, I made some very bad 3d track models in Sketchup. My 11 year old self thought it would be cool to show these models to the world, and that’s where it started. I didn’t really upload actively until 2015. Until then my channel was just a place to showcase things I had created.
Here’s my first ever video uploaded on the channel. (Excuse me for the terrible video quality and bad English haha)
12. And I’m guessing you were more than a little inspired by TWD98, what with the road to 9999VR stuff and all…
This is actually a comment I used to receive a lot back when I restarted my road to 9999vr series earlier this year. Yes, I meant to use ‘restarted’. You see, the “road to 9999vr” concept has been around for basically as long as the game’s been released. Back in 2015 I started my own road to 9999vr series, but ended it that same year because I ragequit the series.
Skip ahead to 2017, when my YT channel started to slightly increase due to another YouTuber shouting me out (*ahem* TroyWD89), and indeed somewhat inspired by TWD98, I decided to turn my Custom Track Worldwide video series into a road to 9999vr and so I picked up this old series again, years later.
13. Either way, did you two ever arrange a time for the shortcut challenge yet? I do remember hearing from Troy that you’d be someone he’d want to see attempt it…
In fact, we have! A few months ago, Troy invited me and MayroSMM (another Nintentuber) to attempt his intermediate difficulty shortcut challenge! This turned out to be pretty tricky because we were all in a different time zone haha.
The challenge can be found here, on Troy’s channel:
Here on Gaming Reinvented, we’ve interviewed a fair few notable YouTubers and other creators over the years. Some of them became popular afterwards (like Boundary Break), some were already super popular before (like with Guru Larry and TWD98), but they’ve all offered interesting takes on their work in general.
But it’s not just popular channel creators and game developers who have interesting stories to tell. No, upcoming creators have them too, and a fair few newer or lesser known YouTubers have both the potential and pedigree to become successful with just that bit more of a push.
Which is why today, we’re talking to the owner of an interesting new channel dedicated to unused content in games. Known as Dr Lava, this individual runs the channel ‘Nintendo’s Cut Content with Dr Lava’, where he covers unused content in everything from the first two Pokémon games to Metroid Prime 1.5 and The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. It’s a great channel, and one that’s really got the potential to go places with a tiny bit more marketing behind.
So let’s talk to him shall we? Let’s see what it’s like digging up all this beta Nintendo game secrets, as well as what the future may hold for one of the most fascinating gaming channels seen in the last couple of years or so!
1. Starting with a bit of background. Who is Dr Lava? Where did the character come from?
Well, about a year ago, me and my friend Dave were making a Rick and Morty fan-theory video, and I was saying I didn’t want to use our actual faces like previous channels I’ve worked on over the years. However, it’s more fun when there’s a visual representation of the voice you’re hearing, and I felt like an original character would be more interesting here. Like Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Arlo, who yes, I’m a big fan of.
Either way, we were floating around the internet looking for something we might use, and we stumbled across a line of dolls that are sold with wheelchairs and crutches. For some reason, the idea of dolls in wheelchairs cracked us both up, and we decided that’s the direction we would take.
He’s British, so we came up with the idea he would be something like an evil scientist. I’m from Arkansas, so we thought I would be represented by a disgruntled, disabled Vietnam vet, like Tom Cruise in that movie Born on the 4th of July, or Charlie in that episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, if you’ve seen that.
However, we weren’t able to work together long enough to put those ideas to use. You see, we actually lived in China, but eventually he (the other contributor) moved back to the UK, meaning we weren’t able to put those ideas into action.
So in the end I took the evil scientist for myself, and the Vietnam vet got shelved.
As for the origin of the current figure? Well, Dr Lava is actually a fancy Captain Kirk action figure in a WWE wheelchair. His clothes were removed and some nut made the tiny custom scientist outfit for me. He chain-smokes just as I do in real life
2. Either way, your YouTube channel focuses on cut content in Nintendo games. Why did you choose this as your topic?
Well I’ve always been a big Nintendo fan. I grew up with an NES, SNES, N64, and so on, and the iconic games that graced those systems. A lot of them — especially Zelda, Mario, and Metroid — I replayed countless times, so when I started this channel I knew I wanted to focus just on Nintendo games.
A lot of those games (like the Wind Waker) also feel like they’re a part of me so I find it really interesting to find out about all the great ideas and extra content that Nintendo was going to include if only they’d had more time, or in some cases more cartridge space. In the case of Wind Waker, more islands and temples, more underwater Hyrule locations, and a GameCube sequel that was scrapped — that’s all stuff I wish had come to fruition. It’s just fun to think about what could have been.
3. How do you choose what games to cover anyway? There’s no shortage of possibilities where games with unused content are concerned…
Metroid Prime, all the 3D Zelda games, the old Pokémon games, a few Mario games — all those games have really great scrapped ideas, beta elements, and cut content. I usually take a week to research each video, so I know there are a lot more games with great cut content that I just haven’t gotten around to researching yet, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to explore them all in the next few years.
4. Are there any cancelled games you wish had been made?
Cancelled games I wish had been made? In some of my recent YouTube videos I mentioned a few — Ura Zelda, Wind Waker 2, Mario 128, Metroid Prime 1.5. I’d also like to have played Metroid Dread and Fire Emblem 64DD. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Each week I come through more developer interviews and internal data, and keep finding more and more about what we missed out on. So if you asked me the same question 3 months from now, it’s likely the list would be twice as long.
5. Is Super Mario 128 going to be getting a video soon then?
I kind of jumped the gun when I promised a video on Mario 128 last month.
As I was putting the script, I realised I would need an interview of my own with someone like Yoshiaki Koizumi to help sort fact from fiction and resolve some unanswered questions related to this one. Otherwise I’d have to fill some of the holes in the story with random speculation, and I don’t really want to have to do that.
6. So I guess you’re planning to contact developers about these cancelled games and unused elements in the future?
Yeah, in a few months’ time (when the channel’s reached a more respectable size), I plan to start reaching out to developers for interviews regarding cancelled games in order to get some of those holes properly filled in.
7. So you’re not covering cancelled games until you can get in touch with the developers? Not exactly. I’ve already covered Ura Zelda and Metroid Prime 1.5, and about 20% of those videos were about outright cancelled games.
8. Still, onto something else now. Are there any times when you feel the early versions of a game may have been better than the final product?
Yeah, there are definitely games where I liked the beta ideas more than the final cut. That’s typically what I like to cover — not the cut stuff that we were better off without, but the stuff that could have been even better.
For example, I found the Japan based world map of Pokémon Gold and Silver, as well as some of the scrapped Pokémon in the Space World demo more appealing than what we got in the release version. Similarly, I also found the ideas from Metroid Prime 1.5 (which would have been the original concept for Metroid Prime 2) more interesting than what we got in the form of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes.
9. How do you find this information anyway?
Usually I read up on a game, and then if I easily find a few interesting talking points, I’ll commit to digging in and finding everything available for it.
As for where I get the information from, well often the first place I go to is a game’s Wikipedia article, which often has a development section. From there I look at all the sources used, which usually include a few interviews. And you know how the internet can be — one link takes you to a page with 3 more links, and so on, until I’ve got 20 tabs open in my web browser and I’m copying and pasting the best bits, and google translating what I find that’s in Japanese.
That’s how I found out that Shigeru Miyamoto gave an interview to the Japanese version of Playboy magazine in 2003, where he talked about Super Mario 128. So I found out the Japanese terms for Mario and Playboy, and searched for them in Google and various Japanese search engines.
That in turn led me to a Playboy interview with Miyamoto, which I then translated using Google Translate. However, upon doing so, I realised that said interview didn’t actually have anything to do with Super Mario 128, and that Miyamoto had actually done several interviews with the magazine. So I’m still looking for that particular interview actually.
I also try to find every interview ever conducted with a game’s directors, producers and other notable developers from the time period, and cherry pick the best bits to include in the video based on that. Sometimes I’ll find an article containing someone else’s research from years ago, hopefully properly sourced, and that’ll keep me busy for a few days. In that kind of a situation I’ll credit the original researcher in the video description or the video itself — like I did for NeoGAF user Mama Robotnik for the work he did in 2012 digging up information on Metroid 1.5
But what really makes me happy though is when I find an interview or developer blog post in Japanese that was never translated into English and it contains something I’ve never heard of before.
That’s particularly fun with the source is a strange but legitimate one, like with the Playboy interview mentioned earlier, and it’s why I’m searching so hard for said interview.
I want viewers to be like, “Japanese Playboy, WTF? Interesting information though, I’ve never heard that factoid before.”
10. Hah, very true. Talking of holy grail discoveries though, what are your game related ones? What bits of information are you desperately hoping to find out about a particular title?
Holy grail? Well, as you’re probably aware, the only footage available of Mario 128 is from someone using VHS camera to record a projector screen showing off the tech demo from almost 20 years ago. If Shigeru Miyamoto was to descend down from the clouds, I’d ask for an HD video of that tech demo, then I’d ask him some questions about the game’s specifics.
As virtually any Zelda fan likely knows, the Champion’s Ballad was the last DLC expansion for the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Featuring the Master Cycle Zero, a new dungeon and various other additions, it certainly went out with a bang, but it also marked the end of the game’s development, with the developers mentioning that future expansions weren’t being planned after that point.
However, it seems like that may now be about to change. Why? Because in a recent investor QA, Nintendo mentioned that said games were ‘hardware drivers’, and that’d they’d be doing everything possible to keep them selling. Here’s the original comment about it from the QA:
Titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Mario Odyssey are what we call “hardware drivers “in that consumers are very often interested in buying these titles when making a new hardware purchase. Titles released already in the previous fiscal years remain capable of driving hardware sales. The key is to figure out what makes these titles appealing, and how we can get consumers to understand that appeal. Going forward, we plan to incorporate add-on content and other factors that will keep these titles in the spotlight, so they will continue to sell alongside the hardware.
As you can see, it clearly mentions ‘add on content’ as a way to keep these titles in a spotlight, albeit alongside other factors. That’s a pretty good hint that Nintendo plans to keep adding DLC right there.
And it’s one that’s backed up pretty well by the recent DLC they’ve already released for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Remember how they integrated Nintendo Labo in the game recently? Or how the Master Cycle Zero, Paraglider and Champion’s Tunic version of Link were added to the game in a recent update?
Yeah, that’s unexpected DLC right there. No one expected new karts and characters to be added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but they were added anyway.
So the chances of other games getting the same deal are pretty good. Still, what exactly would Nintendo add to these titles? What kind of ‘add-on content’ or ‘other factors’ are they hinting at here?
Well, it’s hard to be sure really. On the one hand, part of us thinks it’s likely said updates would be smaller than full blown expansion packs, since creating whole new dungeons and items for a game like Breath of the Wild or Mario Odyssey would likely take a fair few resources away from the actual sequels that said games are inevitably getting. Because of that, we believe something along the lines of the Salvager Set or the ‘News from the Wild’ channel are the sort of thing Nintendo would release here. Little extras to keep people playing that don’t require too much in the way of resources to develop.
But who knows. Nintendo’s always a company that’s full of surprises, and a massive expansion along the lines of the Champion’s Ballad would certainly rekindle interest in that game or Odyssey. Never say never here, especially after Mario Odyssey, Mario + Rabbids and Team Rainbow Rocket in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
Caption: If this happened, literally anything is on the table where Nintendo is concerned
Still, what do you think is going to happen here?
Could we really see more DLC for games like Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey? What sort of DLC would it be anyway?
Have your say on the matter (and other things besides) here in the comments or on social media sites today!
Ever since the Switch launched, people have wondered when non-gaming apps and services would become available for it. After all, the Wii and Wii U both had Netflix and YouTube on them, and virtually every other Nintendo console from the DSi onwards had a browser of some sort as well.
But the Switch didn’t. In fact, in keeping with its focus on games above all else, the operating system was stripped back to the core, and non-essential apps mostly done away with. No browser, no Miiverse, no messenger like communication system… heck, even the online stuff was turned into a separate app rather than bundled with the console itself.
Which was one of the reasons this service became so despised
However, that may now be slowly changing again. Why? Because just yesterday, the official YouTube app was released for the Switch. Downloadable from the eShop, this app lets users view videos, sign into their accounts and do almost everything else that may want to do on the service right there on their Nintendo system.
And for the most part, it works… decently enough. It’s not perfect by any means and the UI does seem to have a nasty tendency of providing buttons too small to be convenient for the console’s touch screen (when in handheld mode), but it does what it needs to none the less.
So download it if you’re interested. It’s free, and there’s no real reason not to install it at this point anyway.
