E3: Pikachu (Demo)

I’ll be blunt. The only reason I played this Demo was to get a chance to win a Pokemon Plush. I did win a Pikachu toy, which I’ll cherish everyday, but the DS demo of DS Pikachu was a very cool and surprisingly fun demo.

Due to time being very limited to play the Nintendo DS I didn’t have time to get a full hands on with DS Pikachu, but I did get to play and complete a very good minigame. The minigame involved being trying to pop balloons that come up from the bottom of the screen that Pikachu creates. The goal of the minigame was to pop all the fast rising balloons as quickly as possible without letting any by.

It started off very simple with a balloon rising up every now and then, but then it got up to an amazing 20+ balloons rising from the bottom of the screen trying to escape into the sky. Using the stylus, you press down on the touchpad where the balloons are to pop them. Like I mentioned before, it started off very easy and then the difficulty increased very rapidly.

After the demo was over I was able to interact with Pikachu and scratch his stomach to make him feel happy. The DS Pikachu is most likely to be a DS version of Pokemon Channel where interactivity with Pikachu and keeping him happy by playing games is the key to having fun. I wish Nintendo had the Voice Recognition playable, as this would be a great title to interact with Pikachu and friends by talking to them and giving them commands.

I will try to go back to the DS booth to get a more hands on with the Pokemon Channel like title to give a more indepth hands on, but as the line to the DS area increased beyond two hours, chances are I will have to wait til tomorrow morning.