Pokemon Transforms Two Amusement Parks into Giant Escape Games

Two amusement parks in Japan will transform into "real escape games" to celebrate the release of the next Pokemon movie.

Tokyo Dome City Attractions and Hirakata Park in Osaka will both host "Kaze no Yuenchi kara no Dasshutsu" (Escape from the Wind Amusement Park) to celebrate the release of Pokemon the Movie: Everyone's Story. The new "real escape games" (basically, like an escape room game, but with a larger setting) will transform both amusement parks into the Wind Festival seen in the upcoming Pokemon movie.

This new event will push players to locate a Pokemon hidden somewhere in the park. In order to track down this mysterious Pokemon, players will need to solve a cryptogram and capture Pokemon along the way.

There will be separate difficulty levels for children and adults, and all players can work through the challenges without any sort of time limit.

The Escape Parks will be open from July 14 - September 24 in Tokyo and July 18 - September 17 in Osaka. Tickets go on sale on June 2nd.

In Pokemon the Movie: Everyone's Story, Ash and Pikachu travel to Frau City to participate at an annual Wind Festival. Lugia visits the festival every year on the last day to bless the wind that passes through the town. As Ash gets to know some of the town's locals, he learns that someone has a mysterious connection to a new Mythical Pokemon and several strangers' lives start to intersect in unexpected ways.

The new movie will serve as a continuation of the "alternate timeline" that began in Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You! While the first 19 movies featured the Ash Ketchum seen in the anime series, I Choose You and Everyone's Story features a less experienced Ash who's still beginning his Pokemon journey. I Choose You loosely retold Ash and Pikachu's "origin story" and many see Everyone's Story to be a loose adaptation of Pokemon the Movie: 2000, especially as it features the Legendary Pokemon Lugia. Of course, other than Lugia, Ash, and Pikachu, there doesn't appear to be any similarities between Pokemon the Movie: 2000 and Everyone's Story, but that hasn't stopped fans for speculating.