Possibly the most charming Pokémon game yet

One of the biggest problems with the mainline Pokémon games is that you’re often so focused on catching, battling, and trying to be the best that you don’t have time to stop and smell the flowers. But in Pokémon Pokopia, you’re rewarded for that while building a loving community of friendly monsters. The game is a part Animal crossing and a part Dragon Quest Builders sprinkled with a touch of Minecraft And Valley of Stars. The result could be one of the most comfortable and healthy life simulators on the market.

Setup and Gameplay

In Pokopieyou play as a Ditto, who has awakened in a world where all other humans and Pokémon have mysteriously disappeared. Naturally, the loss of your trainer inspired you to take the form of a person (well, as best a Ditto can do). You work with the only other soul around, Professor Tangrowth, to find a way to revitalize this once-thriving town. As you explore, you learn to create habitats from a mix of shrubs, trees, and whatever else you can scavenge. You can also create new homes for missing Pokémon and lure them back, slowly transforming the wasteland into a bustling place, full of life and excitement. It’s a simple but extremely rewarding gameplay loop, and as you befriend the returning monsters, they aid you in your quest by teaching you skills that allow you to continue shaping and manipulating the environment. They also provide practical items and building materials.

This is where the other main gameplay cycle comes in, as the entire world is made up of blocks that you can dig up or rework as you wish. Not only does this allow you to customize your environment, but it also allows you to travel the world. See a shiny treasure across a river but you can’t swim in it? You can just build a bridge instead. And as in Minecraftyou can use raw materials to create all kinds of fancy blocks and furniture so that your houses are exactly how you want them. Compared to games like Animal crossingI discovered that I actually preferred Pokopia The worldbuilding flavor is a bit greater, as it relies a bit more on building and exploration and less on decoration.

My only small issue with the game is that while I like the real-time building mechanic that allows Pokémon to work on things while you’re not playing, having to wait an entire day for larger projects to be completed can slow down your progress a bit. With a game that easily provides over 50 hours of content for its main story alone (and that’s not counting all the time you’ll spend customizing and tweaking your town), things sometimes become slower than they should be.

The magic of Pokopie

Even if the success of Pokopia The core mechanics can largely be attributed to co-developer Bandai Namco borrowing the game’s basic template from the Dragon Quest Builders series, the real magic of the game comes from the Pokémon themselves. When I go out into the world and the first thing that happens is one of my inhabitants runs up to me to thank me or give me a gift, it just makes me happy. And unlike most other Pokémon games, you can actually have proper conversations with them, instead of just hearing them do their 8-bit screams. Speaking of which, I really think it’s time for Game Freak to archive these Game Boy-inspired sound clips in favor of proper voice acting. We’ve had thirty years of crunchy, low-fi screaming, and in an open-world game with adorable polygonal graphics, I think we can finally let the ‘mons pronounce their names like they do in the anime.

Pokopia the character roster is also bigger than expected. Indeed, in addition to new faces like Peakychu and Mosslax, there are well over 100 different Pokémon to befriend. And while the game leans a bit more heavily on characters from Kanto and the original 151, there is solid representation from other generations, including cameos from legendaries. In addition, each monster has its own habitat, preferences and abilities. I appreciate the little details like water-type Pokémon asking you to make their homes a little more humid or fighting-type monsters asking for exercise equipment to spruce up theirs. Likewise, when it comes to building your city, I like that the game makes you turn to plant types if you want help with your crops or a fire type if you need help smelting iron.

However, the most comforting thing about Pokopie It might not even be how you interact with other Pokémon, but how they socialize with themselves. Sometimes you’ll come across two mons chasing each other, training together, or snuggling for a nap. And thanks to the game’s photo mode, you can capture all those moments as they happen.

Exploring the world is also very satisfying, especially for anyone who played any of the first generation Pokémon games. There are a ton of references to memorable people and places in Kanto. Additionally, when you’re traveling or spelunking, you’ll sometimes encounter other adventurous mons who need a little help before you can convince them to move into town. It seems like there are fun secrets hiding around every corner, and even for the ones that are a little less obvious, Pokopie drops just enough clues to point you in the right direction.

Conclude

There are so many things to do Pokopie that I wouldn’t be surprised if dedicated players could get by with this game until Pokémon Winds And Flows comes out next year. But more importantly, Bandai Namco and Game Freak have struck a perfect balance between the title’s open-world building mechanics and homages to the underlying franchise. Pokopie isn’t it just a half-hearted life sim clone with a thin veneer of monster catching (or in this case, monster community awareness) draped over the top; it’s a good game in its own right that gets better with the addition of neighboring Pokémon.