Back in 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons dropped, ushering in a wave of relaxed, cosy gaming. Six years later, the latest entry in another Nintendo franchise has stolen the Animal Crossing crown in one fell swoop. But is Pokémon Pokopia worth buying a new console for?
Dude, Where’s My Trainer?
After thirty years of Pokémon games, players are used to the setup: a fledgling trainer is invited to a professor’s lab with their childhood rival to select starter Pokémon and head out into the world to catch ‘em all. But this time there is no Pokémon catching quest, no rival and no trainer.
In Pokopia, you’re a Pokémon yourself: a bewildered ditto waking up in an almost post-apocalyptic world with no humans in sight. Mentored by a fellow Pokémon who has taken on the role of professor, you must rebuild the lands, building enticing habitats to encourage your fellow Pokémon to return and solve the mystery of what occurred (accompanied at all times by a peaceful lo-fi soundtrack that would make Moby jealous).
Build, Befriend but don’t Battle
Instead of battling to find out who is the “very best”, Pokopia gives us a gentle pace of exploring abandoned lands, each with their own environmental quirks. There are gentle rails in the form of challenges set by the somewhat bizarre Professor Tangela, as well as various other Pokémon you encounter. But if rails aren’t your thing, there is nothing to stop you exploring the open world and stumbling upon new habitats, puzzles to be solved and, every once in a while, a new ditto transformation ability unlocking new possibilities!
And for those that see this game as the cosiest iteration in the Fallout franchise with a Minecraft garnish, you can absolutely dedicate your time to rebuilding towns, constructing magnificent buildings and decorating with furniture and quirky memorabilia (all while your storage boxes overflow with countless blocks of sand, dirt, grass and decorative brickwork).
I Choose You!
So, is Pokémon Pokopia a good game? Without question. Is it perfect? Not quite, but honestly, we’d need to be splitting some serious hairs to find any faults that would actually distract from the game. Even the inevitable frustrations of surgical destruction and construction of your block-based masterpiece can be overcome by using the Switch 2’s innovative mouse mode, giving you PC-level finesse in your acts of creation.
Which brings us back to the question posed at the start: is the adorableness of Pokémon Pokopia worth buying a Switch 2 for? It seems like an utterly foolish, and some would say financially reckless question, and yet somehow this reviewer’s answer is “yes”. In fact, he did it… as did many of his friends. And none of them has yet regretted that decision.
The world is chaos right now, and sometimes you just have to treat your geek.
Platforms: Switch 2
Publishers: The Pokémon Company, Nintendo
Developers: Game Freak, Omega Force
About the Author
I really wanna play this game but i spent all the money in my spendings acount on the living the dream pre-order
big mood. vet bills got me crying rn x