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Review: Pokémon Pokopia

Written by NPUK_Admin

The Pokémon spinoff you didn’t know you needed!

Pokémon as a franchise may have been publicly silent about the quality of Scarlet and Violet on launch, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that they were very aware of both the game and its reception among the masses. The follow up Pokémon Legends Z-A was a solid and focused game, and despite Pokopia being a spinoff co-developed by Koei Tecmo, it absolutely eclipses the quality of Pokémon spinoffs of old. It’s clear Game Freak’s involvement with the game has been to ensure it smashes any low expectations and doesn’t cut corners in any areas in a strong effort to restore the franchise’s reputation. The result is a game you should at least check out even if you’re not into the genre, or if you normally pass off Pokémon spin offs.

This isn’t a Hey You! Pikachu or Pokémon Channel situation – Pokémon Pokopia absolutely deserves your time the same way the core series greats do. This is a life sim that borrows from the genre giants and blends their features together, adding their own Pokémon spices during the mix to end up with something that’s not quite like the other games. There’s Animal Crossing crafting (without your tools breaking, hallelujah), a little bit of exploration and bonding from Stardew, block-based building and breaking from Minecraft, and more I’m probably reaching for comparisons to. If there’s any comparison to actually make, those familiar with the Dragon Quest Builders games will feel most at home here. That isn’t surprising, considering it’s the same development studio.

I think what stands the strongest to me is that this game can be appreciated even if you aren’t into the genre. I personally struggle to get into life sims, as I never really click with their slow pacing, slice of life story, or other stress-free gameplay mechanics. Pokopia manages to feel approachable and engaging despite. It has a deep and lore-filled plot that knows exactly when to take the stage and when to let you do your thing. If catching them all is your calling, you’ve still got a pokedex to build up, although it’s less catching and more befriending. If exploration is your thing, the game presents you with multiple areas to get lost in as you search for goodies and materials. And each of these areas is far larger than the game ever lets on.

You control a Ditto that loves to transform into a funky little deformation its former trainer, who you can customize the appearance of to your liking. Soon after you wake up, you find a familiar world devoid of any other Pokémon or humans, besides an old Tangrowth with lofty goals. Together, you restore habitats to bring Pokémon back to the land. Pulling up tall grass for Pokémon to jump out of, placing décor nearby trees or rocks, building houses, huts, caves, and all other sorts for Pokémon to live in. From there, those Pokémon can use their abilities to help you grow flowers or food, build bigger and better homes, gather materials, and ultimately get further in your quest to restore the land’s population. Each encounter with a Pokémon is as charming as the next, with quirky dialogue that highlights how wonderfully weird and likeable many of these creatures really are. These light-hearted laughs never downplay somewhat dark and intriguing truth of what happened to this desolate world, which you’re gradually drip-fed as you progress through the game.

Once you’re comfortable enough, you can kick back and fulfil Pokémon’s requests to increase their affinity with you, raise the environment level of an area, and ultimately build the towns of your dreams with them all. Requests rarely amount to much more than giving certain items or adding decorations to each Pokémon’s habitat, but the game is calm enough about it that it never feels like a checklist or busywork. You’re never once pressured to do anything, and there’s no consequence for chilling with your favourite monsters while quests are on hold.

The thing that brilliantly ties all this together is each area having its own storyline and theming, just like you would in an adventure game. No two areas are the same and each one introduces you to a new mechanic, sometimes multiple, changing the way you explore or approach the tasks you’re doing. There’ll be new materials to gather, new moves to help traversal or to aid in your habitat creation, upgrades to those moves, and of course, a whole host of new Pokémon to find, befriend, and take care of. There is no combat in Pokopia, but the way you approach exploration and requests isn’t too far off from the likes of Zelda or Metroid. There’s no bothersome backtracking for the main story or anything, but those new abilities will open up new sections in older areas, leading to even more goodies like new stories involving a Pokémon or two, or environmental storytelling. And each area is deceptively enormous, so there will always be bits and bobs to find.

When all is said and done, there’s even an island that’s near completely flat that enables you to freely build and terraform as you like – essentially the game’s creative mode. Multiplayer enables you to build together with your friends online and local while you’re here, and it is absent from the main story, meaning you can do as you please without consequences on the main areas. That’s not to say your friends can’t visit your main areas, but they can’t build there. Or if you want, you and your friends have a Minecraft realm-like mode which you can come and go from as you please, and which you can even make progress with offline. Only got one Switch 2? Nintendo’s magical Game Share lets you mess around in that creative mode even with Switch 1 players. There’s a few notable limitations in this setting, but it works lag-free, so it’s hard to earnestly fault anything.

That last point is what makes Pokopia feel unreal. Tools don’t break, inventory space is huge, stamina can be improved to the point that it’s a non-issue, Pokémon you’re looking for can be conveniently called back home to your convenience – it’s like they thought of every tick when borrowing from each of the big names to make a seemingly perfect cosy game. There’s no performance issues whether online or handheld, with the game’s smooth and colourful graphics running at stable 60 frames constantly. The soundtrack never wears out its welcome, being cosy, addictive, and filled with loving arrangements from the series’ history. Even the photo feature gives you a reason to spend some time with it instead of feeling like an afterthought, like it does in most other games. A truly tremendous amount of care has been taken to make every important facet of this game not have any blemishes.

If I had to pick out anything I could call a hiccup, it’s that progression can sometimes feel a little wonky. At certain parts in the story, you’ll be tasked with a major quest to improve each area, such as brightening the lighting by adding streetlights, or watering dry ground to improve the humidity. These quests even have a percentage rating to imply how far along you are before things can progress. However, following the instructions tends to not actually increase the percentage at all – what these major quests actually amount to is a series of smaller quests given by specific Pokémon that unlock new features in the area or other Pokémon crucial to the story. It isn’t hard to figure this distinction out and all it really amounts to is waiting for these quests to come up. It doesn’t feel like much more than a moment of annoyance at potentially wasted time, as you always have something to do in this game. However, it’s no less bothersome having to wait for an unknown trigger that allows you to progress the plot, if that’s what you’re currently focused on doing.

Any other issue I can think of with the game is no more than a nitpick that is either easily remedied or barely detracts from the experience. The game drains the console battery noticeably fast. Aiming Brick Break can be off at times, leading to damaging things I wasn’t meant to destroy. However, damaged items are never truly destroyed, and can be easily picked up and put right back where they were. Sometimes I pick up bits of nearby fence rather than harvesting a tomato I’m meant to pick up, but again, they can just be put back where they were. If you need to cross between areas frequently to look for items in specific storage boxes, loading screens can start to feel long. Some Pokémon’s dialogue can feel homogenized, but that’s to be expected by a game with 300 odd creatures in it, and in my 40 plus hours of playing, it rarely felt as noticeable as say, Animal Crossing New Horizons. Even the game’s timers on things like building projects are suitably generous, with the game flat out telling you the exact time a project will be finished. That time tends to fly by while I trot off to deal with the other tasks I’ve given myself, so I rarely feel the wait.

Verdict

This is one of those reviews that has been difficult to write. Not because the game has anything troubling surrounding it or its development, or because it isn’t my preferred genre, but simply because it has been incredibly hard to put down. There’s a fun coincidence that the Switch had its breakout, system selling life sim released in March, and several years later, the Switch 2 has done exactly the same in the same month with the same genre.

On one hand it’s to be expected. A Pokémon life simulation game has been a wish for much of the fandom for well over a decade now. The thing of note here is that if you’re the type that hasn’t been keen on Pokémon for a while, this game is part of the Pokémon resurgence where its popularity is very well deserved. For the first time in a long while, I can confidently say a Pokémon title is an essential purchase for the console, and there are no buts or asterisks. Game Freak and Koei Tecmo have absolutely smashed it out of the park with their first attempt at a Pokémon life sim.

Where to Buy

#AffiliateLinks – Prices correct at time of publishing.

Credits

Written by Sheldon Greenaway

Edited by Mark McAllister

Graphic Template by Paul L. Russell

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for this review.