‘Pokémon Pokopia’ is the best, best Pokémon game in years

You can find a lot of doom-and-gloom takes on the Nintendo Switch 2. Many of them include complaints about the lack of compelling exclusive games for the system.

The users making these complaints, however, are still not playing Pokémon Pokopia.

A joint effort from Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Game Freak, and Koei Tecmo, Pokémon Pokopia launches exclusively on Switch 2 on March 5. More importantly, you might not be prepared for how much this game can cost.

Actually, the Nintendo team took it Minecraftstripped away the ugly art style, added social friendliness a la Stardew Valleythen put a bunch of Pokémon into it.

Personally, I don’t like this kind of games at all. But Pokopia it combines player creativity, engaging writing, a magnetic sense of continuity that makes it hard to put down, and an alarming level of depth. It officially installed me. I want to keep digging Pokopia just to see what it has to offer, and it has not disappointed me yet.

I just want to pick up Pokémon Pokopia and embrace it

I covered the basics of Pokopia in manual preview. But here’s the TL; DR. The easiest way to think about this game is that it takes elements Minecraft, Animal Crossingagain Stardew Valley, all combined with an extremely powerful dose of The Pokémon creatures.

You start the game as a Ditto (a basic “normal” shape-shifting Pokémon) waking up in a world where all the people are gone, leaving only devastated areas. He takes human form (well, close enough) and sets out to rebuild what once was, hoping to attract more Pokémon and eventually maybe some humans to live with.

Aesthetically, this means you play as a human child with Ditto’s little smiley face. Mechanically, this means that all of your farming and city-building skills include classic Pokémon moves like Cut, Power, and Surf, each learned from a different Pokémon and copied by Ditto.

Bulbasaur is one of the best little guys we have.
Credit: Nintendo

The best part of Pokopia that each Pokémon that lives in your towns – you’ll actually build several in many different biomes as the game progresses – speaks your language and has its own personality. There is no fighting in between Pokopia. You make Pokémon likable by giving them gifts and building homes for them.

Writing on Pokopia wonderfully funny; I was particularly taken with Magikarp punctuating almost every sentence with the word “yo” for no good reason.

A big part of what you do Pokopia I worked for, where the games are like Minecraft I don’t, that you spend a lot of time talking to NPCs and trying to figure out how to solve their problems as you dig up rocks and put up buildings.

The game has a really good amount of player control, so there’s never any confusion as to what you can or should do at any given time. Pokopia It is also wise not to push the player too much in any one direction. Even when you unlock new areas, the game clearly encourages you to stick with the old ones and improve them before moving on.

The result is relaxation and peace, without really feeling like work.

But Pokopia and there you have it, there’s a lot more going on than you think

This is where I want to be all the time.
Credit: Nintendo

Having said that, there is a lot of work to be done Pokopia. In the 10 to 15 hours I played, I was blown away by the level of mechanical depth in this game. Most of the things you can do are the same as the jobs in it Minecraft and its many outings, but I was expecting a Pokémon-themed take on that kind of game to make things easier.

Pokopia it doesn’t make you angry, though, and that’s a good thing.

For example, bodies of water have rudimentary physics. You can dig streams if you want. The grass on both sides of the river will benefit accordingly, so that’s a smart place to plant plants. Placing a lot of water in one place will increase its humidity, which may annoy some Pokémon, but will please others. Yes, you can carry moisture inside Pokémon Pokopia.

It doesn’t end there. Windmills and water wheels can be used to power electronics, and you can connect utility poles to power an entire city. Things like clay can be turned into necessities like bricks if you happen to know a guy who can melt them.

Pokémon love to have their own homes – but if you build one big enough, you can invite your favorites to live with you. I stayed with Scyther the first time, because Scyther is cool as hell.

Welcome to the Homie House.
Credit: Nintendo

Pokopia It even has a cooking mechanic, which I never touched because I was busy doing other things. I also haven’t had a chance to try online multiplayer, which allows groups of friends to turn empty spaces into the Pokémon paradises of their dreams through cooperative building projects.

Each step of the way, Pokémon Pokopia it will introduce a new wild idea or mechanic, which turns out to be a good way to keep someone who is not very interested in managing villages invested in running.

In short, I was impressed with what I played with it Pokémon Pokopiaand I’m not even the target audience for this show. It might be the best Pokémon spin-off I’ve ever played, and easily one of the best games in the entire series in a long time, even including the RPGs.

I can’t wait to see what people come up with indeed in the middle Pokopia do with its menagerie of programs once the game has been out for a few weeks.

Pokémon Pokopia launches exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5.