Pokémon Pokopia [Review]

In the past few days, people around me have been complaining about how unreachable I am of late. I won't deny, the unread notifications and delayed work emails are evidence enough: I'm barely here.

I simply can't stop playing Pokopia.

There are several elements in it that made it so special for me, from the hands-off approach of its mechanics to the constant rewards for my interactions and curiosity.

It starts simple enough: a Ditto which I've aptly named "Alex?" due to its eerie similarities with its now-missing trainer (me!), is tasked with restoring a whole environment. Its Transform ability helps bettering the areas by regrowing grass and hydrating the land, and lures other Pokémon that would otherwise be uninterested in such a barren land.

These lures are the "habitats" that I could recreate in the world using Ditto's abilities, and by creating several different ones, different Pokémon can appear, depending on the time of day (that follows a real world clock) and circumstances of the habitat itself.

Getting the 300+ Pokémon can be a big challenge, and I've decided to write this review after about 65 hours, with 201 of them in my dex. Making the more obscure habitats and building them in increasingly complex cities was always a joy, and seeing abandoned lands become neighborhoods is really fulfilling.

Each of the 5 maps are very different between each other, and because some of the structures of the game need to have real world time to be built, I've felt constantly encouraged to start a new project, however dumb it may be, or to explore a new area that I haven't been before.

Pokémon also have different abilities that can process some resources. A fire-type can light candles, but also transform clay to bricks, while other Pokémon may be able to recycle non-burnable garbage into iron ores. Not all abilities are useful, and some Pokémon can contribute more to society than others.

Because that's what Pokopia is: a society builder. We need houses, materials, food, but also joy, neighbors, and whimsy. Pokémon interact in the most delightful ways, and are not always happy, requiring more and more living standards from Ditto, be it with asking for better beds or some toys to spend the much needed leisure time. Because this game's hard work!

Every map is more vertical than it first appear to be, with hidden caves, gorges, entire chambers and dungeons all around, full of resources, new blocks, new recipes and new possibilities to create habitats. Making places livable and then pretty can take hours, because there's not only the need to process materials, but finding recipes isn't always an easy task.

Destroying a block may lead me to a hidden waterfall. Turning left instead of going forward and suddenly I'm in a karate dojo. Although some tasks are too granular and may be repetitive and tiresome, the sentiment of accomplishment is always there.

It is a joy to move in this game, and as stuff gets more and more complex, better abilities are unlocked so interacting with the world ends up being very dynamic. Nothing is hard, though, and the game itself feels very natural to play. Sometimes, the tiling can be weird on the controller, and a first person mode could help to add little touches here and there when making small changes.

Pokopia uses very well the mouse functionality on the Switch 2 hardware, making construction and bulldozing absurdly accessible and reliable. It is by smart and clever uses of the hardware alongside the impressive amount of systems happening at the same time that this really felt like something not only new, but essentially impossible in old gen hardware. When Nintendo announced that the Joy-Cons 2 could be used as a mouse, I wasn't that convinced and perceived it as a gimmick. Pokopia proved me wrong.

Getting new habitats to find new Pokémon to then create decent standards for them to live. This has been my life for the previous days. I really can't stop thinking about Pokopia. There were some issues that I had with the game beyond the abilities balancing, though. The camera can sometimes be whack, I'd love to have better ways to find recipes, and it'd be interesting if the game had a bit more friction in its life simulation beyond the "happiness" meter, but nothing felt incomplete.

The reality is that there just so much more to do. I've created a Cloud Island with some friends and we've just started to find new Pokémon and build houses and roads. The Cloud Islands and multiplayer in general can be accessed up to 4 players at the same time, and constructing together is really nice. I loved to see how the Cloud Island we created evolved in just two days.

Another remarkable aspect about this game is also its story. Everything starts with a big mystery that is bold in its assumption, and from there, the whole world starts to make sense. By the end, I was impressed by how attached I was with this region, and understanding what happened with it was endearing.

I've never fetched myself as a person that like reading logs, but here I loved it, the mystery, and the characters we read about were engaging and a high point of the game. Also, while very freeing in its nature, the game always had a goal for me to achieve, making it far less aimless than I've first thought.

Really, Pokopia is a treat and the full package — practically flawless in execution, full of things to do and moments of awe. Sometimes a bit repetitive and overwhelming, but a great time regardless.

9.5/10