Pokémon Pokopia review for Nintendo Switch 2

Pokémon is known for its turn-based combat and has also had its fair share of spin-off titles, including the Pokémon Snap games, Mystery Dungeon, PokePark Wii, etc, but never before have we had something like Pokémon Pokopia. Centered around a seemingly abandoned Kanto, Pokopia is what happens when you let the talent behind Dragon Quest Builders tackle a Pokémon spin on it. It obviously drew attention from the Animal Crossing and cozy game crowd, but it’s definitely more akin to DQB than an Animal Crossing. It even sparked some memes online about not wanting to buy a console for a single game, followed by shots of people holding their fancy new Switch 2 and a new copy of Pokopia.

There was a ton of hype around Pokopia’s release and I genuinely believe it has lived up to that excitement. It is by far and wide the most unique take on Pokémon that the franchise has ever seen and it’s got the quality behind it to further reinforce that creativity. Between a bunch of rewarding exploration, unique interactions with each Pokémon, and absolutely ludicrous freedom of creation, Pokopia brings Pokémon into the cozy builder style of game with extreme force. The blocky environments enable you to terraform the whole game to your liking and enables you to truly let your creativity go wild. There’s people building things like Lumiose City from Legends Z-A in the game, Raccoon City from Resident Evil, and entire transportation systems across the whole map. There truly is no limit to what you can create as long as you’ve got your imagination. Throwing your customized Ditto into this world and giving you total freedom is exactly what we needed whether we knew it or not.

You won’t be starting off building megacities or anything like that though as you’ll need to progress and unlock all your abilities and their respective upgrades. I’ll only go over the first few you unlock and their purposes as to not spoil anybody that hasn’t played yet and wants to discover it for themselves. Your first ability will be Water Gun from a dehydrated Squirtle that needs your attention. You’ll be relying on Water Gun for a hot minute while you get everything revived from its dead and decrepit state. You may notice how brown and lifeless the landscape is, which is where your totally innate desire to refresh an entire landscape comes into play. You can water everything in a plus pattern manually, but I’d suggest only doing what you absolutely need to for progression’s sake and get to the rain event first before you get carried away. Trust me, you’ll save yourself a ton of time and won’t kick yourself later for all that work you didn’t need to do like I did.

Once you get your buddy Squirtle back in action, he’ll tell you about how he’d like a home and maybe a friend or two, which is where your second ability comes into play. You’ll gain the ability “Leafage”, which enables you to grow patches of tall grass. This is super important, as this is your first method of creating new habitats for all sorts of new Pokémon to start appearing. As you grow the population, they might ask for some changes to their habitats, and some might even ask you for entire houses. You’ve got all these Pokémon and habitats, but what about building? You’ll need wood, but you’d be hard pressed to get any with the ability to water the flowers and grow some tall grass. This is where your next ability (and final one I’ll cover for spoiler avoidance) cut. Once you get your pal Scyther living in your area, he’ll teach you how to cut things like wood piles or logs. This’ll be when the game really starts to open up and tells you to go hogwild cleaning up the part of the map you’re in and to express yourself creatively.

Despite the blocky landscapes, Pokopia does seriously look nice. It runs at a nice and smooth 60 frames per second both in handheld and docked mode, not that anyone should be surprised for a native Switch 2 title. Each environment you’ll find from a part of Kanto has its own unique look to it, bringing forth different kinds of Pokémon and materials for you to play around with. From the starting area that’s fairly reminiscent of Fuschia City to the sea port style beachy zone, every new zone you unlock offers something new for you to explore. You truly don’t grasp the scale of the game at first until you let your curiosity take the reigns and start wandering. When I unlocked the third area, I thought I had explored most of it until I got a request from a Machoke about some iron gates in the way of a minecart track. Pokémon games aren’t really small in scale usually, even back on the GameBoy or DS, but Pokopia takes those areas we remember from childhood and blows them up to sizes we’ve not seen from the first generation. Omega Force, a studio of Koei Tecmo, really took our childhood and blew it up to a massive scale absolutely stuffed with things to do and opportunities. Just don’t forget your Switch 2 does have a battery life and remember your play sessions can’t last forever in handheld, sometimes you’ll get sucked in and forget.

Pokémon Pokopia is such a fresh take on the Pokémon franchise’s typical formula even if you include previous spin-off titles. If you like all the little guys of Pokémon but never got into the turn-based combat all the while enjoying more laid back and creative experiences, there really isn’t anything else that scratches such a specific itch. Even as a Pokémon fan, there just isn’t anything that feels as unique and innovative for Pokémon as Pokopia is.

It does borrow a lot of its systems and whatnot from the Dragon Quest Builders games, but as someone that doesn’t really have experience with them, Pokopia is an absolute blast. I often found myself just getting sucked in and trying to plan out habitats, buildings, crafting stations and storage, and transportation systems. Progression can seem a little obtuse and confusing at times, but you’ll eventually stumble your way into the right path as you just do things. If you find yourself walled off somewhere, try your luck in another area and see if there’s a request available to you that you might’ve missed.

Pokémon Pokopia is a genuine treat and I cannot recommend it enough. Whether you’re a fan of the Pokémon franchise in its usual form looking for something new, a fan of the almost life-simulation style of games, or just a creative looking for a sandbox to let you go absolutely crazy with, Pokopia has something for you. It’s great for all ages too so anybody can pick up and play it without any issues. With the last couple releases of the mainline Pokémon series being some stinkers, we’re reminded that Pokémon can be nothing short of fantastic with the right bells and whistles and the time it needs to cook. If you’re looking for something new to play as we enter this spring season, this might just be the perfect game to consider.

Note: Nintendo provided us with a Pokémon Pokopia code for review purposes.

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