(The tl;dr companion video to this article):

I’m always mindful these days about how much I allow myself to get caught up in the consumerist frenzy that begets so much of the modern day…if for nothing else but the sake of my own sanity.


The age of men is nearing its end, I fear

I’ve been clocking hours in Pokémon Pokopia this week, as having recently started what’s turned out to be a super popular spin-off of the mega franchise, it’s not hard to see why people enjoy it so much. Taking the casual gameplay of Animal Crossing (AC), and combining it with the endless charm and vast sense of collectability that Pokémon (PKMN) brings to the engagement table, it is no wonder this thing has lit the Switch 2 world on fire. Building one’s only little utopia with their Pokémon buddies, while effectively becoming a jack of all trades through carpentry, horticulture, construction, interior design, explorer…the list of roles you assume is vast, and all in the name of creating your own little idyllic slice of Poke heaven. While there is plenty to do at any given time, it is the slower paced, down to earth nature most people will vibe with, as the game will go at whatever speed you want, which is one of the key elements that the AC DNA brings to the title.


For folks who like to sleep in all the time: this game will speak to you

Pokopia does possess a free spirited design ideology about it in that way, as any single session is going to be highly individualistic, as what one ends up getting into is totally dependent on what they end up feel like doing for the day. Pokopia is also a game where it is infinitely effortless to get entirely derailed from an original idea or starting desire, in terms of what you wanted to get done vs what ends up happening. One minute you might be giving a gift to a Bulbasaur, five minutes from then, you might be high in the mountains using Rock Smash to punch through the side of a mountain to see whats on the other side. Even from early on, the game allows for a fairly open sense of exploration, and gives the player the ability to use Pokémon moves from the series to cultivate, manage, and navigate their environment as need be.


Though Rock Smash will likely be a fan favorite for a number of reasons, both aesthetically and functionally, there are many other useful moves that enable the player, like Water Gun, Cut, and Rototiller, which helps till soil to make it ready for planting and harvesting veggies

Quickly recapping what I made note of in my article from yesterday, the game is effective at pointing players in the right direction towards interesting pursuits in quick fashion, leaving helpful breadcrumb trails for them to follow, with satisfying rewards following suit. The game balances the notion of oscillating speeds of gamplay, as it is quite easy to kind of take things at an incredibly slow pace, and not sacrifice any enjoyment in the process, as one sort of just “zens out” while hanging around their Poke Pals whittling the day away, though the opposite remains true as well. Since Pokopia does hold itself up with the connective tissue of relating to, caring about, and making friends with your ‘monz, one does feel motivated to take their requests earnestly, and attempt to improve their lives with food, shelter, or some random favors in an attempt at making them happier. There is almost an element of Nintendogs present within the title, though I think that is only incidental in Nintendo having tried their hand at making several games focused on caring about cute animal friends, and doing so in a way that makes you genuinely want to make the little dudes happy.


Sharing is caring, comrade….

There definitely is way more of a genuine community feeling present in Pokopia that AC was never able to perfect. I’m not sure if it’s due to the subtle notion that one group of residents are animal like creatures that can talk, vs another set of residents that are more human like in nature who happen to be anthropomorphized creatures that only look like animals, but act more like humans. Maybe to some at first glance, there is no real distinction to be made in that kind of exchange rate that entails, but I would be willing to wager that in similar scenarios, different feelings would be evoked in certain circumstances, by just switching the living entities present; a zoo vs a prison is maybe an extreme example, so we could go with a human nursery vs an animal daycare, or even something with as slight a difference as a park where no animals are allowed to one that is advertised as a dog park by nature, and one starts to see what I speak of about mood, tone, and general vibe that is evoked just by what organic life resides there. I could likely go on a huge rant about how animals are bereft of ideology, and lack more complex forms of consciousnesses, which allows them a greater innocence than man could ever achieve…but that is a philosophical rant for another day, my friend.


The scope of Pokopia is not to be underestimated: there is a lot to discover in this cutesy little cosy game

Putting deeper philosophical implications aside as to why all of this is true, I am guessing I’m not the only one who only merely kind of tolerates there neighbors in AC, where whenever it comes to spending time with Pokémon, there is a greater sense of warm delight and playful wonder that is conjured from within, and this sense of cheerful connection, even if in virtual form, does a lot of heavy lifting in tying the experience together in a more meaningful and fulfilling way then AC has achieved thus far. I know a lot of people who often harbor the sentiment: people are the worst, while simultaneously holding a very different distinction: we don’t deserve dogs, leading me to believe if we then swapped people for villagers from AC and dogs for Pokémon within regards to those two turns of phrase they would both largely remain accurate in my perspective.


What lies beyond the first locked gate one encounters in Pokopia? One of many tantalizing mysteries that the player will be confronted with from day one

Though I did mention that both series Pokémon Pokopia borrow from are light in overarching narrative, and I’m guessing the same will largely remain true for Pokopia as well. Just the starting area alone is already several magnitudes bigger than any AC village, and there are locked gates leading to bigger areas that you don’t have access to from the get, and even major landmarks from the series past that you can access aside from that. With all of that acknowledged, in terms of where story is concerned, at least from a purely adventure-centric, explorative standpoint, Pokopia blows AC out of the water, which excites me in terms of how much I have to look forward to, and reminds me that Pokopia has so far done a great job of combining the best of both worlds, in how it borrowed influence from either of its parental inspirations.

~Pashford