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

I feel like I speak for the majority when I say it’s a rare moment when one is genuinely surprised by any generously sized proportions on offer these days.


Bigger doesn’t always mean better of course, but outside of the absurdity of the size of kaijus attacking on any random day, usually any greater amount involved is a safe bet

Definitely credit where credit is due: Pokémon Pokopia has turned out to be such a massive undertaking, based on just the scope inherently built within the design methodologies of the title, I think this was the fastest I had landed on a title for an article involving the game since day one. Which is saying something, as even if I have a decent idea where I’m going within my own personal writing narrative of how to cover a game, I normally wait until I’ve quote, unquote, “drawn out the metaphysical blueprint of game design”, by laying out all of the building blocks in written form, before landing on the coup de grace that is the title to finish the whole article off, by taking the grand majesty that is, and comfortably fitting it all on the page in an emphatically encapsulated manner.


Not unlike a Poke Ball, coincidentally enough…

One of the crazier elements of me coming to the conclusion that Pokopia essentially cranks up the volume of possibility within reference to Animal Crossing‘s admirable goals of where casually creative machinations are concerned, is that I’m only on day five of my adventure with Pokopia, which means that within some proper awareness of modesty acknowledged thereafter, I may have only glimpsed a tiny fraction of the icebergs surface area beneath the water that represents the depths Pokopia may end up having. As it stands, the game is already just magnitudes larger than AC: New Horizons, which represents the culmination of twenty years of a process of becoming for a series, and Pokopia is merely the first entry, with the overwhelmingly obvious assumption it will become a series, based on the pretense of how the game has sold vs the innate potential the game has, and the mind reels at a million miles an hour at the insane number of possibilities imaginable.


…this type of realization takes a little longer to set in for others, give it a moment, it will come to them

I realize up until this point in the article, I haven’t actually described anything specific about the game yet, beyond slight of hand generalities, which is due to the notion that while I attempt to write standalone articles that are self-contained and need no further explanation, occasionally, when covering a game of any kind, I almost always make a series out of it, and there tends to be a lot of built upon ideas as a result. I think in this case, if you’re a first time reader, whether it be involving my digital scribblings on Pokémon Pokopia or just to the site in general, I’d say this article is probably not an ideal jumping on point, so more context may be required to understand some of my own habituations in terms of writing style, even if where just Pokopia is concerned, as there is a lot to the game that I think would get excessively stiff in prose and quite dry in content, if I wrote out in just plain, vanilla detail the exact mechanics involved, that isn’t just more perfectly encapsulated with the tl;dr version of the elevator pitch involved with the title, which simply is: Animal Crossing, but with Pokémon.


Hey great, no pressure, right?

Having said that, the game does cherry pick quite a bit from other titles that exist in the gaming ether, and I’m sure some of these conjurations of referential incidence are merely great minds thinking alike, where others may be more intentional, as they borrow from some of Nintendo’s own wheel house, and precedents they themselves have set before, so in those cases, perhaps just building off of an already good thing, and then incorporating that into an even better thing just makes proper sense. For example, photography comes up on a regular basis within Pokopia, and one doesn’t even have to expend more then an iota of extra energy to realize Pokémon Snap no doubts had relevancy to bear when incorporating such an element into another Pokémon game. I’ve only seen one true minigame thus far, with only a couple of other super simplistic ones that could be debated as to their worth of inclusion into the category, based on a lack of tangible high score involved, but that already provides at least the meagerest hints (think sparkling water levels) of flavor reminiscent of where Pokémon Stadium is concerned. I cross my fingers that amongst the games scope left to explore, this becomes more true as time goes on.


For some reason, my mind went back to the physical fitness mini-games in the FF7 Remake, and I was like “Wouldn’t it be awesome if they had like a weight lifting mini-game in Pokopia?” (Editors note: That is probably not in this game).

With all of that said, and realizing I’m potentially sacrificing a lot of text rich story telling here, by speedrunning through some other notable games of referential worth by dropping mentions of their names with such a driveby sentiment of chaotic flippancy, so be it. Exploring has touches of Minecraft, creating habitats has reminiscences of Viva Pinata tied to it, and I’ve even made mention to Nintendogs at moments in recent days, in how one is taking care of their little ‘monz, and the appreciative feedback loop of spending time with a silly, cute loved one as a core method of interaction. And of course, still, you have all of the basic pillars of structure that do the mighty job of structuring Animal Crossing in its foundational worth, which was already an impressive breadth of ideas to deal with, but to take that, and just crank it up to 11, in terms of surface area, depth, possibilities of imagination…all reinforced with a massive stable of pocket sized monsters that have more than a thousand to their name with which to implement into the game (I’m fully away not every single one is in the game, but I feel as if I wasn’t close in my estimations of referencing the right number, there would be lit torches and sharpened pitchforks to answer to). With all that in mind, really…the game is just…fucked up kinds of god damn gargantuan.


For example, not only is the beginning area several times the size of…what is basically the entirety of the surface area of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, there are a multitude of areas that size and bigger to build other “town/gardens” in, wilderness areas in and around those zones, while also keeping in mind one can dig down and build up…and you start to get an idea of what I mean by the staggering contrast

As a result, this article never really even had a chance to be totally coherent, as there is simply too much to talk about: the game just has that level of scope to distill it in any expediently, meaningful manner. To that point, even though I’ve already floated a cornucopia of short hands to describe the gulf of difference within the realm of possibilities residing in the imaginably distinct galaxy of comparison between Animal Crossing and Pokopia up until this point, I won’t resist in throwing just one more out, in that if Animal Crossing is not unlike a terrarium in scope, I don’t hesitate to say Pokopia seems like a god damn National Park in contrast. Even within just the last twenty four hours, where I was already quite enthralled with the experience, it was only after having rebuilt the first Pokémon Center in the beginning area, and then stepping into another part of the wilderness shortly after, and attempting to comprehend just how much potential lies within the games exceptional boundaries, did it dawn on me just how astonishing the potential inherent in Pokopia’s Design may be. To craft a really bizarre comparison, I felt like in the moment of realization, I was making the same face Billy Peltzer made when he saw Stripe the Gremlin jump into the pool of water at the YMCA, while slowly figuring out the horrific implications that are soon to follow.


Just one more example of scale: admittedly, this is likely one of the more sizable (and unique) construction projects one can commit to, as it is for the reconstruction of the Power Plant, no doubt as a habitat to attract the legendary bird Pokémon Zapdos to come nest near your other housing projects, but I couldn’t even get the surface area of its foundation in one picture, and that broken down structure behind me was about the size of the Pokémon Center I had just built

Whether it be the quality of life elements imbued within the title, the absolutely ridiculous scale presented to the player, or the streamlined approach of keeping one endlessly engaged, if they so choose to be, instead of just kicking it their way, and playing however they choose…yeah, Pokémon Pokopia is just crazy, man.

~Pashford