Pokémon Pokopia Might Be A Lot Darker Then We Think

The Pokémon franchise has always toyed with the idea of utilizing Pokémon in creative ways outside of battling. In the anime, Pokémon are sometimes used to help out with infrastructure or power cities. In the video games, Pokémon abilities can be used to alter terrain in order to access new areas or solve puzzles. However, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think there has been a game that has utilized Pokémon for land restoration or agriculture much like this one. On paper, it makes sense that Pokémon would be able to jump start an entire society or restore an entire island utilizing abilities like shooting water or generating fire. At a special Nintendo showcase, GAME FREAK offered Anime News Network the opportunity to check out their newest Pokémon spinoff game, Pokémon Pokopia, which seems to, at the very least, give us a glimpse into what a full game built off of this idea will look like.

In Pokémon Pokopia, you play as a Ditto that had just woken up and is looking for its trainer. As a tribute to them, it takes on the physical appearance of that trainer. They come across a large Pokemon, called Professor Tangrowth, who informs them that they are on an island that has seen better days—and apparently has not seen any humans in quite some time. Utilizing Ditto's ability to transform and copy the moves of other Pokémon, it is Ditto's job to restore the land so that more Pokémon can come and feel healthy again.

The more you restore the land, the more areas you are able to access. This in turn means you can find more Pokémon and can copy more moves that could affect the terrain etc. In a lot of ways this feels like Animal Crossing, just utilizing Pokémon abilities instead of individual tools. You could use Squirtle's watergun to clean tiles and make plants more healthy. You could use Bulbasaur's grass moves to restore bushes which could attract more Pokémon. You could utilize Charmander's flamethrower to create fires that help keep everybody warm. The list goes on!

What I like about this game is how, in some ways, it still feels like a traditional Pokémon game. There's still a collective element to the game as you go and look for more Pokémon throughout your island. As you play as a Ditto that takes on the appearance of a traditional Pokémon trainer, you can even customize that trainer's appearance (although you can't go too crazy because, from what I was able to play, it doesn't look like the customizable options are as extensive as some of the recent Pokémon games). There is a literal Pokémon professor that assigns you tasks, you get a Pokédex that gives you information, and it feels like there is a larger story going on in the background as you go about your day. Honestly, the only thing that felt missing from this game was the traditional battles system—but it's very clear that this isn't the type of game.

I would argue the main appeal of this game is that it is very much a life simulator. This is a game that you play to fulfill tasks and to make your island as interesting as you can. While it looked like some layouts were pretty rigid, and I was railroaded a little bit into completing one task after another before moving on, it did seem like I was given a fair bit of freedom to go about things at my own pace. You can create bushes wherever there is grass and it looks like you could squirt water on practically anything to either restore them or clean them up. There is a certain type of satisfaction from seeing a desolate, rundown lot turn into a sprawling garden filled with life. There's even a day and night cycle integrated so that you actually feel the passage of time in the game. You're able to attract Pokémon to your area the more you restore it and they can even give you missions that you can fulfil to make the Pokémon happy. While doing missions, or even as a reward for missions, you'll be rewarded with materials that can be used for crafting. Ditto has an inventory system inside of its body and I managed to find a workbench that allowed me to craft things from chairs to bonfires. There's even a cute camera mode that's full of charm.

Granted, I wasn't able to get very far in the story because the pacing of the game is very laid-back and slow. I was only able to accomplish a few of the opening tasks of the game before I had to transition to the game's multiplayer. While there is a lot of freedom to restore things and have them grow at your own pace, if you're not in the task-completing mood, there isn't much else to do until you satisfy what the game wants you to do. Even then, while you do have that freedom to satisfy these tasks at your own pace, it didn't always scream "exciting" to me. I spent ten minutes just squirting my water gun on lots of grass on a grid, and I worry that the game could end up being tedious if the rest of the game is just me applying moves to the landscape.

I worried about this the most during my time with the game's multiplayer. Multiplayer mode had me and a bunch of other people with their switches all inhabit the same island. We were all able to run around and do things on our own or work together in order to complete tasks. These ranged from finding specific Pokémon to building or crafting specific items after acquiring the parts necessary to make those items on the island. The island I was sent to did seem significantly different compared to where I started off in the base game. However, I wasn't able to tell if this was just another part of the same island or if it was a different island entirely. This island did have more Pokémon to discover outside of the original starters I had at the beginning of the main campaign. While there was definitely still a sense of satisfaction with completing tasks and coordinating with people, it was still really just more of the same that I saw in the single player section. The amount of stuff to do increased but the content wasn't exactly different.

Honestly, the main thing that mattered the most to me when playing Pokémon Pokopia was the story implications. On paper everything seems pretty simple, I woke up, realized that the land needed to be restored and it's in everyone's best interest if I just went along with it to make things better. However, I couldn't help but hyper fixate on some lines of dialogue and some text boxes that would pop up from time to time. Professor Tangrowth will make comments about how humans hadn't been seen in a long time and, while playing as the Ditto, it's never really explained where our trainer is. I wasn't expecting a game that looked like this to have potentially darker implications.

Also, while the music was relaxing, it did have this underlying melancholic tone to it, almost like there was a foreboding atmosphere that was constantly growing. I couldn't help but think that something terrible must've happened that not only affected humans, but maybe contributed to why the land needed to be restored in the first place. My time with the game was limited so I couldn't fully explore much of it, but even now a few weeks later, those questions still remain in the back of my head.

Visually the game looks pretty standard. While a lot of the Pokémon models do look very similar to the 3D models that I have just become accustomed to for the past decade, I will give credit with regards to how expressive these models are. The way that all of the Pokémon emote was very charming, and I love the little face Ditto has. The animations even get a little bit creative when it comes to Ditto themselves, utilizing squash and stretch techniques to play around with Ditto's anatomy like how Ditto is able to store items inside of themselves. As I mentioned before, the music sort of has this sad atmosphere to it. I don't remember hearing anything particularly cheerful. Maybe more music would get unlocked as I unlock more elements of the island, but I couldn't really comment much on how the music made me feel.

Overall, this was definitely a unique experience. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting when I originally sat down to play this game and while life simulators generally aren't my cup of tea, this game feels like it has a lot more going on then just that. The Pokémon continue to be charming just like in various other games throughout the franchise, building things and completing tasks does scratch an itch. I'm still very curious about what the actual story of this game is building up to. The gameplay loop does get a little repetitive and I hope there is more to the game's multiplayer outside of just fulfilling missions. I think that if the game can create a stronger incentive to play around, then that would genuinely get me a lot more excited. For now, I am definitely curious and open to the possibility of even more.