Pokémon Pokopia is a few weeks away, and a bunch of outlets who got some hands-on time with the game just published previews of the Switch 2 life sim and town builder. A lot of what folks got to play lines up with stuff we already know, but there are also a few new details that round out our understanding of the game’s town management and make its setting sound like a pretty sizable, living world. Here’s a few things we noticed.
The game seems kinda gross (complimentary)
In Pokopia, you play as a Ditto who transforms into a human and is able to help various other Pokémon around a town you’re all working to rebuild. Because of Ditto’s malleable form, it’s able to change its body to use certain attacks that can help you build structures, break down materials, and perform other handy actions. But it also sounds like Ditto keeps its inventory inside its body, which means it’s constantly puking up items to help build the town and shifting its body in ways that would be horrifying if the game weren’t so cute.
“Pokopia is a masterclass in physical comedy,” Jesse Vitelli writes on Restart. “It’s in the way your character animates when using moves like Water Gun, which have Ditto recoiling as the water spits from its mouth, or growing large, vine-like hands to pick up plants. Your Ditto is expressive but cold at the same time, making it feel like a member of a Vaudeville act. Using Ditto’s inhuman abilities to present physical comedy gags helps Pokopia’s personality shine through. Your inventory, for example, is held within Ditto’s body. Extracting anything causes them to regurgitate it onto the field, like some sort of gelatinous cube bag of holding.”
There’s a bit of Viva Piñata in this game
Animal Crossing and Dragon Quest Builders have been easy points of reference when talking about Pokopia, but based on what folks have played, it sounds like the game will also have shades of Rare’s cult classic life sim Viva Piñata. In that game, you had to curate your garden so its wild animals would be attracted to the space and want to live there. That seems to be how you’ll get Pokémon to come live in your town in Pokopia, too.
“What surprised me most, though, was the way it reminded me of one of my favorites, the cult classic Viva Piñata,” says Steve Watts at GameSpot. That’s because the core mission at the heart of Pokémon Pokopia is building new habitats that will attract the attention of particular Pokémon, similar to tending to your garden in Viva Piñata. In the early game, at least, these tended to involve arranging a small set of elements in a particular order. Tall grass near the water will attract a Squirtle, while building a campfire will bring around a Charmander. When you’ve fulfilled the right conditions, you’ll see a rustling in the grass and then go meet your new Pokémon pal. From then on, they’ll live in your community, and you can build more structures like a bed to make their stay more comfortable.”
We might be rebuilding humanity’s world, as well
A dark cloud has hung over Pokopia since it was first announced, in that it seems like the game may take place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has disappeared. This is shown in how characters like Professor Tangrowth mention having not seen humans walking around in a long time, and in that a lot of the environments we’ll be fixing up for Pokémon to live in are made up of dilapidated human structures like a Pokémon Center. According to the previews, we’ll be rebuilding these as well, and they’ll act as a hub for assignments and tasks.
There’s some Pokémon Snap vibes
We’ve already seen that Ditto will have a camera to take selfies and photos, but it sounds like Pokopia is actually game-ifying this to some extent. Fans of the photography game Pokémon Snap will be delighted to know that Pokopia has photo ops that give you in-game rewards for stumbling upon them in the world.
“While wandering the Pokémon suburbs, I was alerted that there was a Pokémon photo opportunity nearby,” Watts writes. “I didn’t even know that photography was a mechanic at this point, but I followed the waypoint into one of the houses to find an Audino singing happily while taking a shower. I brought up the camera and snapped a picture, and was rewarded with a message telling me that I successfully captured the photo op. The game had guided me into a strange moment of wholesome Pokémon voyeurism.”
The soundtrack has some old favorites
The Pokémon series has a lot of recognizable tracks from over the course of its 30 years, and it sounds like Pokopia is pulling from all that history in its soundtrack, with a lot of the game’s Pokémon personality and vibes come through in the sound design.
“Aside from the foreshadowed desolation, what struck me most about Pokopia was how relaxing its interpolations of classic Pokémon songs were and how expressive the game’s monster animations are,” Charles Pulliam-Moore wrote at The Verge. “Though the game isn’t voice acted, Pokémon’s faces charmingly convey the emotions they’re feeling — sometimes they’re excited to talk to you, sometimes they’re in a bad mood and need cheering up — as you visit them in their new homes.”
Ditto’s story sounds pretty fucking sad
While the core premise of a Pokémon world without humans is sad enough, it sounds like our transforming hero will have their own heartbreaking backstory. According to previews, the human form Ditto takes is meant to be a facsimile of their long-lost trainer who Ditto has been separated from. With no idea what happened to them, Ditto will try to use this form to ask their fellow ‘mons for information.
“No one else knows what Ditto’s trainer looks like, so Ditto transforming into the trainer it misses is essentially asking the other Pokémon, “Do you know this human being?” Again, so cute, so melancholic, and I love it,” Casey Defreitas says at IGN.
It will take anywhere from 20-40 hours to hit credits
Like most life sims, Pokémon Pokopia will have a lot to do beyond its main story, but if you’re just trying to hit credits, it will take anywhere from 20-40 hours to reach them.
“The main motivation for this game is typically not to go to the end roll [credits],” chief director Takuto Edagawa told IGN. “The whole concept is to create the world with Pokémon and live with the Pokémon. However, as an average, it’ll be about 20 to 40 hours, but it would really depend on how the players play the game. There’s more things to experience after the end roll [credits]. So it depends on what you mean by contents, but I believe that players are encouraged to and will be motivated to continue to play the game.”
There will be periodic events to keep people coming back
Part of this “motivation” to keep playing is that Pokopia will have some events that take place on specific days, which might have people coming back even after they’ve seen the main story through, according to IGN’s preview.
There will also be motivation for players to log in intermittently. Pokémon Pokopia Producer Kanako Murata of The Pokémon Company said “When you play day-by-day, there may be something that, on a specific day, something special that might happen in the game.
There’s still a fair bit of mystery around Pokopia, especially in regards to its potentially dark setting, but we won’t have to wait too much longer to uncover its secrets, as the game is coming to Switch 2 on March 5.
