Pokemon Pokopia Does This Key Animal Crossing Feature Better Than New Horizons

Although it’s not an exact clone, Pokemon Pokopia draws many comparisons to Animal Crossing, but features Pokemon instead of animal villagers. The gameplay of Pokemon Pokopia is very reminiscent of Animal Crossing‘s cozy, life-sim feel, complete with the ability to interact with the Pokemon living in the player’s village and redesign their environment to suit their tastes. However, Pokemon Pokopia goes above and beyond compared to Animal Crossing: New Horizons when it comes to streamlining the early hours of the game to make progression smooth for new players.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has seen its fair share of criticisms over the years, with hardcore fans lamenting the vanilla villager personalities and limited post-launch content. While Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently released update 3.0 to address some of its standing quality-of-life and content complaints, there is still a lingering problem with the game that prevents many players from restarting or creating a new island. Pokemon Pokopia essentially solves this problem and, in turn, creates the perfect alternative to Animal Crossing: New Horizons for players who like the format but were dissatisfied with how slow the early-game progression is.

Pokemon Pokopia Might Be Hinting at a New Type

Pokemon Pokopia may have teased a brand-new type coming in the future, potentially giving it an unexpected connection to Gen 10’s Winds and Waves.

Pokemon Pokopia Fixes One of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Biggest Issues

The release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons came at a unique time, when the world was locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and players were stuck in their homes with free time on their hands. Lots of fans bonded over the daily unlocks that Animal Crossing: New Horizons offered as part of its real-time progression, giving players a sense of community and something to look forward to each day in a time when distraction was necessary. However, nearly six years after Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ launch, starting a new island in New Horizons is much more of a slog, and Animal Crossing fans would be forgiven for time-travelling to advance the game’s progression faster.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Early Progression is Slow

animal crossing new horizons museum opening dedication — Animal Crossing New Horizons Museum Opening

New Horizons differs from the rest of the Animal Crossing series by essentially starting players with nothing and having them build up their island into a flourishing town as they play. The downside of the gameplay design is that Animal Crossing‘s real-time day/night cycle puts up some frustrating roadblocks that force players to wait for real time to pass before they can continue to build their island. For example, Animal Crossing: New Horizons makes players wait a day for the Museum to be built, regardless of how much progress they’ve made. This means that players hoping to dive right into the meat of New Horizons will have to wait at least a day or two in real time to bypass these gameplay barriers.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has what is basically a Day 0, where time doesn’t follow the real world until they finish the tutorial and hold a party for the new islanders.

Pokemon Pokopia’s Variable Time Gates Should Be the New Standard for Animal Crossing

rebuild wasteland pokemon center pokopia

Despite starting with a similar premise of building up a desolate environment into a bustling town, Pokemon Pokopia gives players much more freedom to progress in the early hours than Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Pokemon Pokopia also features a real-time day/night cycle, but certain events aren’t locked behind a mandatory 24-hour waiting period. Instead, Pokopia includes some degree of variable time-gated events, such as building a house or restoring the Pokemon Center, but these are far fewer than in New Horizons. While some major story beats, like the Pokemon Center’s restoration in Pokopia, make players wait one in-game day before it’s complete, other structures have much shorter turnaround times, from a few minutes to a few hours of real time.

Comparatively, almost any major structure in Animal Crossing: New Horizons takes a full day to be completed. Adding onto the player’s house, building structures like bridges, and upgrading buildings like Resident Services all require a day to complete. The next Animal Crossing game could take a page out of Pokopia‘s book and include shorter time gates for some smaller builds, so that a minor bridge doesn’t take as long to complete as a full building like the Museum.