Pokopia Totally Flips the Script on Longtime Fans of the Franchise

Pokemon Pokopia players have discovered an interesting way in which the Nintendo Switch 2 game reverses a popular role from the mainline series. A spin-off game released earlier this month, Pokopia swaps Pokemon‘s traditional focus on battling for a cozy approach that has drawn comparisons to Animal Crossing and Minecraft. Developed by Koei Tecmo and Game Freak, the spin-off is vastly different from past Pokemon games, while still maintaining a number of familiar elements.

In Pokemon Pokopia, players take on the role of a Ditto that has transformed into a more human-like body. As Ditto explores the game’s ruined world, it uses its copy ability to learn moves that help it create new habitats for Pokemon. As more Pokemon start to inhabit the game’s world, Ditto gains more freedom to explore, thanks to abilities like Surf. The game’s leisurely pace and the player’s ability to customize the world to their liking have already resulted in Pokemon Pokopia selling 2.2 million copies on Nintendo Switch 2. While Pokemon games have always been strong sellers, spin-offs tend to sell in much smaller numbers compared to mainline titles.

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Turning Pokemon Fans into HM Slaves

On Reddit, user WeekendThief shared an image of Ditto using Cut, which the player learns from Scyther in Pokemon Pokopia. Cut was introduced in the original Pokemon games, where it was one of several Hidden Machines (HMs) that players needed to fully explore the game’s world. Since HMs take up a valuable spot in a Pokemon’s move set and couldn’t originally be deleted once learned, players would often select one specific Pokemon to be an “HM slave.” The role of an HM slave on a player’s team is to learn multiple HMs so that the more valuable Pokemon don’t have to; for example, Bidoof is often used as an HM slave in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. According to WeekendThief’s theory, Pokopia essentially turns the player into an HM slave. Not every move that Ditto learns in the game is an HM from past Pokemon games, but many of them are.

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The biggest difference between HM slaves in the mainline games and Ditto in Pokemon Pokopia is the fact that players of the spin-off don’t have limited space to work with. Ditto learns way more than four moves throughout the game, without the need to forget any in order to progress. Still, it’s a funny comparison, and it’s the kind that can be appreciated by those that have been playing Pokemon games since the franchise’s earliest days. Thankfully, Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen allow Pokemon to forget HM moves, making it a little less necessary to have an HM slave on the team. Modern Pokemon games have also moved away from using HMs altogether, with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s Koraidon and Miraidon learning exploration techniques that don’t replace actual moves that are used in battles.

Since its release earlier this month, reception to the latest Pokemon game has been extremely positive. While critics have been raving about Pokemon Pokopia, fans have also been praising the spin-off’s approach to the franchise. Across social media, fans have shared narrative interpretations, comparisons to past games, and hopes for future updates. It’s all a testament to how much the game has managed to click with audiences in a very short amount of time. Pokemon Winds and Waves aren’t set to be released until sometime in 2027, so Pokopia will have to fill the gap for a lot of fans as they wait to see the next true mainline entry in the series. That’s a role spin-offs have been playing since the days of Pokemon Pinball and Pokemon Snap, and it certainly helps when it’s something everyone seems to enjoy.