I was really skeptical if this game was worth $70, but after 40 hours and hitting the end credits, I’m sold. Pokémon Pokopia is so jam-packed with content that you can play for hundreds of hours and never get bored.

I’ve come to expect very little when it comes to narratives in Pokémon games, but the Pokopia premise alone was interesting enough to really hook me from the start. They pretty bluntly tell you that humanity has completely disappeared off the face of the earth, which you can see after viewing the state of each biome. Volcanic ash burying buildings, decimated skyscrapers, and post-apocalyptic structures made of trash are just a few things you can expect to run into as you fully explore this land. The missions worked well for pushing the plot forward and also served as great tutorials that felt natural, teaching you useful skills that become essential once you finish up the game and the guardrails are completely removed.

What makes Pokopia work for me is that the game has many layers, and you really get as much as you are willing to give. For people who just want to play this to see the story unfold, complete a few missions, and put it down forever after about 40 hours, there’s a clear end to this game that makes that easy to do. For people who want to invest time into finding all of the habitats, collecting all of the Pokémon, and rebuilding structures using the remnants left behind, you could easily get another 100 hours out of this game. And if you’re an absolute fiend who wants to become a God and reshape the entire world in your image, you could spend the rest of your life painstakingly customizing each inch of every biome to your liking and probably have a great time doing it.

There are so many Pokémon here to collect that it’s kind of bonkers. I love how they adopted the Viva Piñata system for attracting each creature to your villages, with each habitat ranging from very basic to pretty complex. While I consider the exclusion of Totodile an affront to me, my family, and humanity as a whole, I’m convinced that it’ll drop as part of a future event. That thought alone gives me the strength to keep building out my communities in preparation for that fated day so that my favorite boy gets the royal welcome he deserves.

I really love the music on display here. The soundtrack is mostly comprised of iconic Pokémon tracks remixed to fit the cozy sim vibe and they crush it.

Just like with Animal Crossing, there are a few quality-of-life issues that I hope get smoothed out over time with future updates. Having a global storage system where I can access anything in my inventory at any time would be a real game changer. As it stands now, I’ve dedicated the entire second floor of my house in the starting area to a mass storage facility filled with boxes containing everything I’ve collected in the game, from building blocks to blades of grass, with signposts above everything to help indicate where everything is. Obviously I’d rather use this space for more cosmetic items, but these are the lengths I currently have to go to keep myself sane with the amount of items and building materials I pick up daily.

I also feel like the construction process is a bit of a pain point when I need to manually rally Pokémon to a specific point to help build a structure. I know the goal is to eventually have a fully constructed world where every Pokémon has a dedicated home which will make keeping track of their movements much more manageable. But in the interim it’s just kind of a pain when I need to search far and wide to find the specific guys I need to complete a project.

Pokémon Pokopia is a real triumph for the series and is easily my most recommendable title for the Switch 2 thus far.

---

---