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When Pokemon Pokopia revealed its Dragon Quest Builders 2 DNA, I had no doubt Game Freak and Omega Force's collaboration would yield glowing results. The basic premise of a cozy Pokemon life sim with crafting and building elements always seemed like a winning combination, but it's great when developers surprise veterans and newcomers alike.
Yet the biggest surprises come from the fact Pokopia is comfortable enough to take things a bit further, expanding upon Minecraft and Animal Crossing-like systems and mechanics that had stagnated for too long. That's what captured, after many years away from the creative grind, my imagination – and has pushed me to put an embarrassing amount of time into the game. I'll probably stick around its ruined world and restored environments for a long time. It's exquisite comfort food, and the exact type most of us need right now.
Even as a self-proclaimed optimistic, I think our world is in a bad place right now. Better times will come, but it is what it is. In this context, Pokopia's arrival is reminiscent of Animal Crossing: New Horizons hitting right as the global coronavirus pandemic started. A little ray of color – hope – and a perfect escape from reality... except Pokopia is also quite concerned about reality. This is both a warning and a learning opportunity.
A wounded world
Pokemon Pokopia review: "My new cozy obsession has my year ahead sorted – building my dream paradise alongside monster pals is just too good to put down"
Pokemon Pokopia pulls no punches. Things are bad from the get-go, and even as Ditto restores habitats with the help of Professor Tangrowth and the Pokemon that show up, there's a glum feeling covering the post-cataclysm Kanto region. As soon as it comes into contact with the leftover human tech, it becomes clear Pokopia takes place in the future. Humanity hit a bad ending, which is starting to pan out right outside our windows.
All hope isn't lost, but it's fascinating to see The Pokemon Company and Game Freak going "yes, we'll release an XXL-sized downer just in time for the cuddly series' 30th anniversary." This isn't a criticism – I love it. Pokopia isn't only the freshest the franchise has been in years; it's also the perfect and most mature way to celebrate what it means to millions of people around the globe. You don't need a Fallout-like dark (but fun) setting to come up with a compelling cautionary tale, and it feels like Game Freak and Omega Force instead looked to family-friendly but loaded animation classics like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or Princess Mononoke for inspiration.
Mind you, Pokopia is a far simpler story than those and completely without violence, but it's an excellent reminder that "silly little games" about cute cartoon critters can make better commentary on current real-life woes than gory action-adventure romps at times. Moreover, none of it leaves Pokemon's central themes – friendship, exploration, living in balance with nature – behind. If anything, the game elevates them under new light. If civilization as we know it just disappeared tomorrow, who would you befriend and what would you build (or rebuild)? How much of the past should be recovered at all? Pokopia stays focused on keeping its tone playful, but there's an underlying consciousness to all its narrative beats we shouldn't ignore.
Learning from history
In this melancholic introspection, Pokemon (as an enduring entertainment brand) might find the required ingenuity and maturity to please both its aging old-guard fans and the younger generations at the same time. It may sound contradictory, but a game with the emotional and creative bandwidth to be the cutest thing that you've seen in ages – while also making anyone with even the tiniest connection to the franchise feel uneasy – should be studied carefully.
Pokopia isn't (or shouldn't be) just a spinoff which bridges several generations of 'mons and gives fans a massive sandbox that's familiar enough. It's an example of what this IP could be more often, especially when the first generation of Pokemon kids are now in their 30s and early 40s. Continuing what the main series has always done with new entries like Pokemon Winds and Waves is a no-brainer, and I dig the experimentation we're now seeing with the Legends games (even if the budgets aren't where they should be), but there's more than enough room for one of the largest franchises in the world to grow up alongside many of its fans without forgetting about the children of today and beyond.
When Charmander asked for shelter as it started raining, I saved and adopted the Pokemon before its flame went out, like Ash almost 30 years ago. When I dug deep, ruins I'd traversed before helped me better figure out the game's setting. When I finished restoring a towering building, a mighty Pokemon who once resented humans pointed me in the right direction to discover what their ultimate fate was. Our worlds have changed for the worse, but they're still recognizable.
The journey that connected all those big moments was completely new, but from the central mechanic of restoring habitats to its blocky building loop, it's all rightly rooted in past successes and failures inside and outside the multimedia franchise. Neither we nor the Pokemon can have a bright future ahead without closely examining the past. In this conversation, however, there's no room for cheap nostalgia that inevitably leads to repeating old mistakes. Pokemon Pokopia gets it. Do we?
