Pokemon Pokopia | REVIEW | Nintendo Switch 2

''POKEMON IN A BRAND NEW WAY''

---

Developed: Omega Force and Game Freak

Published: Nintendo

Genre: Life sim

Release Date: March 5th, 2026

Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2

*Review copy provided to me by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company International

Pokemon Pokopia is the latest spin-off title in the long storied history of this 30 year franchise and it is developed by Omega Force and Game Freak and published by Nintendo. With Pokemon arriving at its 30 year anniversary, Nintendo decided, let's not only announce Generation 10 with Winds and Waves or re-releases of Fire Red and Leaf Green on Nintendo Switch, but let's also announce a mash up of various life sims and building mechanic type of games, roll it into one and give it a Pokemon flare. But was making Pokemon into a slice of life simulation the direction to go with as the next ''big'' spin-off, or should something else have been done in its place? Only one way to find out, so lets build!

''HOME SWEET HOME''

---

GAMEPLAY:

If you have been following for awhile now, you will know for a fact that there are certain guilty pleasure genres I like to indulge in that are basically ''my vibe''. But in case you're new, I'll bring you up to speed. Throughout my history and especially during my coverage, most people would know I absolutely love and rock with most ''slice of life'' or ''cozy building'' simulators, whether it be relaxing and playing the Dragon Quest Builders series, dabbling into Stardew Valley here and there, playing and reviewing Hello Kitty Island Adventures and making South Park Butter's dream come true, sinking hundreds of hours of my time into Animal Crossing across various handhelds and now home consoles like Switch. If it involves relaxing, being cozy, letting me be creative, then yeah, chances are I am going to like your game or at least lose myself to it for a reasonable amount of time... and by reasonable, I mean disappearing off the face of the earth and then everyone from friends to family to associates wondering just where the heck I've been all this time and think I've disappeared or something out of nowhere like the movie The Langoliers. But there was one title I'm missing isnt there, one that could be considered the ''king'' of these type of simulators, and of course, you guessed it right, its Minecraft. I've been playing Minecraft off and on for roughly 14 years, with most of my time spent with it in my younger days when I had more free time. Due to me playing it so much, I obviously tended to get overly creative in it due to either having no life or too much time, you be the judge. In this time spent, I got to express my own likes within the game, which ranged from creating giant castles, a huge flying fire breathing dragon, literally re-create Bowser's castle from Super Mario World, complete with a firework show, a gigantic interactive arcade re-creation of Donkey Kong that sends poor Minecraft villagers to their fiery doom. Yeah that's right you villagers, you deserved it, mwhahahaha. But the crown jewels for me, bring us back to the actual topic at hand, that being, Pokemon. Due to my nature of loving Pokemon since I was a kid, obviously I was going to have to create sections of my map on Minecraft that signified that love, and so I did, in the form of recreating Pallet Town from the original games, which you can completely walk through with signs and labels to signify which house belongs to who, etc. But my final masterpiece came in the form of my HUGE Pokemon Stadium, complete with a water path and Pokeball leading to it, and Gigantamax Pikachu and E-Vee duking out with falling glass, villager spectators, large battle floor and a stadium that would be 1 to 1 size of a legit battle stadium. It took forever, obviously, spanning a total of roughly 2 1/2 months to fully complete. Now why does all this matter, and why do I bring it up? well to show how much I love both Pokemon and the life simulation genre as we now dive into the next potential hit of said genre, with Pokemon Pokopia.

Pokemon since its inception has always been about traveling the world, sneaking through tall grass for a random encounter, grinding and leveling Pokemon you wish to catch to build an army of friends to take on the world... and to even get annoyed at how many freaking random trainers are just sitting and waiting for you to pass by so they can fight you. What the heck guys, don't you have anything better to do!? fine, I guess I'll just beat you and steal all your money, how'd you like that!?. Besides the encounters with civilians, you travel across the land, searching far and wide, collecting your gym badges, binge watching the anime and becoming the ultimate Pokemon Master. That's been the core experience of the franchise since the 90's. But here we are with Pokemon Pokopia and that format is nowhere to be seen and has been replaced with a ''IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME'' mechanic, only without Kevin Costner to guide you through these fields of dreams as you find new ways to upgrade each town you visit and bring it back to life once more so that the Pokemon you make friends with, have a place where they can live in peace and happiness. Now most people I'm sure probably thought that Pokopia was simply just Animal Crossing but with a Pokemon skin placed over it, which on its surface it definitely can seem that way, heck even I thought that at first, however once playing it myself, I realize that this title is much more grander in scale than I initially anticipated or thought it could be, and mechanically with its game play, was way more deep as well due to that fact this title is a mash up of some of the biggest slice of life and builder games that is currently on the market. By combining elements from Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Dragon Quest Builders and even Minecraft, you end up with a juggernaut of a ''vibe'' game that takes what works with other I.P's and mixes it to superb levels with the Pokemon brand, making it one of the most laser focused content heavy titles in the entire builder genre, as well as a laid back and chill type of game that you can lose dozens of hours to without even realizing it, and luckily if you do happen to fall asleep, you wont wake up from your dream with Pokopia being just a memory like in Super Mario Bros 2. Although the genre of ''catching and collecting'' in a sense isn't necessarily abandoned in this title, its overall meaning as to what that entails, does shift a bit as now you must collect new Pokemon friends and abilities to revitalize and make new again the towns you come across that have seen way better days.. basically now looking like humanity has went completely extinct and each village and town you come across is a shell of its former self due to the apocalyptic vibe the game gives off. But now is where 20 to 30 hours of your time will be lost because soon as the game is turned on, GAME OVER man, Game Over, since once it has its claws sunk into you, there's no escape from its addictive nature. However, if you try to escape your destiny, I won't let you and I'll harness my inner JigglyPuff and sing to MAKE you stay, count on it.

---

''SMOOTH SAILING''

---

Here in Pokopia, you don't start the game as a traditional trainer like you normally do at the start of the majority of Pokemon games, but instead you start off and take control of a Ditto who wakes up confused because upon waking up, there's no sign of their trainer anymore, so to feel more comfortable, Ditto changes into a human form, albeit with a rather funny looking face similar to how they looked like in the anime when they'd transform, and once they have turned into a human and begin exploring around trying to get their bearings, they, alongside you as the player, learn that humanity itself has abandoned the earth and from the looks of it, even the Pokemon that inhabit it as well. Hmm, so they basically pulled a Wall-E and are now living in space? Wow, were kind of... jerks. That would be like me abandoning my Gengar, or my Pikachu, or my upcoming Pombon, or Psyduck!. Well.. maybe I'd abandon Psyduck... its a possibility. Due to humanity not being around to upkeep all the towns they originally built, everything has turned dark, gloomy and basically a barren wasteland for the most part, but as soon as you let the depression of everything soak in, you meet Professor Tangrowth, a Pokemon who has become a professor in a sense that basically becomes your Pokopia tutorial as they walk you through the ins and outs of how the game plays, and what to do in order to survive in this desolate world and how to make life inhabitable again so that Pokemon can once more be together as friends and co-exist. By giving you select tasks the further you progress through the narrative set forth on you, you will see each area you go to be reinvigorated with life once again so that it may be safe enough for the humans to return to you, so that both people and Pokemon can get back to their once strong connection and be together again just as they have done for so many generations before. As you plant, build and explore each area, fixing it up, creating fences, pathways, resurrect buildings to how they used to look or even creating your own masterpieces, you notice each village becomes lively and vibrant once more just like they used to be, with also brand new Pokemon friends that want to live in the place you now have made into their new home - which is all thanks to the job you've done at renovating each town. Watching areas and environments go from browns to greens, trees swaying, Pokemon chatting or playing, your crops grow, housing expanding, seeing it all in motion after HOURS and HOURS of your hard work and planning feels absolutely rewarding, and it makes you feel like you're making a difference to this nearly dead world. Plus as I stated previously, each new area you encounter, Professor Tangrowth will have new requests for you to follow specifically for the story narrative that takes place, or if you choose to hold off on that, you may work with other Pokemon friends to partake in various other tasks like having a party for a big celebration, creating a path for a Slowpoke to walk on so they feel safe in their journey, summon a rainstorm to help water the area, etc. But it comes with a slight catch, you cant just DO things like in a normal builder game, but instead you need to acquire specific Pokemon, their abilities and resources needed in order to build specific items, plan certain things or even water various others. On paper yeah that seems like a drag and a time sink, and in a way, like a cheap ploy to keep you playing longer than you need to be, but trust me, I GUARANTEE you'll be going off on your own specifically to gather all materials, resources and abilities, its too addicting to not WANT to do that, especially with how relaxed and cozy the overall feel of the game is, plus you won't ever have to worry about running into.... OH NO, NOT YOU RANDOM TRAINERS AGAIN, LEAVE ME ALONE.

Mentioned briefly before, yes there's a narrative and storyline to follow, and it involves you uncovering the mystery of, what exactly happened to humanity? why did they leave the world to just decay?. As a long time Pokemon fan, it makes you feel a pretty good sense of intrigue, but also sadness as well because places you remember fondly as a kid growing up, are now in ruins, as if the game specifically is saying, those memories you had? they're no more. But its not all sadness and gloom, because with every town you rebuild from the ground up, you must also build a Pokemon Center, this requires you solo to grab as many resources you can find, as well as get other Pokemon involved too in order to give them tasks like bulldozing an area, find this item, build this here, and each Pokemon you get to help you, may have a special ability that can make things easier for you as you run and explore to find new Pokemon to help, or other ways to build a rail network to make transportation quicker. But, just like Animal Crossing, there is a small time sink involved as you structure build, complete tasks and raise the environment level of each biome that makes it possible to progress further in the story, or unlocking new items in the shop that allows construction go way smoother. This time sink involves real time building progress, ala Animal Crossing, but luckily no Tom Nook to rip you off this time around. Whether you're building a Pokemon Center or other buildings, your REAL TIME waiting could be something as simple as a 2 hour wait or even a full 24 hour wait before your construction project is even done, and if you're impatient, it can get pretty dang annoying... just like THESE DANG TRAINERS WHO WONT LEAVE ME ALONE. I DONT WANT TO BATTLE YOU, GO AWAY. Thankfully you can use a time skip by switching your consoles clock up a few hours or ahead a day or so to immediately finish your construction. Since I'm reviewing this game, obviously I had to use it to showcase a lot of the content here, but for others, I'd definitely not recommend doing it as it can take some of the fun out of watching your creations grow from hard work, much like Animal Crossing. Plus there's always a huge variety of tasks to take on while you wait, so its really not that bad of deal to spend your time doing other stuff. But just grey and brown areas aren't the only fixable areas since there's also beaches that are polluted with junk, and those must be cleaned and fixed too with the help of even more Pokemon friends that you have to get to help you with crafting and building and organizing, and by the time you finish multiple biome resurrections, you sit back in awe at just how amazing each area looks with it now inhabited by dozens of Pokemon. Charting your way through new areas and forging new paths you build feels genuinely rewarding the further you explore your world, especially with lore drops that give you way more insight to what exactly happened to the planet and its humans, which I do not wish to spoil because its something I didn't see coming, I'll just say that. With each new Pokemon that decides to hang out with you, as stated earlier, they provide you with awesome abilities that make building, crafting and overall construction much easier by having fire Pokemon that allow you to light fires, water based Pokemon with abilities to use bubbles or a water gun for plants, dirt or flowers, it makes every new Pokemon addition and Ditto's own unique transformation abilities feel vital and useful at all times, especially being able to copy another Pokemon's move set - its just fantastic. The scary thing about this game in the long run to me though is how addictive it is, and that's actually even MORE addictive than Animal Crossing is overall, because even when I was 20 or so hours into the game, it kept expanding, more shop items became available, Ditto got new abilities to use, new areas kept popping up - the fun and excitement and wonder of exploration just got better and better and never felt daunting, or like a chore, and never annoyed me for a single moment... UNLIKE THESE TRAINERS WHO WONT GIVE ME TWO MINUTES OF PEACE. FINE, ILL BATTLE YOU IF YOU'LL LEAVE ME ALONE.

---

''BETTER THAN BOB THE BUILDER''

---

OVERALL:

At the end of the day, Pokemon Pokopia for me was a sleeper hit. Sure, I expected to like it due to the type of genre it is, but I did not expect it to be this diverse, this deep, this addicting, not at all. From being able to have a free exploration biome to do whatever you want in just to do it, addicting crafting, rewarding exploration, build a companionship with new Pokemon friends as they move into your newly constructed town, open up new items at the shop to use, meet new Pokemon to help your Ditto learn new moves by copying their abilities, learn mysteries on what happened to humans and why Pokemon went into hiding, etc. There's just SO MUCH to uncover and get into that even if you play 30 hours, you're still going to find brand new stuff to see. Even with the time sink being a bummer for people that don't like to wait, Pokemon Pokopia is easily a game you can keep coming back to again and again long after the story mode is done and dusted, which is EXACTLY what I'll be doing and that's a fact. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says BUY NOW.

---