What parents need to know
Pokopia is a spin-off of the popular Pokémon franchise. This time, forget about fighting, dreams of becoming “the best trainer” or “catching them all”. In Pokopia, it’s more about setting up an island and creating an environment conducive to a comfortable life for our Pokémon friends.
You play as a Ditto, a small Pokémon with the special ability to transform into almost anything. We wake up on a mysterious island, devoid of life except for a Pokémon that lives there alone, Professor Tangrowth (Bouldeneu in French). We quickly learn that this island is in fact the continent of Kanto, where the very first generation of Pokémon took place. The trouble is that following a mysterious disaster, the details of which we will learn during our exploration, all humans and Pokémon have disappeared from the face of the world.
Never mind, because our Ditto, who takes the form of his trainer whom he misses enormously, undertakes to rebuild this abandoned world.
By recreating particular environments, we attract new Pokémon, each of which has talents that can help us, as well as requests to fill. For example, a Squirtle may appear if tall grass is placed near a stream. In return, it can teach us how to spit out water, which will hydrate the soil and bring parched plants back to life.
Later, a Smeargle (Queulorior) will ask us to create paint for him with crushed fruit. You will then have to find a Pokémon that has the ability to crush fruit.
Developed by the team behind the excellent Dragon Quest Builders, Pokopia borrows a lot from Minecraft. Here, too, the world is made up of blocks, which can be destroyed and rearranged as we please. Not only can we change the shape of the land, but we can build buildings with (almost) only our imagination as a limit.
As in Minecraft, some elements that can be crafted on our workbench can also interact and be used in ingenious ways. There are switches that activate statues that breathe fire, train tracks on which you can place trolleys, buttons that produce certain notes when pressed… no doubt the Internet will soon be filled with impressive creations imagined by people more creative than us.
Details
Level of experience required
| Age | 3+ | 7+ | 12+ | 16+ | 18+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginners |  |
 |
|
|
|
| Intermediate | |
|
|
|
|
| Experienced | |
|
|
|
|
Evaluation
Pokopia is a non-violent game. There are no fights or even enemies to face.
Nothing.
To understand the details of the story and some instructions, you will have to know how to read a minimum, but the whole thing remains quite simple.
All we do is help our friends and try to make their lives better, and they are all very grateful to us.
You can’t lose and there’s no time limit. You can take all your time to complete the objectives, or even ignore them completely and do as you see fit.
This may be Pokopia’s only flaw, if you have to name one; At $99.99, it’s an expensive game. We think the impressive amount of content it offers justifies the price, but the deal would have been more enticing at $79.99 or even $89.99.
Local game modes
We can explore and build our world as we please.
Online Game Modes
We can visit our friends’ cities, or invite them to visit ours.
Expansions/Add-ons (DLC)
None at this time.
Our opinion
Minecraft is the most popular game of all time, and there’s a reason for that; The pleasure of building, imagining and seeing one’s creations come to life is fundamental in human beings. Before Minecraft, there was Lego, and before Lego, there were wooden blocks, sandcastles, drawing… In short, humans, and especially children, love to create.
On the other hand, one of Nintendo’s biggest successes in recent years is undoubtedly Animal Crossing: New Horizons (more than 49 million copies sold!). The Animal Crossing series tackles another very human trait: that of being part of a community, and creating a home in which you feel good and safe.
Pokopia understands the strengths of these two monster titles, and combines them in a game powered by the hugely popular Pokémon franchise. All the ingredients are there to make a success, and that’s indeed what Pokopia is: a success.
We take great pleasure in beautifying our villages (we unlock several of them over the course of the game), repairing what has been destroyed or creating something completely new. There’s something incredibly satisfying about repairing ruined buildings, clearing roads covered in ash or dirt, bringing parched greenery back to life, and creating completely cute shelters for our character and his new Pokémon neighbors.
Even though I spent several hours on Minecraft and Animal Crossing, and I recognize their great qualities, I must admit that they are not my favorite games, because they offer an experience that is a little too free for my taste. I’m the kind of player who likes to be guided with clear goals, and that’s not what these titles offer.
Pokopia offers a good compromise for players like me. We constantly have objectives to fulfill. There is a quest to complete in each of the villages, in addition to the many requests from our Pokémon villagers. For me, it’s perfect; There is always something to do. But if you’re one of those who prefer more freedom, there’s no problem; very quickly, Pokopia lets go of the reins, and if you want to skip all the quests to build an exact reproduction of Dunder Mifflin’s office in The Office, good for you. You can do that, the quests will be waiting for you and you won’t be penalized.
We are also offered a village (Pallet Town) in which there is no history and a lot of space, if you just want to build your own little piece of paradise with as few constraints as possible.
The title also uses the mouse function of the Switch 2. I didn’t use it a lot, because I prefer to control my character with the good old standard controls mode. However, for more elaborate builds, there is no doubt that the mouse offers greater accuracy and speed. Since the change is instantaneous, you lose nothing by trying both control modes.
The Pokémon franchise is incredibly well used. It’s easy to get attached to the villagers of Animal Crossing. It’s even easier to get attached to our villagers when they’re Pokémon we’ve known for decades.
Tell you how quickly I built the habitat required to attract Blastoise (or Blastoise, my favorite Pokémon) when I discovered it by chance.
Surprisingly, there’s also a lot of story in Pokopia. It is almost entirely optional. We understand what happened with humanity and Pokémon by reading abandoned newspapers hidden in the four corners of the world. But if you decide to look at it, you discover an interesting lore , to say the least, and a TON of nods to the first generation of Pokémon.
You will have noticed that there are few negative comments in this review. Yes, we could look for lice: the installation of blocks is sometimes a little imprecise with the standard controls and uh… Costumes for our character are limited.
But we refuse to sulk our pleasure. Pokopia takes the best of incredible franchises, and makes them a whole that in our opinion surpasses the sum of its parts.
Those who complain about the game offer on Switch 2 take note: Pokopia is a must-have that justifies the purchase of a console.
Note: A code has been offered to us by the publisher for review purposes. It does not influence our opinion.
