Pokemons Pokopia. At first, I wrote this game off as just kinda pointless and wondered why it was even being made as Animal crossing new horizons had just received a Nintendo switch 2 upgrade earlier prior.

But I bought into it because I'd seen the rest of the Internet enjoying it and the absolutely insane creativity of the Japanese players who'd do things like make an Arceus statue out of the games blocks and what not.

And since then, this game has been my go to of 2026. It's slow going at first, but once you understand what the game enables and doesn't, it kinda feels like the sky is the limit to whatever you wanna make.


Graphics: 10/10
The first thing that can be said is that this is a very pretty game to look at. Not just speaking on the tiles, but everything just looks great. The pokemon you end up getting are very expressive and interactive with the environment, each other, and even small thing like a grass type enjoying a shower you setup somewhere. The only thing that sucks is that the game does have a known spawn limit of Pokemon, so while you may have up to 40, the consensus is that you'll probably only see about 20 to 30 free roaming your world at once.


Sound: 10/10
Pokemon Pokopia has two tracks per area, a daytime and a nighttime theme for each area or town you're working on. And as your environment levels progress and you get more pokemon and more prefabs built, you'll get different versions of the same composition. Skylands sounding very cheerful in the daytime but absolutely bittersweet at night. There's also a lot of good sound effects when you're doing anything like going to Groveler and breaking through walls of terrain to get materials or what not.

Addictiveness: 10.

Again, sky is the limit for what kind of creativity and builds you can make.


Story: 10
Spoilers ahead if you haven't played Pokopia or finished it's main campaign, if you don't want to be spoiled I'm spacing this here and you can go play the game.







Anyways. Pokopia is set in a post disaster Kanto, you go from seeing Fuschia City in your dittos Pokedex to then when you wakeup with Professor Tangrowth at your side to see that the once beautiful town is now what the game calls withered wasteland. No humans, all dried up terrain, and a very blesk outlook.

But never the less, you manage to gain abilities to start watering and growing grass again and thanks to that you can make habitats or places for Pokemon to live again.

And that's something that repeats throughout the campaign as you then get to more ruined and abandoned areas in Kanto, but gradually bring them back to their former glory or even make it in your own image.
The game has this message of that you're here now, so there's hope for both pokemon and maybe hope for humans to comeback someday.


Depth: 10/10

As you continue to rebuild the world around you, you'll get better environment levels which will also unlock more recipes, more prefabs, and make your pokemon more comfortable and happy.

The Pokedex will be your bread and butter for getting what they want. Electric types loving electronics, grass types loving lots of nature and wooden stuff, water types loving a sprinkler, the list goes on. Just don't expect to get everything they want right off the bat, as you'll get more of things they enjoy as you obtain better recipes and therefore make items that are more ideal to their liking. Requests will continue until a Pokemons comfort level reaches awesome. Awesome is the max comfort they'll have, and level 10 is the max environment level per area.

Difficulty: N/A
A lot of the time I read people say they feel overwhelmed or don't know where to go on pokopia but I feel like that's kind of a personal problem rather than the game. Yes beating the main campaign let's you do more, but you should also take your time. Pokopia regularly encourages the player to take a break from time to time as it's easy to get burnt out. A lot of the central areas have objectives that aren't too bad to deal with as long as you know what you're doing and there's a healthy plethora of guides on YouTube if your stuck or missing something.



Overall: I love this game and I'm glad I got to know it and spent my $70 on it. I haven't played anything like the sims or animal crossing even, but this is forever the game that brought me into the cozy life sim genre and I'm thankful for that. 10/10 is my final score.