Pokopia!

 
So I think I need to write a bit about Pokopia, the new sensation hitting all of your Switch 2's, and one of the few reasons to actually even buy a Switch 2 at the time of writing. 

I wasn't planning to play Pokopia, not until Pokemon Winds and Waves forces me to get a Switch 2 and maybe I'll play it along the side. But things happened, my family is awesome, and I was gifted a Switch 2 and Pokopia. And I've been playing it for quite a bit. On and off. I don't plan to be a completionist about it, since these kinds of 'Animal Crossing' style games are... dangerous for me to be completionist about. But I had so much fun. It was so relaxing, so calming, and the fact that you can just pop in, do some harvesting and building and log off was really nice. 

It's a very charming world where you play as a Ditto masquerading as the cutest little fake-human ever, and I found that to be such a brilliant concept. Making new Pokemon arriving in new habitats as the 'villagers' and certain pokemon teaching you certain moves to help harvest items or transverse the terrain is done extremely well too. The story is... all right, with enough 'main story' questlines going around to hold your attention without deviating from the theme of the game and its chiller tone. 

Again, I'm not the biggest fan of the 'blocks' world popularized by Minecraft, but I feel like it's pretty important to do that for this game's playstyle specifically. Really adore the playerable Ditto's "human" form, and how charming the rubber-hose-arm animations are. 

I think it was obvious and not that much of a spoiler that Pokopia takes place in a post-apocalyptic Kanto. It gets a bit more obvious as you start building Pokemon Centers and travel from the first area to the second one, but I thought that coming in without expectations and only minimal spoilers, the build-up to this mystery is done quite well, and the Planet of the Apes style 'oh, this isn't just any post-apocalyptic world, it's Kanto' is a neat little nod to the players without actually being super relevant for the in-universe Pokemon characters. 

There are a fair bit of nice notes scattered all over the land to showcase this plot progression, but that's just collectibles! The main aspect of the game is to solve the problems of your Pokemon friends, make good habitats, scavenge or craft nice little decorations and give them to your Pokemon tenants. That's nice. That's simple. And Pokemon's quite great for the 'gotta catch em all' mentality of the tenants as well. Love that Ditto just carries around a Pokedex, too, which doesn't just record Pokemon data but also habitat data. So much of Ditto's mannerisms is just adorable and well done, and... and I don't think a let's play would be particularly entertaining with me going 'oh god that's cute' and 'oh god that's funny' over and over again. 

Dialogue is simple -- but very fun. Just like Mystery Dungeon, it's always great to see Pokemon have personalities and voices of their own. Vespiquen is more regal, Slowpoke is slow, Timburr is excited about building, Magikarp is a surprisingly peppy dudebro... there are certain unique NPCs as well, like 'Professor Tangrowth' and I do know that a 'Peakychu', a 'Mosslax' and a bunch of other not-quite-alternate-forms-but-visually-they-are-different characters will show up.  I'm sure they'll be fun, too. 

I was planning to do a let's play to follow up Legends Arceus, but... it's just a bit stressful to try and jot down everything about the game and that is against the spirit of the game, really. I do also want to take it very chill and very on my own pace! But on the flipside, I just wanted to acknowledge that this game exists, that I'm very slowly playing through it, and that it is probably one of the better gaming experiences I've had in a while. It's a great Animal-Crossing-meets-Minecraft game on its own, but it actually feels like a game that's properly built and exists in the Pokemon lore and universe. And that's pretty great. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to being a little happy morph-blob and go around vacuuming up sticks and rocks and spitting water to make grass grow.