Friday night, my boyfriend and I spent a refreshing evening sitting on the couch doing nothing. We watched a baseball game, he picked up my guitar, and I eagerly started playing “Pokemon Pokopia,” the new cozy living simulator game from the 30-year-old franchise, which was unlike anything we’d seen from Pokemon before.
I described my experience as I played and explained the process of building a habitat to increase the comfort level of my Pokemon friends, which is the main goal of the game.
“Onyx is trapped in a cave and can’t break through the wall. So Squirtle suggested we throw a party and make it rain to soften the rock.” I said this to my boyfriend while playing the game. “But since Squirtle and I don’t know what ‘celebration’ means, we’ll have to ask Professor Tangrowth what ‘party’ means.”
I was delighted when I finally woke up Kyogre with rain, but Charmander, who calls me “best friend,” discovered that the fire in his tail goes out when it rains, so I had to build a small hut for shelter with the help of our friends Timburr and Hitmonchan.
It was already 11:30 at night. I just looked up because the baseball game was about to end. To my surprise, my boyfriend was asleep on the couch next to me.
I didn’t know he was sleeping. I was so absorbed in creating a habitat for my Pokemon friends that I didn’t notice that he had stopped responding to my commentary… Because he was no longer awake. While he dozed on the light sofa, I continued to deliver a detailed play-by-play on how to restore Magikarp’s beach habitat. I didn’t recognize it at all.
I am ashamed and embarrassed that this happened. I can’t help but believe that I made this mistake not because of a careless partner, but simply because ‘Pokopia’ is such a good game, and so it’s not my fault that I paid more attention to the virtual Onyx trapped in the cave than to the actual human next to me. (You should have seen how helpless Onyx looked! How long had she been trapped there?)
‘Pokopia’ is similar to a hybrid of ‘Animal Crossing’, ‘Stardew Valley’, and ‘Minecraft’, but is set in Pokémon’s Kanto region, which has now become an apocalyptic wasteland. Given its bleak setting, it’s impressive that ‘Pokopia’ is still firmly placed in the category of cozy games.
I’m not the only one obsessed with ‘Pokopia’. The game was so popular that it surpassed sales expectations, so much so that Amazon increased the price of a physical copy of the game by $10, reaching a whopping $80 (the game is also available as a digital download). It’s also the first Switch 2 exclusive game to create enough buzz for people to go out and upgrade to the new console.
Several recent main series Pokémon games, such as “Pokémon Scarlet” and “Pokémon Violet”, have received lukewarm responses. The game was buggy and the open world layout wasn’t interesting enough to overcome how rushed they felt. Even as a lifelong Pokemon fan who faithfully buys every game the franchise puts out, I thought the more recent games were fun, but I lost interest after completing the main storyline. But “Pokopia” far exceeded my expectations due to how expansive and thoughtful it was designed.
‘Pokopia’ has four main areas and a sandbox version of Pallet Town for group play. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve played a solid 20 hours of “Pokopia” in less than a week since its release (oops!) and haven’t even gotten halfway through the main story. It feels gloriously endless, even if it isn’t, but I could certainly see the developers releasing additional areas to explore as part of DLC nonetheless, and I’d be willing to pay for it despite the game’s already high price of $70.
Few games have captured me in this state of immersion. It’s hard not to compare that feeling to when “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” first came out, but this time, thankfully, we’re not experiencing the onset of a pandemic lockdown that will change our lives indefinitely.
A lot of things about the world have improved since “Animal Crossing” came out. Yes, a coronavirus vaccine! – Nevertheless, many parts feel the same. Donald Trump is president again. The federal government is using armed agents to execute ordinary people protesting for civil rights. Abnormal weather is becoming common. The situation is still not good.
Like “Animal Crossing,” playing “Pokopia” is an escape and a diversion, but unlike escaping to the island with Tom Nook, it’s grounded in the real world.
In the post-apocalyptic Kanto of “Pokopia,” you play as Ditto, who has been transformed to look like his former trainer who has inexplicably gone missing. In fact, all the humans are gone, and when he randomly appears in a cave with Professor Tangrowth, the grayish vine Pokémon hasn’t seen another living thing in years.
It’s not immediately clear what happened to cause Kanto to evolve into a barren wasteland, but as Ditto explores the ruins to find new Pokémon and restore habitat, he comes across diary entries, newspaper articles, and fragments of letters that help piece together what happened. There was some kind of catastrophic climate event and as a result all humans disappeared. Pikachu appears in the game as “Pikichu”, a pale creature that has lost its ability to generate electricity, while Snorlax sleeps in solitude in a moss-covered cave long enough to become part of the scenery. great.
The apocalyptic mystery makes each new piece of information more exciting, if not foreboding.
“We all know that server fees are rising rapidly around the world, causing everyone’s beloved music streaming services to be shut down one by one,” says a note from an old pocket mart. “Music lovers are still mourning the loss of these streaming services, but it’s not bad news in the world of music!”
The note goes on to explain the return of CDs that ‘our great-great-grandparents’ used, with no subscription fees charged no matter how many times you listen to them.
It’s fun to mock Nintendo’s broken music streaming model, but the part about server costs feels all too real right now. Because fast-growing AI tools require a lot of computing power to run, nearly 3,000 energy-intensive data centers are under construction in the U.S., adding to the 4,000 already in operation. Demand for more computing power is so high that the tech industry is facing a RAM shortage severe enough to push up the price of a new MacBook Pro by up to $400.
Climate crisis? Server cost? Broken music streaming model? It feels like Nintendo is trying to say something about the current state of the world.
But while “Animal Crossing” was pure escapism, “Pokopia” at least feels like an actual rebuilding of a broken world. It’s unsettling to see Vermilion City in ruins. But it becomes even more rewarding when you work together with other Pokémon to rediscover electricity and illuminate the landscape, obscuring dark clouds with light.
