I’m not very good at Minecraft. While I can create stories and worlds in my mind, no problem, building them in the likes of Lego or Minecraft just wasn’t something I was ever good at.
With Animal Crossing, I absolutely adored it during lockdown, but always felt you hit a point each day where you had done everything possible and had to wait till the next real-life day to find more to do.
Pokopia combats both of these issues if you are like me and get frustrated when creating from scratch or when you are limited in the daily actions available. By blending the game styles of life sim and Minecraft into one beautiful cake, Pokopia comes out on top of either offering.
I have been enjoying Pokopia for the last few weeks after trying a preview earlier this month.
Here are my thoughts.
Imagine a post-apocalyptic world where all humans have vanished, and world-ending disasters have seemingly occurred throughout the Pokemon world. Now imagine you play as a Ditto who misses his human so much he wears their face… no, seriously.
While this may sound grim, Pokemon puts a whimsical twist on the old end of the world scenario by pairing you with a Tangrowth that has been deemed a professor in this wasteland.
You must work together to make Pokemon reappear in the hopes of bringing back all the humans (if they aren’t already dead). As you make your way through the zones, you will also be rebuilding many structures that were devastated by the events that caused these disasters.
You may be thinking, “What the hell is this Pokemon game thinking?” and yes, it doesn’t sound much like Pokemon at all. However, that is the premise of this game, despite its ultra-cute looks.
Pokopia is a blend of creative games like Minecraft and life sims such as Animal Crossing. So the story here is really just a setup to get you started on your adventure and to explain why everything needs to be rebuilt. And I absolutely love it.
As mentioned before, I could maybe build you a basic house if handed a box of Lego with no instructions, but give me some blueprints and an idea, and I’ll get to it no problem.
Dragon Quest Builders had a similar “Minecraft with a story” setup, and having never played a DQ at the time, I really enjoyed its approach. As a fan of the franchise, I instantly fell in love with Pokopia's presentation and mechanics.
The loop here is just so addictive, and it never feels like a chore. You start by heading out into the withered wasteland to scout for any lingering pockets of life, which immediately gives you a reason to start gathering resources and rebuilding those devastated structures.
As Ditto, you can absorb/learn moves of the Pokemon that you find. From watering the ground to creating new vegetation at the start to the late moves, your character develops at a perfect rate to learn the mechanics before letting you upgrade each of them.
Once you hit the third rocky area, the game starts letting you upgrade your abilities and has much more fun tasks like learning to cook and throwing a party - it’s also here that the areas become sprawling, and travelling around can take some time.
As you fulfill specific requests for the Pokemon that start trickling back into the area, you level up and unlock even more complex challenges and blueprints. But the fun part? That’s finding the Pokemon themselves.
For 30 years Pokemon have traditionally been found by capturing them inside a ball one way or another. In Pokopia, you aren’t capturing them as such; you are trying to entice them back to live in the area by creating the right habitat for them.
The buzz you get here when a new Pokemon shows up because you have created just the right environment is as good as that click of the ball closing in other titles. You see, in the RPGs, I don’t like the battling so much; I like the collecting and filling of the Pokédex, and Pokopia has just given me a brand new way to do it. I became addicted.
I started filling up the dex to my heart's content, and it was a blast. Checking the needed habitats and finding materials to craft items became my core loop. As you build, the towns become prettier and nicer for the Pokemon there, giving a real sense of satisfaction as you play through the game.
Along the way, you will come across outfits (some you may recognise from across the franchise) to dress your Ditto up in. I don't want to spoil the discovery of these, but definitely explore high and low to try and find them.
It just adds to the element of personalisation found throughout Pokopia. Despite the game pointing you in the right direction, you can definitely put your own spin on things as you complete the tasks.
Even construction tasks that tell you which Pokemon to bring to the build can be tailored to your liking by finding a Pokemon of your choosing rather than the suggested one. Of course, they will need to have the required skill, but I appreciated the choice nonetheless.
Now, there is a main story running through the game, and it’s, as mentioned above, a quest to have humans and Pokemon return to the world after the disaster. While I won’t get into spoilers here, just know that the story is worth playing through and will teach you beginner and advanced mechanics as you go that will pay off in the endgame.
You might have noticed that I am purposefully not naming Pokemon or areas here, as I feel that doing so would take away some of the joy of discovering where you are and the Pokemon you find along the way.
Needless to say, each area put a smile on my face once I realised where I was. This was especially the case in the blank-canvas area you find early on, which is yours to shape as you see fit. Although if you are like me, you’ll be trying to construct it exactly as it was in the games.
There is no battling in Pokopia, although there is online gameplay; you can join or invite a friend to come and enjoy your island or explore theirs together. This can be done on Switch and Switch 2, which leads me to my only real gripe with the game: it isn’t available on Switch.
Now I get it: there should be a cut-off to entice people to upgrade to the newer console, but a game like Pokopia could sell more than twice as much if it had been on the original console too. There may be some technical shenanigans under the hood that make that wish impossible, but the multiplayer will let kids and friends on the old gen join in to some extent.
Anyway, the sheer amount of fun and creativity here is unreal. From seeing a game where you play as a Ditto and writing it off to being my first game of the year contender of 2026, Pokopia is one for both young and old Pokemon fans to absolutely pick up and adore.
It’s so full of joy and wonder that it will pick you up even on these grey “tail end of winter” days. Ditto is an absolute legend, and Pokopia has helped put his ranking status up by hundreds in my mind - and if you’ve managed to read this far, you must be a fan of Pokemon too, so go buy Pokopia, you’ll love it!
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