Pokémon Pokopia

• Genre: Life-Sim Sandbox game?
• Spoiler Free Review: Allusions to potential spoilers, gameplay, unlocks, etc.
• Time Played: ~50 Hours
• Too Short/Long: This is probably one of those games that can greatly vary depending on what you want to do. I didn't B-line the main story, I "casually" enjoyed my progress as I made it and did activities as they were made available to me while engaging with the whole breadth of the game. So for me, it felt just right.
• Did I cry: I got just a little watery eyed at one point.
• Soundtrack: It's fine. It's cute. It's just a little more repetitive than I'd prefer, and considering they have dozens of existing Pokémon tracks in the form of collectable CDs and various ways to play them, you think one would be as a radio for you, the player, but no, they only come through in the lower quality output of the in-game music playing items. There are some neat reprises of classic Pokémon melodies though.
• Why I played: I honestly only snagged it out of FOMO. It looked like something people were talking about and already really liking prior to actual release, and I saw just enough things that made me want to give it a try. I thought going in to it, it was going to be New Horizons 2.0 and I would kind of regret getting it just because it was something everyone else was playing.
• Jank: Surprisingly jank-light. Not free. There are some controls that could be a little bit more refined. I can't count the times I removed or broke something I didn't want to, or placed something incorrectly. There are supposedly some issues with Pokémon "despawning", which I may have experienced a couple times but was resolvable, but apparently certain situations it's not. Just some other general funkiness. It's to be expected with a game of this type. The more room for error the more error there will be, and there is a surprisingly large amount of stuff in this game and it's just impressive how it handles it.
• Difficulty: It's hard to say this is "difficult" in any capacity, so this will be rated more on tedium. Is it tedious? Not really. Sometimes, but not that much. I could see some quality of life improvements that give you more storage/remote /universal access, but that's about it. There are several different "main areas" in the game, and pretty much the only time the game needs to load is going between them, and sometimes, I have items I need in a storage in one of those different areas, so I have to visit an area just to grab the item and return back to where I am playing. That's a little tedious.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm extremely pleased. I had way more fun with this game than I expected I would. I may even continue playing it a bit even though I finished the story. This might be one of those games some people say "only truly starts when you finish the story", which I can understand why even if I don't agree, depending on what you're looking for getting into it.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would highly recommend it to anyone who likes any combination of Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Minecraft(or Minecraft contemporaries like Terraria or Dragon Quest Builders). In fact, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't see more people I know jumping into this game immediately. I think timing is a factor, but I've expressed my disappointment with New Horizons, and this is just the complete opposite experience for me, and yet there was a time where practically anyone I knew with a Switch was playing Animal Crossing. It helps it came out right at the start of the pandemic in 2020, but like I said - timing.

I just don't know where to begin with Pokémon Pokopia as it exceeded my expectations at almost every turn. It was such a joy to play. I'm not much of a "sandbox" style game player. I enjoyed Breath of the Wild more than Tears of the Kingdom. I played Animal Crossing until I rolled credits. I played Terraria until I rolled credits. I played Starbound until I rolled credits. I never cared for Minecraft, at all.

Pokopia introduces the game as if the building is just a smaller part of a much larger game, the game guides you in a way that makes it feel like everything you're doing serves a purposes toward the greater goal. You're also very limited in what you can actually do in the very beginning. Your crafting is limited, and the way you interact with the world is limited. As you progress this expands more and more, introducing you to more and more. Roughly half way through the game I thought I had seen it all, and the game continued to surprise me. I knew I would unlock more items to craft, sure, I knew I would see new Pokémon, sure, but it continued to surprise me with new aspects of the game throughout my entire experience.

You are given the various in-story towns which are structured vastly different from each other, and a reason to continue improving and building upon them, you are also  given a blank slate town, you are given daily RNG areas to farm for materials and items, you are given an optional entire separate sandbox play though that you can also 100% share with your friends, just as visitors, or full-time collaborator. You can also go to each others specific instances of their main game, to a more limited affect. I couldn't really ask for more in the way of places/ways to approach the game. It didn't leave me wanting in any aspect. Maybe if I thought I wanted for anything... I eventually got it. I may have said once or twice something I thought the game needed, and then I got it. To be fair, there wasn't much time for me to be left wanting as I seriously binged the game. Look at my playtime, look at the release date. It hasn't been out for a week.

Maybe they just mastered the reward structure and just know how to make you want to keep playing. There were times I was playing I was just getting such a constant stream of dopamine it felt like I was overdosing, like I could feel it in my chest, and I realized I need to get up and walk away from the game. But... like... in a good way? It's one of the few games of this kind I'm considering how I can continue to enjoy it post-game. There are some unlocks that give me some goals I may want to work toward, and if I can get some friends together to maybe enjoy the multiplayer aspects of it a bit, maybe it'll keep me interested, but without clear "story" goals I'm afraid my interest may wane. There is still a ton more to unlock though, and after all, gotta catch'em all.