Club Benefits
Depending on how caught up you are with gaming news, you might not need me to tell you that Pokémon Pokopia is a hit. It’s gotten a ton of positive reviews (watch out for Tom's Guide's own review, coming very soon), and copies are selling out at retailers across the web right now. So if you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet, I’m sorry for what I’m about to tell you.
Pokopia is an exclusive that’s worth upgrading to a Nintendo Switch 2 for. Not all gamers are interested in previous best-selling Switch 2 exclusives like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. Fortunately, cozy game lovers finally have a proper reason to upgrade, thanks to this new Pokémon spin-off.
Need a testimonial? I've been obsessively playing Animal Crossing New Horizons since the 3.0 update released in January (I'm up to a staggering 815 hours of playtime), and Pokémon Pokopia has hooked me even more.
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Pokémon Builders
Dragon Quest Builders 2 is one of my favorite Switch games — I’ve been praying for a sequel ever since I finished it a few years back. While Pokopia doesn’t look like it at first, it’s a Dragon Quest Builders sequel in spirit. The same developers made both, and each features a similar hybrid of adventure and building gameplay. So my expectations were high. Pokopia met them all.
For starters, Pokopia’s story made me extremely motivated to play. The landscape starts as dark, dry and empty. Where have all the Pokémon gone? And where are all the humans? I don’t think anybody was expecting a post-apocalyptic scenario from Pokémon Pokopia, but that’s pretty much what the game delivers. And it works extremely well — you’d have to be heartless not to want to restore a safe, clean environment for Pokémon to live in.
The game’s graphics didn’t blow me away, but they absolutely did what they needed to do. (It probably didn’t help that I played Pokopia straight off the back of Monster Hunter Stories 3.) The Pokémon in this game look as colorful and friendly as ever, and the grass and flowers look pretty dotted across the landscape. Sunsets make every game look better, and it was fun to take a few minutes to enjoy how the look of my island changed across the day. Plus, this game has a selfie camera mode, and it wins a ton of points for Ditto’s goofy facial expressions alone.
But most importantly, the game nails it with an addictive gameplay loop. You’ll need to create habitats to attract Pokémon, and when new friends show up, you can copy their abilities (like growing plants and breaking rocks) to further customize the landscape to your liking. As you progress, you’ll also be able to build your way across chasms and smash through tougher roadblocks, opening up more areas and giving you more decorating space to play with. I couldn’t stop myself from coming back to open up my Switch 2 to check how my habitats and Pokémon buddies were doing. And every time I did, there were new surprises to discover.
I only have a few small complaints about Pokopia. Firstly, the gameplay sometimes feels a bit slow. Progression relies on Pokémon coming to you with hints; you can’t trigger quests yourself. I got stuck once because no one told me I was supposed to place a fountain. (Especially annoying as there already was one in the area.) There’s also a decent amount of waiting involved if you’re planting trees or constructing buildings. But it does add to the cozy atmosphere in a way — I never felt buried under the amount of quests and activities I had to complete, like in some other similar games I’ve played.
I was also crushed to discover I could only carry 20 items at once at the start of the game. Not only that, but chests operate under real-world rules — space is once again limited and each item you deposit stays in the exact chest you put it in, no infinite item wormholes here. I worry about players losing track of important items with this system. But it did force me to actually use all the items and furniture I acquired to improve my island, rather than act on my usual impulses to hoard every single item possible.
The best cozy experience on Switch 2
There are several reasons why I’m glad I upgraded to Nintendo’s more powerful hybrid console — I adored Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, which I played on my Switch 2, and I’ve also had a blast revisiting my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island with upgraded performance and enhanced graphics. But those games are dual releases, I also could’ve played on Switch; Pokopia is the first game I needed a Nintendo Switch 2 to experience.
Could Pokopia have run on Nintendo Switch? I think so, but I’m still glad it’s a Switch 2 exclusive. Dragon Quest Builders 2 mostly ran fine on the original Switch, but I experienced frame drops in crowded areas. So while it does seem feasible that Pokopia could run on the Switch’s older hardware, keeping this one as Switch 2 only for consistently solid performance was a smart move.
If you’re still not convinced you need Pokémon Pokopia, I’m not sure what else I can say. It’s the best exclusive for cozy gamers on Switch 2 right now.
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