It’s not even been a day and it’s clear fans are loving Pokémon Pokopia, with the game set to receive multiple post-launch updates.
While the next mainline Pokémon game, Pokémon Winds and Waves, isn’t out until next year, it looks like fans will be plenty happy until then playing spin-off Pokémon Pokopia.
We consider it one of the best Pokémon games ever made and, for a while at least, it was the highest rated game of the year on Metacritic, overtaking Resident Evil Requiem.
The game is now in the hands of the public and if you’ve yet to get your copy, the fan impressions so far are universally positive.
It’s still too early for anyone to have made any particularly impressive or humorous Minecraft-esque creations, but fans on a dedicated Pokémon Pokopia subreddit are already excitedly sharing screenshots of their early progress.
Some are describing the game as ‘crazy addicting,’ having quickly lost several hours to it, along with their grasp of the English language. ‘This game has a constant gameplay loop that’ll keep you hooked. It’s been 1.5 hours since the game released and it’s felt like a minute,’ says iLoveCalculus314.
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‘Fired up the game at midnight and just played for two hours straight (felt like 10 min)! I can already tell this will be my new obsession!!!,’ replies JWisdabomb, while theflyjack adds they wound up playing till 3.30 in the morning.
Over on X, SplashPlateVGC says Pokémon Pokopia is game of the year worthy for the Bulbasaur jump rope mini-game alone. You can also hear someone called TAHK0 being genuinely awestruck by their first sighting of Ho-oh, one of the legendary pokémon that can sometimes fly overhead.
One fan, Mai Pupuna, goes as far as to say Pokopia has better visuals than the mainline games do, including Winds and Waves: ‘Pokopia is exactly just as colourful and full of whimsy as I expect the mainline games to be, I’m so tired of their art direction… The cuteness and colourfulness was always the main appeal of Pokémon for me, so I’m glad to see it restored a little.’
Some fans are also suspicions that the game contains teases for Winds and Waves. VGC reports coming across a poster depicting the pokémon Lumineon swimming underwater, which resembles a shot seen in the announcement trailer.
Fans think the teases go even deeper, though, believing Pokopia is hinting at new forms that will be made available in the mainline games. Pokopia does have a handful of new pokémon forms, like the sickly looking Peakychu, but the one fans have latched onto is DJ Rotom.
Pokémon fans will know that Rotom, an electric/ghost type, can inhabit certain devices and change its type. In Pokopia, when it inhabits a stereo – which you can use for playing music CDs you find throughout the game – it becomes an electric/normal type, according to the pokédex.
This is the only one of the new forms to have a different typing, which is why fans suspect the stereo Rotom will be obtainable in Winds and Waves. ‘Of all the pokémon forms that were introduced in Pokopia, this is the one that I feel has the best likelihood of making it to the mainline games,’ says AngelaMurkrow.
Similarly, others think Pokopia is teasing a new form of water pokémon Shellos. Based on where you catch it in the mainline games, Shellos can be either blue or pink, but one of Pokopia’s diary entries mentions attempts to create a new yellow form.
Based on the reactions on Reddit, Shellos fans are keen on getting a new form, and giving it one in Winds and Waves would make sense given its set in a more oceanic region, with the trailer hinting that you can dive and explore underwater.
Whatever the case, Pokopia is going to give players plenty of reasons to keep coming back. Earlier today, it was announced that the game will receive time-limited events, starting with one that gives you the chance to encounter the pokémon Hoppip and its evolutions.
This event will be the only opportunity to befriend Hoppip (so it’s not a permanent addition to the game) and in turn obtain new materials which can be exchanged for unique picnic-themed furniture.
The event starts on March 9 and runs until March 24, with more such events promised to follow.
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