Name: Pokémon Pokopia Might Finally Be the Life Sim Pokémon Fans Have Waited For | IGN Preview
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T06:26:11.000Z
Duration: 9 min 30 s
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Adverbs of manner

I'm sure, many others, the Pokemon franchise as a whole has always been cozy, set in a mostly idyllic world with cute best friends who are always by your side.

How could it not give you warm, fuzzy feelings, at least occasionally?

We've had some relaxing Pokemon games over the years, but

We've never quite had a game that embraced this secondary, cozy aesthetic fully into its gameplay until now.

With Pokemon Popia, I played the first hour of Pokemon's first life sim, and

The sheer amount of discovery to be made hooked me.

I also played Pokemon Popia in multiplayer mode in a more developed world.

Plus I learned more straight from the developers.

Pokemon Popopia begins with a Ditto waking up after a long, undefined slumber.

It remembers its trainer in its hometown, with the nameless narrator commenting, you look so happy with your trainer petting you.

Ditto's trainer is nowhere to be found, and that's Ditto's you, the protagonist's motivator.

In a bid to try and find its trainer, Ditto transforms into a human that looks like its trainer.

The best they can enter the character creator, in which you get to choose between seven hairstyles, 28 hair colors, hats, clothes and bags.

Like Shigeru Ohmori, the primary director of Pokemon games since 2014 and Pokemon Pocopoeia's concept and senior director director, explained the thought behind making a Pokemon the main character and why it transforms into a human.

I wanted to create something where you can directly communicate with Pokemon, ohmori said.

Ohmori worried that if they had a trainer as the playable character, as in the other mainline titles, it becomes the trainer giving orders to Pokemon, which they wanted to avoid.

By keeping it all Pokemon, an atmosphere of friendship and teamwork is created.

There are two reasons Omori decided to make specifically Ditto the main character, one to benefit the gameplay and another to benefit the story.

Because Ditto can transform into other Pokemon and use their moves, it was the best option.

Of course Mew wouldn't have those adorable simple eyes and slack mouth, as Professor Tangreth puts it.

The other reason feeds the narrative motivations of Pokemon.

No one else knows what Ditto's trainer looks like, so Ditto transforming into the trainer it misses is essentially asking the other Pokemon, who do you know this human being again, so cute, so melancholic, and

The tutorial, fortunately, is nicely integrated into what would be the regular flow of gameplay and lets you start doing stuff outside of its confines very quickly.

After meeting Professor Tangrowth, I found the Pokedex and then found my first, then second, then third Pokemon friend, expanding my abilities and how I could affect the world with each one, further enhancing my ability to create a wider variety of habitats to attract a wider variety of Pokemon.

Bulbasaur taught me the move Leafage, allowing me to create tall grass at will.

Squirtle taught me the move Water Gun so I could revitalize the dry ground and grass in the aptly named Withered Wasteland, the environment you start in.

Instead taught me that you can ask Pokemon to follow you somewhere so they can perform an action based on their specialty.

In Charmander's case, they lit a fire for me.

As for other specialty examples, Timber's build helps you build structures, and Bulbasaur's Crow makes plants grow faster.

Of course, to find more Pokemon, you need to make a variety of habitats.

The most basic habitat is four squares of tall grass, easily made by leafage.

You can also move objects around with Ditto's ability to store and then spit up materials like a punching bag.

Holding the collect button down actually makes Ditto continuously suck up anything around it, causing its face to hilariously and disturbingly resemble the screen painting.

Other habitats include ones like the self described boulder shaded tall grass which attracts fighting type Pokemon like Timbur and Machop, and

Hydrated flowerbed made of four flower beds placed beside, you guessed it, water.

After a bit of time passes, a square in your new habitat may shake, indicating there's a Pokemon there to meet.

Like the Pokedex for tracking Pokemon, there's a habitat Dex for tracking habitats, and

Though I loved just experimenting, it isn't all completely guesswork.

Occasionally you'll find a sparkle on the ground that's a trace of Pokemon, which gives you a hidden hint about a yet to be found Pokemon's preferred habitat you haven't discovered yet.

This cycle of attracting new Pokemon, learning new skills or discovering new specialties from them, then making more new habitats to attract even more new Pokemon is the corest of core loops in Pokemon Fukopia and is already incredibly engaging and fun without even considering the crafting and world customization you can do.

When thinking about the development of the game, the team started thinking about the cycles of the user's motivation, said Takada Edegawa of Koei Tecmo Games Pokemon Popcopia Chief Director what the user wants to do, what they would want to start to do within the cycle.

So for example, filling up the Pokedex or creating more habitats, then that would create meeting more Pokemon every single step in the game.

The core of it is to be with the Pokemon, communicating with Pokemon.

So wherever you go, there is always Pokemon.

That is the largest difference compared to other life sim games.

This core cycle that focuses on the Pokemon first and foremost is ingrained into the main objectives that propel the story as well.

Just after meeting the Kanto starters, you discover a decrepit Pokemon center nearby.

The PC there automatically launches the Poke Life Environment Improvement app, which dishes out both important tasks tied to progression, like increasing an area's environment level or rebuilding the Pokemon center, and

Smaller daily objectives like collecting a certain number of sturdy sticks.

The stick collecting is self explanatory, but

To increase the environment level of the area, you must attract more Pokemon and improve their comfort levels.

Again, another touch point with Pokemon placing furniture a Pokemon wants within the bounds of its habitat, which you can see by pressing in on the R stick will increase its comfort level.

Bulbasaur, for example, specifically asked for a bed, so I crafted a straw bed from leaves for them.

The Pokelife app rewarded me for my efforts with new unlocks and life coins.

These can be used to buy a variety of things at the PC, like furniture seeds, Pokemon hints, building recipes, and

After increasing the environment level, Professor Tangrowth had more for me too.

There seems to be a lot more to Procopia than everything I already talked about.

I haven't even touched on building buildings or what looks to be a huge number of collectibles like human records, which included things like a diary that gave a glimpse of what Professor Tangra's life was like with their human, and

A document on Pokemon greetings that taught me an emote.

The four player multiplayer session gave me a look at a developed world where Pokemon's habitats were developed so thoroughly they lived inside houses.

The inside of the houses had furniture and decorations like plushies, and

The little town was manicured with sidewalks, fences, lampposts and even a stage.

My time with multiplayer was short and I'm restricted from what exactly I can reveal, so I can't say much more about it.

I can see friends ushering each other to stay on task because it is just so easy to get distracted in Pokemon Popia.

And that sounds like the best kind of hectic.

Edegawa said that on average, depending on how you play Pokemon Popia, it will take between 20 and 40 hours to reach the end credits.

But that's not really the main motivation to play Pokemon Popia.

It's to make a world to live with Pokemon.

As for the post game, there's more things to experience after the end credits.

I believe that players are encouraged to and will be motivated to continue to play the game, edogawa said.

There will also be motivation for players to log in intermittently.

Pokemon Pocopia producer Kanako Murata of the Pokemon company when you play day by day, there may be something that on a specific day, something special that might happen in the game.

Considering how many hours some friends of mine have put into Animal New Horizons, I think they're right, especially for those whose motivations are to create a unique place to live with Pokemon.

For me, I hope Ditto and the crew learn what happened to create this apocalyptic, empty world.

But regardless, I'm excited to restore it with my best Pokemon friends.

For more Pokemon coverage, don't miss your first look at Pokepark Kanto, and

For everything else in the world of video games, stick with Ignition.