It’s the thirtieth anniversary of Pokémon this yr, and whereas there are in all probability massive RPG bulletins on the best way, the primary main recreation we all know is coming this yr is one thing slightly bit completely different. Pokémon Pokopia is an Animal Crossing-style life sim during which you assist rehabilitate a desolate city right into a habitat livable for Pokémon. It appears to be Pokémon’s play on the “cozy” style, however it might have some darkish undertones based mostly on what we’ve seen. Right here’s the whole lot we all know to this point.
The premise
Pokopia stars a Ditto who transforms right into a human, whose type it is possible for you to to customise. It’s closely implied that this human type is supposed to embody Ditto’s coach, who’s lacking as of the start of the sport.
They meet a graying Tangrowth referred to as Professor Tangrowth, with whom they resolve to assist rebuild a desecrated city right into a livable house, full with specialised habitats to draw new Pokémon residents. Alongside the best way, Ditto will study new talents that may assist it domesticate its rising city, utilizing water assaults to water vegetation and fireplace ones to cook dinner and burn objects. Ditto also can rework into different Pokémon for traversal’s sake, turning right into a Lapras to swim between areas, as an illustration, or a Dragonite to fly throughout nice distances.
As you construct your plot of land again up, Pokémon will flock to it and shortly you’ll have slightly neighborhood of critters. They’ll come to you with requests for the right way to make the city higher, and that may entice extra Pokémon to your house. The extra those who present up, the extra you’ll have to construct houses and different buildings to replenish the city, corresponding to homes, Pokémon Facilities, and different utilities.
New Pokémon
Whereas there haven’t been any new Pokémon species introduced for Pokopia, a number of returning monsters have named variants. Peakychu is a pale-white Pikachu that has an virtually ghostly aura about her. Professor Tangrowth has white vines on the highest of its head as if it’s an older grass-type Pokémon, and it additionally wears glasses and a damaged Technical Machine on its head to appear to be a human physician. Mosslax is a Snorlax that has been asleep for therefore lengthy it’s been wrapped in vegetation. And lastly, Smearguru is a Smeargle lined in plant splotches. As greatest as we will inform, these are simply named characters and are nonetheless thought of members of the identical present species. I might be shocked if any of them confirmed up within the RPGs as usable get together members, although.
Is it post-apocalyptic?
There’s a running theory that Pokopia is perhaps set in some sort of darkish, post-apocalyptic future model of the Kanto area from Pokémon Pink and Blue. Professor Tangrowth says he hasn’t seen people shortly, and some of the areas we’ve seen do appear to resemble areas from the unique video games. Additionally, every of the “new” Pokémon has some aspect to them that’s giving post-apocalypse. Mosslax has been sleeping so lengthy that nature is reclaiming it, Peakychu is both useless or dying, and Smearguru has seemingly been portray a lot that it hasn’t had a correct bathe shortly. Will the sport truly discover this, or will it simply be a haunting fact within the background of an in any other case cozy recreation? We’re undecided but.
Multiplayer
Pokopia will embrace a cooperative multiplayer mode for as much as 4 gamers, both by connecting on-line with a number of recreation house owners, or utilizing GameShare to play with a second participant who doesn’t personal the sport. When utilizing GameShare, the second participant can play on the unique Swap system, however the recreation will solely be natively playable on Swap 2.
It’s a game-key card
Sadly, Pokopia’s bodily copies will embrace a game-key card, which implies the cartridge you place in your system gained’t truly include the sport knowledge. As an alternative, it’ll simply act as a key to inform your Swap 2 to obtain the sport onto your system by means of the eShop.
However when is it popping out?
Pokémon Pokopia is coming to Swap 2 on March 5.
