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 sport we all know is coming this yr is one thing just a little bit totally 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 every thing we all know to date.
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 determine 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 crops and hearth ones to prepare dinner and burn objects. Ditto may remodel into different Pokémon for traversal’s sake, turning right into a Lapras to swim between areas, as an example, 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 just a little 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 must construct houses and different buildings to refill the city, comparable to homes, Pokémon Facilities, and different utilities.
New Pokémon
Whereas there haven’t been any new Pokémon species introduced for Pokopia, just a few returning monsters have named variants. Peakychu is a pale-white Pikachu that has an nearly 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 like 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 coated in plant splotches. As greatest as we are able to inform, these are simply named characters and are nonetheless thought-about members of the identical current 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 operating principle that Pokopia is perhaps set in some type of darkish, post-apocalyptic future model of the Kanto area from Pokémon Purple and Blue. Professor Tangrowth says he hasn’t seen people shortly, and a number of the areas we’ve seen do appear to resemble areas from the unique video games. Additionally, every of the “new” Pokémon has some factor 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 really discover this, or will it simply be a haunting reality within the background of an in any other case cozy sport? We’re unsure but.
Multiplayer
Pokopia will embrace a cooperative multiplayer mode for as much as 4 gamers, both by connecting on-line with a number of sport homeowners, 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 Change system, however the sport will solely be natively playable on Change 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 received’t really include the sport information. As an alternative, it’ll simply act as a key to inform your Change 2 to obtain the sport onto your system via the eShop.
However when is it popping out?
Pokémon Pokopia is coming to Change 2 on March 5.
