When analyzing the batch of high-profile games released during the first half of 2026, Pokémon Pokopia surprised everyone by becoming, arguably, the most successful release for the Switch 2 thus far, even though Game Freak had done a truly awful job promoting it prior to release. It looked like a mere Pokémon environment builder, which is not exactly far from the truth, but there was also a lot more to be shown. It was, by and large, a mixture between Pokémon, Animal Crossing, and most importantly, Dragon Quest Builders, given how it was even developed by the same people behind that hit subseries.

People bought it, loved it, laughed at the truly bizarre dialogue (which is, indeed, so terrible it’s almost charming), posted pictures of their creations on social media. So is Pokopia as good as social media made it out to be? I mean, yes, it is a great game, but it’s nothing I hadn’t seen or played in the past. The Dragon Quest Builders shadow constantly looms over it.

I like that Pokopia gives you a big map outside of the main storyline, just for you to fool around… but it’s still filled with secrets to unveil.

Pokopia starts off slowly, but with a very interesting prologue and premise. You play as a Ditto who morphs into the (customizable) look of its previous trainer, who had seemingly disappeared without a trace. Furthermore, every other human on Kanto has seemingly vanished. The only other living creature you meet up right away is a wise Tangrowth, who explains the state of the world, the crappy issues related to climate and natural disasters, and that we should try to fix our vicinities by creating habitats, cleaning up the mess, and reverting the natural issues in the enclosed area you’re exploring.

Once you fix this first area, you can then explore newer environments, each one with a specific set of pokémon you’ll meet, a specific natural disaster affecting it, and an objective to complete. If you’re played Dragon Quest Builders, you’re in familiar territory. Same premise as before. The canonical areas are meant for you to follow a plot, recruit plot-centric buddies, learn new moves, acquire new recipes, and then use everything you’ve learned thus far to come up with some truly unnecessary megaprojects in the sandbox island the game incentivizes you to visit and turn into your main base of operations.

I have a feeling that this Ditto will become a fighter in the next Smash game.

Despite featuring some hilarious woeful dialogue, Pokopia‘s story is actually quite good. It is a post-apocalyptic Kanto, so finding out what led to the disappearance of humans, and how their absence affects the pokémon you befriend, was actually quite touching. Furthermore, I was impressed at how each and every one of the monsters included in the game, more than three hundred of them, all featured specific personalities, tastes, and micro sidequests for you to partake in. Finding out the kind of habitat that would spawn them was, without a doubt, the most addictive aspect of Pokémon Pokopia as a whole.

The act of building stuff, be it items of square-shaped houses, felt identical to Dragon Quest Builders, and that’s some high praise. I also liked that the game gave you the choice of not bothering building houses for pokémon if you’re not the creative type. You CAN comission the construction of houses and other buildings, as long as you have enough resources and pokémon to partake in your underpaid job. The issue, however, is that every single construction project, be it a house, a source of electricity, or a mandatory plot-progressing structure, takes time to be completed. How much time, you might be wondering? It can range from a few real-life minutes, to a whole DAY.

It’s confirmed: Leech Life is all about sucking your opponent’s blood… even if it’s Magnemite.

Yes, an entire day might be necessary for a Pokémon Center to be fixed, or for a bigger house to be built. If you want a pokémon to convert some raw resources into processed ones, you might have to wait a while as well. Everything in Pokopia requires an insurmountable amount of waiting time and patience. It actually made me wonder if this was just something inherited from Animal Crossing, in order to ensure that you would log into the game every single day, or if Pokopia started off as a free-to-play game during the earlier days of its development; that is the kind of crap that screams “by the way, you can spend some premium currency to speed these processes up”. Thankfully, there are no microtransactions to speak of, just some well-deserved DLC.

As for the presentation… well, Pokopia is the kind of game that was clearly developed for the original Switch, and was just pushed to its successor in order for it to receive one or two new exclusives. This is NOT the kind of game that pushes any kind of hardware, looking identical to the previous generation Dragon Quest Builders games. And I do mean, absolutely identical. Then again, it does run at a rock-solid 60fps, something both Dragon Quest Builders games struggled with on Switch and Playstation 4, and the pokémon models look excellent. It’s the best they have ever looked, especially when you compare them to their atrocious Scarlet / Violet counterparts.

I see nothing wrong here.

There’s one thing from Pokopia‘s presentation which disappointed me, however, and that’s its soundtrack. The weird thing about it is that it is mostly comprised of iconic compositions from the first few Pokémon generations. So what makes them bad? It’s their rearrangements. Almost every single tune has been excessively rearranged to an overly slow, excessively “chill” rendition that makes them disappear on the background. I can’t say they are bad songs, but they are not good versions. They became so irrelevant on the background, I started playing Pokopia on mute, or whilst listening to a podcast.

Build to your heart’s content… and after you’re done with this game, go play Dragon Quest Builders.

Pokémon Pokopia is a lot better than I could have imagined from its horrendous reveal trailer, and it consumed my free time over the past few days and weeks. It’s one of the most content-filled and charming Pokémon games to date, with a great plot and addictive gameplay loop. Now, do I think it is THE absolute killer app available on the Switch 2? Far from it. It is still, at the end of the day, a slightly stripped down version of a superior game made by the same development team. It pales in comparison to the insanity that is the Dragon Quest Builders series. That being said, it is still worth your time, and one of the most interesting games the Pokémon Company has dropped in recent memory. They just needed to have someone else not called Game Freak develop it.

Pokémon Pokopia is available now on Switch 2.

Reviewed on Switch 2.