What is bucoopia? Inside the laid-back Pokemon that gives up battles for gardening | games

pokémon is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month, and everyone knows what to expect from these games by now. The concept is simple: head to a cartoon paradise full of strange creatures, capture them in red and white balls and assemble a team of warriors from them, before battling other aspiring Pokemon masters. But the latest installment in the series is different – ​​it’s a game more about building than combat.

In Pokopia, a refreshingly peaceful twist on the series, players are dropped into a virtual world where Pokémon are freed from their spherical prisons and roam happily in their natural environments. There’s a small caveat – you have to create these habitats manually, and build them from what you can find.

Inspired by Nintendo’s all-conquering Animal Crossing, this Switch 2 game sees you rebuilding degraded habitats in order to attract new Pokémon to move into your sanctuary. (Xbox Classic Viva Piñata players rejoice.) It’s a welcome departure from the main series’ long-running training and combat loop. Veteran Pokémon developer Shigeru Ohmori, who began thinking about the concept of Pokopia while working on the 2022 Pokémon games Scarlet and Violet, says the idea for Pokopia arose after he spent many years dreaming of finding Pokémon in the tall grass.

“The first Pokemon game I worked on was… [2003’s] “Ruby and Sapphire,” Omori recalls with a smile. “My first project in this game was creating the map – and whenever you put grass on the map, Pokémon appear on the screen. That feeling of Pokémon appearing when you create the habitat, and then meeting those Pokémon, was something I really cherished. He created a basic prototype for Pokopia in his spare time, and then Pokémon Game Freak developers brought in Dragon Quest Builders 2 studio Omega Force to help.

This feeling is lovingly recreated for players in Pokopia. As you create wisps of grass, a Bulbasaur suddenly appears, walking his way towards you to say hello. There are no humans to be found anywhere in this virtual utopia. In the strange and desolate patch at the beginning where you create your own Pokemon paradise, you control the adorablely wobbly mass of everyone’s favorite jelly, Ditto. Haunted by memories of his former trainer, Ditto decides to take on a human form that you select in the character creation screen. This is your strange-looking avatar, doing its best to approximate the fading memory of a human.

After you customize your Ditto/human-hybrid, you’re greeted by a sentient shrub, Professor Tangrowth, complete with a data disk attached to his curly tendrils and a pair of glasses strapped to his chin. The Professor tells you that your mission is to reclaim this wasteland. Where to start? The same way Aomori did, all those years ago – by creating lush green grass.

In order to create new habitats, Ditto borrows movements from each new creature she meets, mimicking their abilities so she can till the land. Bulbasaur’s ability turns Dito’s appendages into flexible, leaf-producing vines. Squirtle’s water gun sees Ditto vomiting water like a Roman fountain, and bless Scyther’s Ditto’s chops with sharp, oversized blades for arms. And in a nice touch, whenever Ditto learns a new move, you’ll get to enjoy classic Pokémon music.

I wander for an hour through the wasteland, turning sand into grass and chopping down trees for lumber. It all feels effortlessly charming, with a level of care and polish that elevates Pokopia’s 60-minute opener above many of the series’ mediocre episodic offerings. Like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Pokopia also lets you visit friend islands and meet Poké friends, roam the lands as Ditto-Lapras, or take to the skies as Dragonite.

Marina Ayano, the game’s art director, told me she grew up with the series – making this a dream project. During development, Ayano and the sound director came up with two keywords to channel the game’s cute and cozy atmosphere: “chill and pop”. “The chill is slow and comforting, and the pop ensures that everything is colourful… [we wanted] “It’s a very universal appeal,” she says. “When I make friends with a Pidgey, build a straw bed for a sleeping Charmander and send a request from an amused emo Umbreon who wants a house painted black, it sure is very cute.” For Ayano, Pokopia offered a chance to let the most beautiful Pokémon shine: creatures that are typically cast aside in the main games in favor of stronger fighters.

By playing as a Pokémon instead of the game’s usual human protagonists, you can fully understand and converse with each species of Pokémon, and since the writing of Pokémon is usually very cute, the dialogue has an unexpected character to it. “Since there are no trainers in the game, we really thought about how Pokémon communicate with each other,” says Takuto Edagawa, director of Pokopia. “What are they thinking? How are they feeling? We made sure that if you put one piece of furniture anywhere in the world, a Pokémon would react based on their personalities. I really liked how it turned out.”

Pokopia is the first spin-off game Game Freak worked on directly, and Ohmori notes that it may have influenced the direction of future mainline Pokémon games. “The fights have always been the focus, but there are a lot of them [other elements] “For these games, I think fans enjoyed those components as well,” he says. “I would like to showcase this more and expand the scope of Pokémon games, outside of fighting. I would like the Pokémon franchise to look for new possibilities to grow the Pokémon world.”