Pokopia

[Soap]

Making a thread to Pokopia posting.

This is a house I made for Gurdurr the other day, mostly from random shit I had in my inventory (except the girders, which I jacked from a platform in the beach zone). It's the first custom house I built in this... more to come, probably.

 

[Soap]

Warning: This post contains SPOILERS for post-game building features. Everything I say is from a postgame perspective.

This is a review from the perspective of a Dragon Quest Builders 2 mega fan (1000+ hours), who finds Animal Crossing tolerable to decent for the most part. I've got like...60-70 actual hours of Pokopia gameplay by now, so these impressions are pretty finalized. I will be focusing on this game as it compares to DQB2.

TL;DR
DQB2's core gameplay, with a Pokémon skin, and some of Animal Crossing's real-time/RNG gacha nonsense. AC's influence makes Pokopia step on its own toes, but not hard enough to keep the game from greatness. Buy this game if none of the stuff in the "Bad Stuff" section sounds like a deal-breaker.

Pokopia seems better for smaller builds. DQB2 is probably still better for huge builds. Both are a damn good time.

Good stuff

• Block and decoration selection is really good. It has most of what DQB2 has, and then some, aside from some obvious missing stuff (like snow blocks) that make it look like DLC is on the way. Modern selection in particular is far better than DQB2.
• The dye situation has improved - there are just eight dye colors, but you can mix some dye colors to make 18 total colors. Some items can be painted with patterns as well.
• You can duplicate almost any item for a small fee by taking a picture of it and scanning it at the Pokémon Center.
• The postgame Magnet Rise power is basically a weird mixture of DQB2's transform-o-trowel, ultimallet, and gloves, with flight added. It's really good, but also easy to fumble the controls since it can do so much.
• Rollout lets you get around on the ground *very* quickly. It's fun to use. Between Rollout and Magnet Rise, movement is generally way better than in DQB2.
• Stamina and hunger have been combined into the PP meter, and the latter is far more generous than either of the formers. Practically infinite with how plentiful food is and how long it takes to deplete. No more tiring out after running for like 10 seconds!
• The prefab structures that take real time to build are almost entirely optional. Regular houses you make from blocks on your own work just as well.
  • PRO TIP: Construction can be sped up if you put Tinkmaster on the building squad. This includes stuff that takes until "tomorrow" - it's reduced to 1 hour IIRC.
• All real-time waiting issues can be solved by time traveling, if you're willing to do so. I haven't felt the need to bother yet.

Mixed/subjective stuff

• There are mouse controls. The functionality is very good - it's pretty close to how DQB2's buildnoculars work, but with a shorter range (like 5-6 blocks). You can switch between regular joycon controls and mouse controls quickly. But the Switch 2's mouse mode is very uncomfortable to me. Maybe you'll like it.
• The sun sets pretty early - around 6 or 7 PM. If your playtime is mostly after work in the evening, but you want to see daylight in game, consider changing your system clock.
• Many unlockables are tied to the environmental level of the different regions, and can take a while to get to. This does give you concrete goals to work toward, but can feel a little tedious if you're not itching to build for building's sake.
  • HINT: Giving your Pokémon their favorite food seems to help raise level pretty quickly.
• Tons of busted up buildings and infrastructure to renovate if you're into that (I am).
• Habitats behave like "sets" or "rooms" from DQB2. They're much simpler to make. But they're more rigid, and also don't work as well as a starting point for building ideas, if you liked to go through the room list to decide what to build in DQB2.
• Music is basically Animal Crossing-style mixes of Pokémon songs. Generally inoffensive, but it does get repetitive sometimes. You will hear the Pokémon Center healing jingle in your sleep after you play this game.
• Rollout can break a ton of blocks in a hurry if you eat rock smash food before using it, but it's hard to control if you're looking for precision demolition.
• There are "dream islands" that act the same as the grinding islands in DQB2 that you can use to farm for materials. It's easy to rack up a ton of basic materials this way. You can only visit one per day though. You *can* revisit the same one as much as you want during the day, at least. It remembers the state between visits.
• Inventory is more limited. You have 4 pages of 30 items, instead of 7 pages of... however many DQB2 let you have.
  • I had this under "bad stuff" at first, but it might be reducing the total amount of inventory management. I appreciate having less to dig through when I want to see if I have something.

Bad stuff

• No buildnoculars for regular controller users
• Controls are wonky no matter what you do. The main thing is that everything is based on camera direction, so it's really easy to accidentally place/break stuff incorrectly if your camera is facing in a direction you find pleasing rather than the direction the game needs it to.
• If you're using controller controls, building is all-around a bit slower than in DQB2. Ditto takes longer to barf up a block than the Builder takes to slam one down.
• Many unlockables are tied to RNG, either via the daily item shop or via glowing spots in shallow water that show up randomly. It could be a long time before you get some pieces, even though you've been seeing those pieces in-game since the early game.
• There's no way to unlock infinite amounts of basic materials (wood, iron ore, etc.) like in DQB2.
  • Grinding materials is easy with the dream islands, at least.
• When crafting, only containers adjacent to your crafting table are drawn from, instead of all containers in the region. So in practice, you'll probably have a page or so of your inventory dedicated to materials, for convenience when using crafting tables besides your "main" ones.
  • Tables are 2x1x1, and you can make 60-slot containers that are the same size, so you can fit quite a few beside your table.
• Item stacks are only 99 instead of 999.
  • I bet Nintendo tried to limit them to 30 during development, the jerks!
• There's no large-scale destruction solutions like DQB2's golems or bombs, if you're looking to flatten mountains. Rollout's the best you have, but it only destroys 2 height worth of stuff. So make sure to destroy top to bottom.
• There's no ice/snow environment (though there are ice blocks). In fact, there is *so little* "Winter" stuff that I expect DLC in the future.
• Ditto can't swim. Neither can Magnemite. So don't expect to do any substantial underwater construction.
  • Maybe Dive will be a DLC ability someday. They put Waterfall in the game already and it's barely used.
• No custom blueprints. So you can't employ your Pokémon to clone things you've built.
• No chisel. Want slanted blocks? Roofs are about all you're getting!

Unknown stuff

• Haven't done any online stuff yet. Can't speak to the quality of the Cloud Island experience.
• I don't know what the limits are on stuff like how many usable item containers you can have, habitat count, etc.

 

[total body workout]

This game is good as hell and also a testament to the fact that I need to get off my butt and beat DQB2 already. The concept and story is fun and the player character is cute and makes for a neat gimmick, I like how creative the Ditto approximations of human styles are, but this game certainly motivates and equips you to do all sorts of weird building projects in the postgame. Honestly, I think it's a well fleshed out game, but it was surprising to me that less than half of Kanto was represented. I will pay them money for a "D.L.C." if they release one, they certainly seemed to be dropping breadcrumbs for it, but I did feel the lack of biome/environment variation in the base game. Also I haven't tried the online at all, but it seems like it could be fun.

 

[Soap]

I figure one of us is gonna start a Cloud Island and share the address for some group building sooner or later. Stay tooned.

I've been working on a home base in Palette Town to keep all my items. Basically like the "clown tent" I had in DQB2 for those who remember that. Some pics of the work in progress. I'm really happy with it. It's somewhat inspired by Tinkmaster's work in the sky zone, which was some of my favorite stuff aesthetically in the whole game. Basically just been winging it from the start - a real Turbo Quest approach to building.

 

[total body workout]

I really dig it. Very Splatooncore, yet also quite pragmatic.