Pokémon Pokopia is an expansive adventure disguised as a cozy life sim
Nintendo has a history of fleshing out the larger Pokémon world through spinoffs. What games from the Pokémon Snap and Detective Pikachu series lacked in terms of action, they made up for in the way they made pokémon feel like creatures with rich lives outside of their relationships with trainers. And as the mainline series has evolved over the years, games like Legends: Z-A have begun putting more emphasis on the idea that pokémon might be better off if humans kept their distance.
Pokémon spinoffs have also tended to be relatively boxed-in, both in terms of how much space there is for you to play in and the way their stories are so self-co …