Pokémon Pokopia review – collectible creatures create their own perfect world

Nintendo Switch 2; Game Freak/Omega Force/Nintendo
Work together with a bunch of lovable Pokemon to restore a long-abandoned town in this novel, absorbing game that's quite unlike others in the series

Bear with me here: Pokemon has always had an environmentalist subtext. As you wander its verdant, creature-filled worlds, collecting species like an acquisitive David Attenborough, you are constantly shown that people and Pokemon should live in harmony. The bad guys in these stories, from Team Rocket to Bill Nighy in the Detective Pikachu film, are always the ones who want to abuse these creatures for personal gain. Otherwise you are shown that people must have respect for Pokemon; both the critters you catch and the ones that exist in the wild. There is a delicate independency between humans and the natural world.

In this new spin-off from the series, we see what happens when there are no humans around. You, a shapeshifting blob of jelly called Ditto, awaken in a half-demolished wasteland that was once, presumably, a lively town. There are some other Pokemon around, confused and lonely, and together you work to restore the place and make it beautiful again. Taking the uncanny humanoid form of your half-remembered former trainer, you learn useful talents from the Pokemon around you: how to water parched grass, dig up weeds and grow flowers, punch rocks until they crumble to clear all the old paths.

Pokemon Pokopia is out 5 March; 59.99