I have never played “Rust,” “Minecraft,” “Roblox,” “Stardew Valley,” or any game that primarily focuses on inventory/resource management, farming, crafting, building, destruction, or waiting for things to grow. Breaking down the environment for wood or stone has never appealed to me. Planting seeds to then wait for flowers sounds more boring to do virtually than it would be in real life. I don’t have a green thumb. I don’t want to touch dirt. Digging is something I did in the original “Animal Crossing,” and that is about it for me in this emerging subgenre that has been blasted into the stratosphere of mainstream popularity.

So how does “Pokémon Pokopia” land as both the highest rated Pokémon game of all time, AND the latest new craze among cozy game fans? Well you don’t need to hear what the fuck I have to say because you are either A) playing this B) not reading this or C) refer to point A again. This thing is selling like hot cakes which further cements the need to never have the designers of any of these games ever give an iota of a shit about what people will think about them.

Thankfully, this game is good, and I enjoy it despite all of my quibbles. Qualms, if you will.

I love a good objective, good direction, clear motivation, and a leveling system. You can get people to enjoy almost anything grindy/half-assed as long as there are clear incentives behind what you’re being asked to do. Daily challenges, the lure of tiny upgrades, and to a much lesser extent a large (and I mean LARGE) open sandbox to play, explore, build, craft, and customize your little homes with decorations.

Now, I’m not one to design a game within a game because I want the creators to do that for me ahead of time. I don’t want to build the bridge, devs; I already paid YOU to do that! Why am I being asked to make this town and put up the fences and do all of the legwork? YOU made the game, YOU build the town for me to visit! But the appeal of incremental baby steps to unlock progression, rewards, and more Pokémon is undeniably strong.

The game starts off easy and slow paced, but in a relaxing way. The complexity will ramp up slowly over time, and that can be overwhelming. So many Pokémon to gather/invite to your world (over 300?!), levels, items to craft, blueprints and recipes to acquire, daily chores to check in on, challenges to beat, money to spend in stores, and more. The game has so many fishhooks laying about, with tasty bait on each hook, and you will undoubtedly stumble into each and every one of them.

But not every little treat is equally as delicious. Oftentimes, you don’t know where to go or what to do until you bash your head into it directly. A lot of time is spent waiting for Pokémon to come to your habitats — frustratingly and painfully slow too. Too many things are meant to be planted/built without the proper building blocks or items. And there sure is a lot of running around empty places, trying to remember where things are or places to dump useless junk until it’s time for that junk to stop being useless and be critically vital to your success or a main mission.

The side quests can also pile up, and are often silly collect-a-thons or fetch quests. And getting your Pokémon’s happiness up is often pointless and will only lead to them gifting you a rock (although not quite as annoying or chatty as “Animal Crossing” villagers). There are also a slew of tiny design decisions that either confused me, made me frown, or just don’t work.

But the hooks are in me. This is a fun game, and really makes me smile. I’d like to not have to rely on just daily check-ins for the drip-feed of rubber stamps and “pick up 30 sticks” objectives. I still have a ways to go, lots of new gigantic areas have been opened for me and I’m just getting started. I can see the grind getting to me, the upkeep getting too much, and the fun fading away.

But for now, this game still delights and is a different enough take for not only Pokémon but for this genre that, to me, I haven’t quite experienced before in such a way before. Is it totally streamlined? Accessible? Interesting minute to minute? Well, it’s getting there. Let’s hope it continues to expand in ways that double down on the things that work and paper over the things that don’t.

Also, real quick: Dream Islands are just for the “Minecraft” freaks, and I hate how I got suckered into going and there’s literally nothing there. And then later I go and now there are dozens of cotton spores that go to one store in a hollowed out Pokémon Center for one specific vendor. The hell is that about? Am I expected to just constantly go back to farm up these things to buy the daily new refresh of this shop? Am I expected to treat this as a forever game like a new “Animal Crossing?” I kind of just want a single player game to play without breaks, and this game keeps pushing me away. And that kind of sucks.

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Image credit: “Pokémon Pokopia”