Pokemon Pokopia

2026-05-19
“There was so much to do. Too much. It was consuming me. Eventually I had to end it on my own terms. Spaghetti arms flapping in the wind, I said goodbye.”
—
Maybe it’s because I played it last but I’m sitting here comparing Pokopia to Baroque. Here it is all about seeing the lines of our forebears in their roads and toppled buildings. No one tells me to rebuild but I do. I see the line, I see the foundations of greatness, and I am drawn to focus my energy on reviving them from the earth. A waterfall here, an aqueduct there, a humble bridge there.

Baroque causes waves of ardent, fevered-eyed followers to draw conclusions where there are none. A mad corkboard of connections that only make sense if you believe in the paltry breadcrumbs left behind by the authors.

Pokopia is simpler. It uses its writing to carve out little vignettes of goofy and endearing Pokemon. No lofty philosophy, no deranged relationships. Just a gaggle of well-meaning simpletons making a life for themselves. It's up to you to decide—to decide—to engage and fill in the gaps to rebuild a museum or construct the Taj Mahal. Or to just haggle green beans for a luxurious hardwood dresser that might make a Ninetales have a little heart plop above their head.

Give me simplicity and room to believe and cast my own image upon the land. I don't want to scrabble together some vaguely coherent narrative from a comment here and there. I want to help a band of weirdos be happy however I see fit.

I can't call Baroque believers crazy when I've just penned paragraphs comparing a sparse Saturn dungeon crawler to a spinoff of a spinoff of Minecraft, breathed into a winnowed pale Pikachu backed by the full unholy might of Nintendo. But I'll be goddamned if I didn't enjoy it with the power of a space shuttle's thrusters, crafted untold years ago around the hopes and dreams of a creepy, gurning, adorable Ditto. And nested in the shuttle's cabin: a selfie I took with Slowpoke that had more heart in it than anything else I'll play this year.

That’s Pokopia baby.