📝 Not a Pokopia review…A review of my life instead

18 May, 2026

Pokémon Pokopia. I played it. I broke my no-buy challenge to buy this game…Yeah, I had a no-buy challenge that had been going on for almost seven months. It was going really, really well. Especially since I used to be a notorious game purchaser and non game finisher. I hadn’t bought any games for 7 months, and I was just waiting, looking for that one game that eventually would break the ban…and I guess Pokopia was the one I deemed worthy. So yes, I am aware that I’ve probably put a lot of pressure on Pokopia because of my long streak.

But….and I’m kinda sad to admit this….

I am not a big fan of Pokopia. On the one hand, yes, I like it; it’s charming, it’s cute. I love how it looks; I love the idea of it; I love finding new Pokémon. I understand all the high reviews, all the high praise, that everyone loves it, but for me, it actually makes me stressed. It doesn’t relax me, and I don’t know if that’s just a me problem or if that’s a game problem.

Maybe these types of games are just not for me anymore. I find I almost have to overcome an invisible hump in order to boot up the game. I end up roaming around doing nothing and everything, and when I turn off the game, I never really feel satisfied. I feel like I have an open loop somehow. This might totally be a me problem, where maybe I need to come up with a better plan every time I go to play. But then part of me thinks like I don’t play games to do massive planning projects, I play games to wind down, to be immersed in a world or in a story. I know Pokopia has a story. I just… haven’t finished the story because I keep getting distracted by everything. I am trying to just focus on moving the plot forward, but then I see something out of the corner of my eye shining or ruffling and I can’t help but be like, “Okay, let me just quickly go there” because I feel like if I don’t do it now, it will be gone and I won’t get whatever it is. I know that’s not true. It’s not like the game has told me, “Oh if you don’t get that shiny thing right now, you’re never gonna get it again, and you’ve lost out forever.” But there is a sense of fomo, and urgency, and planning and it makes me not find the game very relaxing. It starts to feel like a job for me. I’m writing things down in a notebook in order to organize my storage.

It’s a “me problem”, I know. Last night I turned it on. It was quite late again; I only play games in the evening after my son has gone to bed. I’m already tired because my son goes to bed late, which is also a “me problem”. I turned it on, and I had a plan. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to continue the story. I’m going to do the mission in the Rocky Ridges.” After playing for half an hour, I really just got so tired, I was like, “I can’t even focus anymore.” But I hadn’t done anything. All I’d done was walk around the map, picked up random resources here and there because in my brain I think I will probably need these at some later point. I turn off the game and just felt empty, dissatisfied, a bit stressed because I’m like, “Oh crap now I didn’t finish what I needed to finish and I’ve wasted another gaming evening.”

I understand the high ratings that it got but I think maybe this is just not the type of game for me. Maybe I’m being unfair to it because I was very deep into Dragon Quest. I’ve recently finished Dragon Quest XIs and started Dragon Quest V, and I don’t know. I’ve never been into JRPGs but Dragon Quest hooked me so hard, and the experience that I have with Dragon Quest, even though there are so many things about it that I’m like, “Normally I don’t like grinding for levels and backtracking and talking to every NPC.” Somehow, Dragon Quest makes it feel good and rewarding. I feel like I can open a session of Dragon Quest, play one bit, and then be like, “Okay, this is a good natural stopping point.” Maybe that’s what Pokopia doesn’t really have, a natural stopping point. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe in my 20s or pre-mom life, that was fine, but now I’m in my 40s, and I’m noticing that I need more closed loops because I’m just tired all the time. And I don’t want to work after my son’s gone to bed. I want to play.

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