When I step out of the starting cave for the first time in Pokémon Pokopia and look across the barren, dried-out grass, the withered trees, and abandoned caves, it all feels rather uncanny.
The red brick roads. The Pokémon Center wreckage with two empty plots for buildings right next to it. A blocked-off pathway to the north, east, and west. After breaking through the road to the east, I find an abandoned cycling road and a ninja outfit. This is Fuschia City, and this is Kanto; I’m not going crazy.
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I’ve seen Kanto dozens of times over the years. It’s the region The Pokémon Company gives the most attention to, and rightly so, because it was the first. If you grew up with Pokémon, whether you played Red & Blue first or you hopped in with Scarlet & Violet, you probably know Kanto, and you’ve likely been there too via one of the many rereleases.
Pokémon loves a bit of nostalgia, after all, and what’s more nostalgic than the Gen 1 region? Nostalgia is the reason the devs keep bringing back favourites with every new generation – there’s a reason people still get excited when they see Tangela or Krabby rendered in latest-gen graphics, no matter how many times it’s happened before.
I’m not immune to it, either. I almost dropped money on that Mini Game Boy music player, and I’m always hoping Arcanine, Gengar, and the Eeveelutions pop up in each new game. But it doesn’t often get me excited because it frequently feels like a crutch.
To dive into why I think nostalgia works so beautifully in Pokopia, I need to touch on the whole thing, so yes, it's about to get spoiler-y in here. So if you want to preserve your memories, or the mysteries, then don't read after the jump...
A series of moments pointing at the screen going “Oh my god, that interview is talking about the Vermillion City construction site!”, discovering the ruins of a secret Team Rocket hideout, or realising that Jigglypuff needs a stage to come out of hiding doesn’t usually set my world on fire. References like this are often set-dressing.
It’s the reason The Super Mario Bros. Movie doesn’t do it for me; it’s all empty calories, attempting to appeal to me in a sugar rush of historic callbacks that don’t add anything to the experience besides a nod to your friend or a “lore dump”.
But in Pokémon Pokopia, it works, and it’s because of the way the world is presented. This isn’t your pristine Kanto, perfectly preserved or upgraded from those Game Boy pixels. This is a once-recognisable world shattered by a cataclysm which has forced humans to evacuate to space. It’s the warmth of home, the comfort of something you loved as a child, irrevocably damaged, and it’s up to you — the Pokémon — to restore it.
I, like many other 30-something millennials, took my first Pokémon steps in Kanto. To many of us, this is a second home. This time, however, destruction has created an uncanny valley, a place where landmarks like the S.S. Anne, Mount Moon, and the Celadon City Department Store are still recognisable, but off.
“Wait, is that the S.S. Anne?” I say as I enter Bleak Beach for the first time, looking out to the ocean and seeing the wreckage of the cruise ship. I know it is, but it’s not how I remember it. It’s like I’m looking at a torn-up family photo, trying to piece it together.
As I step inside, shattered windows, dried-out vines and patches of moss stain the pristine image of the ship from my childhood. I can imprint the memory of rummaging through bins, of the captain who was suffering from seasickness, over the ruins, and bask in the nostalgia as I explore every nook and cranny of the boat, lights dimmed with sand overflowing through the cracks. But this isn’t just a sentimental look at what was – it’s what was left behind, a symbol of what has changed in Kanto, and the world, over time.
The nostalgia here is more than just a warm impact, more than a gotcha moment – it’s an emotional reconciliation of where you were then versus now. The first place I ever lived was a council house in the middle of a suburban area off a busy road. I used to walk past it on lunch breaks back when I had an office job, and I’d sometimes stop and look at it. It might seem the same from the outside, but it’s not. It probably looks different inside; the curtains are different, the people are different.
Like with the S.S. Anne, I imprint blurry memories and images over the building. Of watching my brother and his friend play the Sega Mega Drive, of falling off the sofa, of climbing into the back of a moving van. These memories make me nostalgic; they’re a part of me and my memories, filled with emotional significance that I can pass down.
Likewise, the Human Records dotted around the world are there not just to fill in the gaps of the years between the last time you played a Kanto-based game and Pokopia, but they remind us of the progress made in each of these towns and cities, and of the things humanity has left behind in the wake of destruction.
There’s a newspaper clipping from the Recycling Slogan Contest, where a child from the Trainers’ School has put together a catchy set of lyrics about refuse and waste. Career Monthly has an excerpt speaking with Nurses who work at Pokémon Centers. The Pokémon Fan Club is recruiting new members. Fishing Fanatics siblings are writing to each other excitedly about new Pocket Monsters.
This was a full, lived-in world, more than just a wistful look back at what Kanto was – this is what it was like with people in it. It makes you yearn for the past.
The Pokémon I befriended all felt similar. Poliwag only appeared once I set down a bathtub and some cleaning materials – not a natural habitat for a creature, you’d think, but they loved it. Trubbish wants me to decorate their home with shiny things. All of these creatures — stored away in a PC in the hopes that they would rebuild the world — long for the humans to return. They miss them, reminisce about them, and think about the experiences they had with other ‘mons. Now they have to recreate using only that nostalgia, those memories.
I’ve seen people attempt to recreate Kanto pixel for pixel (as best as they can) online as they rebuild the world of Pokopia. The Pewter City Museum, located in Rocky Ridges, is a simple example of where that might be possible, but when you realise that certain fossils are absent from the game, what do you do then?
And with Sparkling Skylands, where Celadon and Saffron City have been blended together and ripped apart, how on earth do you stitch that mess back together in a way that matches your memories?
You don’t. You can’t. The nostalgia you have, and the memories you’re reminded of from the wreckage, cannot be recreated one-to-one. The world that was left behind must be reshaped, perhaps to honour what came before, but ultimately, it’ll be something slightly different. Whatever you can do, it’ll work. You’ll be fuelled by that love you have for the old world, for your desire to see the humans again and to say, “Hey, it’s all going to be okay.”
And that’s exactly how the game ends. After I’d restored all the Pokémon Centers, improved the environments, and crafted and stuffed items and goods into a tower on the beach of Withered Wasteland, I didn’t know what would happen next. The last thing I stuffed into the tower was a selfie of my Ditto right next to a sleeping Squirtle, the first photo I took in the game, one of me and my first ever real Starter Pokémon (sorry Pikachu).
But then the tower reveals itself to be a rocket ship, blasting away into the distance, taking all of those items I’d put the time into collecting and crafting — pieces of this Kanto that were and will be — into space, right to the surviving humans, like a time capsule or a message to say, “We did it! We’re okay!”
I'm a complete mess as I watch the credits roll. I think about the times Pokémon has been with me throughout my life. During my parents’ divorce, my break-ups, my trans-Atlantic moves. I think about everything I’ve left behind, everything I’m nostalgic for. I miss my first home, my dogs, my dad. I miss the smell of the sea breeze, my first-ever taste of an ice cream with a Cadbury's Flake in it, the yellow teddy bear my grandad gave me, sitting on my bedroom shelf. I miss the chubby Pikachu toy whose cheeks light up when you squeeze its paw.
Every time I revisit Kanto, it isn’t the same experience. I was six years old the first time I saw it. I’m more than five times older than that now. Blue’s Kanto is different to Silver’s, as is LeafGreen’s to Let’s Go!’s. I bring something different to that world every single time I come back, and while the nostalgia and memories are attached to me, those ultimately get affected, too.
With Pokopia, I’m using a blend of nostalgia and imagination to create something out of not much. I can’t have most of what I grew up with again, just like the humans in space can’t have everything they once had in Kanto anymore. But a capsule of goods and items is a good starting point, a small snippet of the home they once had and will have again, but in a different way.
All we can do is leave things behind for the next generation to work with, to make it better. Their nostalgia for those childhood memories, for the things they love, will help reshape the world.
Are you enjoying the nostalgic, bittersweet, cute world of Pokémon Pokopia? Let us know in the comments.