Picket Pokopia
I'm doing a lot of this blog stuff by hand, but it's SO NICE to have an outlet for just rambling like this!
It might be my declining health, but I've been pretty exhausted lately. I go to bed relatively early (just before 10pm EST most nights) and wake up around 7-8am EST, but I keep waking up extremely tired. The worst part is, that usually stays through the day, no matter what I try to do to stop it-- walking, exercising, eating protein, nothing really seems to work for me. It sucks, but I'm hoping I can find a solution soon because I hate feeling like I'm missing days of free time because I'm so tired.
In significantly better news, I finished a little game called Pokopia this morning!
With all the stuff happening to my health, sending me to the emergency room and whatnot last month, I've been indulging in Pokemon again. That usually seems to be the case when I get incredibly stressed or depressed; I either watch Pokemon movies, or play Pokemon games. Well, I had been watching some shiny hunting streams in the background while working on other stuff since I got power back after the blizzard in February, so I thought it'd be a good time to make use of a Switch 2 my brother bought me, and got Legends Z-A. And although that's been a really fun experience, I was itching for the other game that had just come out, especially since it looked like it'd help relax me a LOT; Pokopia.
I won't go and spoil the game itself until further down where I'll put a spoiler warning, but to put it simply; I rolled credits this morning and they made me cry.
I went into Pokopia expecting a fun little building game with Pokemon that would cheer your efforts on as you completed their requests, and while that isn't far from the truth, I got WAY more than just that. I got a game full of love and hope. Gripes with Nintendo aside (good lord, I could go on for hours), the game really does feel heartfelt. Having a Pokemon seek me out specifically to say thanks for hanging out and handing me a bag of tomatoes? Genuinely healing experience for me.
The whole premise likely isn't a spoiler by now-- the protagonist Ditto wakes up in a post-apocalyptic Kanto region with little to no information on where the humans all went, but you're intent on fixing the environment to help Pokemon return to the wild. No catching or battling, it's just you, your neighbors, your vegetable garden you grew for Drilbur, and maybe Mewtwo or something.
Spoilers from here on out!
Now, seeing all that come full-circle with the 'Team Initiation Project' that was set up by a Team Rocket grunt resulting in a rocket with supplies and fuel sent into outer space where humans fled from the calamity and thus igniting hope in the return of humans someday? The persistance of the little Pokemon running around and placing blocks with each other really got to me on a surprisingly emotional level. There's so much love and hope between them all; even when one of your residents has a problem or issue, it can be solved in a variety of ways. As a chronic people-pleaser myself, this appeals to a very specific part of me that just really, really wants to see people around me happy through my actions. Is it healthy? Probably not, but it really did feel like it helped when I feel like I couldn't do anything, not even for myself.
Obviously I don't write to recommend or even to go into depth in my experience; I'll definitely come back and edit this if I do want to go into detail, but I just wanted to get my thoughts on this out, plain and simple! Chances are if you're reading this that you've heard of Pokopia in some way or another. It's a weird game to recommend because it's nothing like previous Pokemon games, but it also uses such deep cuts to the Pokemon franchise that I can see it being alienating to those outside the know. But I'd personally say to pick it up if you just want something feel-good and fun, to watch your world grow as you progress.
It's pretty tough to not feel hopeless these days, and I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle more often than not. But I do think Pokopia healed something in me that desperately needed to be addressed. And I say that like I won't be putting another hundred hours into the game!
Signing out!