I'm nearly done with Pokopia. Complete dex is about fifteen pokemon away, not counting a couple of remaining redundancies (most notably two tatsugiri forms).
I've discovered another fun detail about the game. In Rocky Ridges, it introduces a minecart system you can set up, courtesy of Rolycoly. You set up track along the ground, and at least two railway crossings, and pokemon will start to use them, spawning handcarts as they need to for movement. You can also set up handcarts manually, attach them together, and move any pokemon following you around on them.
Except for one. Carkol, the minecart pokemon? He just gets on the tracks himself.
Technically, he is actually on a handcart and just has a unique animation, but it's a cool detail nonetheless.
There's basically three roadblocks between me and 100% dex completion at this point, aside from time to spawn the remaining mons:
- I need to explore more dream islands. Four specific types of dream islands (the same four which make up a habitat for Drifblim) can each spawn a legendary pokemon, either a legendary doggo or mewtwo. The doggos in particular I need to gather, because with them I can make a Clear Bell to call Ho-oh down. I already have the Tidal Bell, but Lugia decided to blueball me today.
- I need a Cute Dresser and a Gaming Computer. There's a number of late-game furniture sets that have varying styles and components; while you can get individual pieces by trading with Gimmighoul and Gholdengo for your spare relics and feathers, the only surefire way to get them is to max out your environment level in the relevant zone (not too hard; getting sixty pokemon per zone will get you most of the way there, then just keep giving the most grumpy whatever they want, to the best of your ability, and you'll level it quick enough) and buy their recipes. Each set has an associated Pokemon that requires some combination of the set as a habitat (not necessarily all of them, mind), many of which are things like Blissey, Metagross, Absol and Goodra.
- I need to duplicate a few things. Once you
have something, you can take a photo of it in reference mode and 3d print copies. To do that, though, you need Pokemetal, a rare resource that only really becomes viable when you get to Sparkling Skylands and it's counterpart dream island. But a lot of the more important things e.g. Relics or rare lynchpin items for a lot of habitats (fucking fishing rods) need Rare Pokemetal, which is an uncommon drop from the ore nodes. fortunately I'm pretty sure I have basically all I need from farming mewtwo, but I'm still dragging my feet on it because some things can be found with luck elsewhere.
If I had one big complaint to make about the game, it's the fucking wallpaper. Not counting the ones tied to the environment level, found in the world, or are story relevant, you basically have two ways to get recipes:
- Buy up to five recipes or recipe sets (sets being things like the top, middle and bottom of a pillar) from the daily deals
- Find sparkling water puddles and dive in. High glowing ones and ones that tell you to mash A will always give you a recipe, ones that don't do either still have a small chance to.
This has nothing to do with the recipe stuff but I just know someone's gone 'hah, the minecart mon on the minecart tracks? gamefuck would never' and I want to point out that this is also seen in one of Galar's overworld encounters in the Galar Mine. There was no need for me to delay this, I'm just petty and wanted to make someone feel stupid.
Combined, a few purchases and a quick sweep in each zone will get you somewhere from five to ten common recipes per day, all new (anything you get is removed from the loot pool). Now, I will note, anything that you
strictly need for habitats you can eventually buy at least one copy in the shop and duplicate, or have some other way to get, so progression-wise all not finding a certain recipe does is delay your ability to cheaply make them en masse. However, the biggest thing that stops this from feeling good is all the
fucking wallpaper.
You use wallpaper with the loading-zone houses (The Leaf/Sand/Rock/City Cottage/House) to change how they look. Each wallpaper corresponds to a block or block set (again, top middle and bottom) and can be used on either the walls or the floor of each room to make it look like that block. It's a clear enough system for customisation... but there's just one thing.
I fucking HATE how much this dilutes the recipe loot pool. I will probably use like ten of these at most in my entire playthrough, but I've got just about sixty and that number is still increasing. I don't remember if they can appear in daily deals or just when scavenging, but when there's one thing you DO want, having an extra hundred things you don't is just a pain in the ass. I want my tatami mat block, dammit.
And to add insult to injury, tatami block is available in the world. Not a large amount, but the dojo in Sparkling Skylands has a small amount. All I'd need to do is take what's there, or a reference photo, and pay pokemetal to dupe it, and I'd be done. The problem is that recipes normally craft ten blocks at a time, but 3d printing only gets you one block per print. Thankfully, nothing needed for progression is gated behind that, but it means I have to pay a stupid amount of pokemetal or just sit and twiddle my thumbs until I finally get the thing I need just to make a shrine look good.
With that said, it's not like it's actually stopped me progressing the game in any way but aesthetically. I'd probably be a lot further along if I went to dream islands more proactively early on, but in practice it just means getting the perfect block takes a little longer. It's ultimately a very minor complaint, but it
is a complaint I felt worth making.