Guys, I’ve been playing the new Pokémon Pokopia DLC, Bubbly Basin, and I’m not sure I can keep playing even though it’s very fun and the new underwater area is gorgeous. Bubbly Basin is making me way too sad. Somehow, even after bawling my eyes out at the base game’s ending a few months ago, I still have the capacity to be wrecked by this game.
I want to tell you about it, but I’m going to talk spoilers for basically the whole story. You’ve been warned.
If you’ve played enough of Pokopia, you’ve likely caught onto the fact that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Kanto region in a world humanity has abandoned, escaping into space to avoid a climate disaster. Their beloved Pokémon have been left behind, stored in the PC to await the return of human beings when things settled down, but it becomes clear as you explore that something has gone wrong and humans did not come back when they were supposed to. In fact, based on the circumstances around Ditto’s appearance in the world, it’s possible they may never return.
This lends a lot of melancholy to the world of Pokopia, as you explore the ruins of locations that may be familiar from the original games and read notes suggesting what may have happened to the people who you remember from those games. Most of those notes are pretty lighthearted, but there’s an air of sorrow over everything knowing that beloved characters will never come back and may, in fact, already be dead. That feeling is present in every game area, but I don’t think it’s as overt anywhere else as it is in Bubbly Basin.
Bubbly Basin, more than any other area, contains a bunch of very specific locations tied to beloved main characters that serve to remind you of their sad fate. The most obvious and easy one to find is Misty’s gym, which is located just off the town square in a cavern. It’s easily recognizable by the Pokémon statues out front. Inside, there’s a lot of sand that’s covered up the structure, but if you clear it away you can see the telltale swimming pools. A room behind the gym contains several Mermaid furniture items, referencing Misty’s title as the “tomboyish mermaid.” The whole thing is a really stark reminder that Misty—you know, the cute but fierce water-type Gym leader we love from the first season of the anime—is either dead or so far away in space she’ll never come back to Kanto (or see her beloved Starmie, who still seems to be waiting for her, again).
Northeast of town is a little house containing a computer setup and a portal pod, one of the new expansion items that lets you access your storage from any other portal pod anywhere. Based on the location of the building and its contents, it’s pretty easy to put together that this is Bill’s house. Bill is an inventor, who created the original Pokémon PC storage system and who accidentally turns himself into a Pokémon just before you first meet him. It’s pretty easy to infer that he also created the portal pod system just before disappearing into space, but he’s gone now, too, and will never get to see how useful that system was for you in rebuilding the world.
There are a few other places in Bubbly Basin that made me just…really sad. There’s a huge Japanese-style tower and bridge that’s sunk deep into the ocean, but which doesn’t seem to have any explanation as to what it was for or why it was built. Ditto will never know, and neither will I. Nugget Bridge, which used to have a gauntlet of trainers waiting to battle you, has sunk down as well. There are notes that talk about humanity wanting to build a Dewgong clocktower in the middle of the city, but they never manage it. You, as Ditto, succeed in getting it built, but the people who conceived it won’t ever get to see its completion. And through all this, as the player, you know that Ditto doesn’t realize humanity isn’t coming back, because Ditto can’t read any of the information they’re finding. You, the player, can, and know it’s hopeless when they don’t.
And then there’s this room, hidden beneath a trap door near a ruined house. I mean…you can guess who this belonged to.
God, Pokopia is genuinely just such a sad game despite its colorful and cheery exterior and cozy gameplay. There’s an incredible reading of Pokopia that’s all about grief and hope and moving forward, as well as some pretty grim commentary on climate change and the world we leave behind. And it’s all packed in behind that goofy little Ditto smile. Bubbly Basin is the saddest area in the game so far, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle whatever the final area of the expansion pass will be. Lavender Town? Cinnebar? Indigo Plateau? Don’t do this to me.
