We’re finalising our thoughts on the wonderful Pokémon Pokopia but something struck us while reviewing.

It’s clear this is the perfect game for those who love the likes of Dragon Quest Builders and even Minecraft and Terraria, while having a fixation on the world of Pokémon. But there’s something about the game’s entire presentation that also feels refreshing.

In general, the presentation in Pokémon games always feel quite clean, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise. But the way that Game Freak, Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have taken some extra steps really gives this one a new lease on life.

For instance, you can take photos in game, be it selfies of your Ditto self with other Mon, or capturing unexpected moments for the scrapbook. But whenever you next load up the game, your photo highlights are displayed on the title screen. It just gives your Pokopia a wonderful personal touch.

Then there’s the sense of humour the Pokémon have. I cannot tell you how often I giggled, laughed and smiled at these little creatures talking for the first time. Usually their expressions are reduced to grunts and groans, but now they’re getting full scripts of dialogue. And somehow they sound completely authentic to each character.

Take Magikarp. I exploded with laughter when it said I’m going to teach you my super powerful move and it was basically a hop. Also Hitmonchan who just wants to punch everything. That’s so on-brand!

But taking that further still as you do learn abilities from different Pokémon, you also get to see them emerge from different habitats. You have to craft them in order to get different Pokémon to appear in your little town, and it just is such a creative and fun way to introduce more characters to your little paradise.

All this, coupled with familiar sound effects and music, the newly rendered models which look stunning on Switch 2 and just the sense and feeling of community which often gets lost in Pokémon as it becomes about catching or fighting.

Without giving too much away for our review, this certainly feels like a soft reboot for the series. A smart and logical one that actually renews interest but potentially even grows appeal. If you can believe that.

I’ll be honest, when I first saw the game, the Ditto esque human kind of put me off a bit. I was watching trailers and just not really sure what to think or feel about this one. But the game’s polish, style, humour, and massive potential – because you feel this one could be expanded in scope quite significantly, could see this one overtake even Animal Crossing as Nintendo’s primary cozy-em-up.

This feels like there’s potential for the next big spin-off for the franchise. Possibly even the biggest ever – which would be high praise. But we need a bit more time to figure that out for sure..