10 Pokémon Pokopia beginner’s tips to help you perfect your island

If you’re getting started in Pokémon Pokopia, you may be overwhelmed with the sheer sandbox of it all. The game is vast and there’s a ton of different things to collect, from furniture to crafting recipes to notes full of lore.

Using your Ditto abilities learned from your buddies around the island, your goal is to rebuild the various areas, while creating habitats for Pokémon that keep them happy. With so much going on, we’re here to help you make the most of your time on your seemingly deserted island. Below you can see some beginner’s tips and tricks for Pokémon Pokopia.

Always make a home base first

Whenever you get to a new area (and when you start in Withered Wastelands), make yourself a house and plunk your flag down on it. Professor Tangrowth will teach you how to do this early on, but making sure you have a personal home in each area is important, as these houses serve as fast travel locations. If you don’t have a house set up in an area, you cannot fast travel there and you’ll have to walk. Making a tiny hut will do early on, as you can change which house is yours if you want to make yourself a mega mansion down the line.

Jump into every shining spot you see

As you roam around, you’ll see shining spots in the water. These can give you a plethora of different items, including kits to make houses, seeds for crops, and even recipes for new furniture. You may hit a point where you stop going out of your way to grab these, but you always should. We got the recipe for sprinklers in one of our dives. Yes, a sprinkler — a tool super useful for keeping crops and gardens thriving. The stuff you can get from these can be really great, so don’t pass up an opportunity to get something rare.

Most habitats can be reused

No, you do not have to make a ton of two-by-two grass patches to collect all the different Pokémon. Once a Pokémon moves into a habitat, you can move them to a different one, or into a house you’ve built. After they’ve moved out of their original habitat, a new Pokémon can spawn into it, so long as multiple Pokémon do share that habitat. (There are a few habitats only used by one Pokémon.) Of course, you can make a bunch of two-by-two grass patches if you want, but you can diversify your habitats and reuse them as necessary to avoid any excess clutter.

Save those big buildings for before bedtime

While the tiny huts will only take about 15 minutes for your Pokémon to make, bigger and more substantial buildings, like the Pokémon Center will take a day. In-game, you’ll get told that the building will be ready “tomorrow,” no matter what time you start building it. Somewhat painfully, the Pokémon set to build a structure will be too busy to help you with anything else, if you need them. That being said, you should just start these buildings before you’re done playing for the day to ensure that you’re not tying up your valuable Pokémon when you may need them.

Keep your eye out for suspicious rocks

If you see these rocks on the side of a mountain or in a cave, Rock Smash through them, as there will usually be something on the other side, whether it’s a little room or a huge area. Always break the rocks.

Image: Koei Tecmo, Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

Yes, talk to all the Pokémon

The game more-or-less forces you to accept the various requests from the Pokémon to progress in the story, but there are a lot of valuable unlockables locked behind non-mandatory requests. Mechanics like swimming like a Lapras or placing water down to make your own rivers and ponds are behind some of these requests, so make sure to ask your Pokémon what’s up.

Don’t forget to turn in your requests

With the above tip, don’t forget to actually finish your requests by talking to the Pokémon that gave it after you do what they want. They’ll often have rewards for you, and it’s easy to unlock a fun new thing and then completely forget why you were there in the first place.

Stealing is OK

Given the story in the game, you’ll run into a lot of tarnished buildings that have been destroyed over time. Lucky for you, the furniture inside is pristine. While you can rebuild these houses, you can also swoop in and take the furniture inside for your own uses. Free beds, plushies, laptops, and other goodies await you as long as you’re willing to do a little crime. (I mean, not really, as these don’t really belong to anyone right now, right?)

Image: Koei Tecmo, Game Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Company via Polygon

Buy up those recipes

If your daily shop has a recipe in it (indicated by the yellow and blue hammer icon), make sure to buy it. Recipes are pretty random and hard to come by, and you don’t want to lament the fact that you missed out on buying a cosmetic that would add the perfect flair to your house.

The answer is nearly always closer than you think

As you complete requests for Pokémon, they’ll ask you to make habitats or fetch items. Take a gander around the immediate area as the solution to your problem is probably nearby. Habitats will be half-built, requiring just one item to complete, or there may be items sitting around as red Poké Balls to help you get the task at hand done. Some solutions can be further out, like if a Pokémon requests a specific item you may not have the ability to purchase or craft yet. Just keep your eyes peeled, as you never know when you’ll find something useful.