Pokopia: Underwater in Bubbly Basin

I thought I might have a chance to finish up my Cloud Island Pokedex before the expansion added another fifty Pokemon to the list, but in the end I did not. Partially because I’m just kinda not wanting to have to make houses for more and more Pokemon, partly because EverQuest Legends has been taking most of my gaming time. Because I gotta get on the TempusGameit top ten list, and TGI doesn’t track Switch games.

I had a couple of things I really wanted to know from the new expansion. First was, I was hoping to learn if we had any new news of the humans returning to the planet. So far, no. We have gotten a lot more stuff from people who were skeptical of the coming apocalypse (and then, suddenly, very alarmed), but that’s nothing we hadn’t already learned.

The second thing I wanted to know is if this would make it harder to complete the Pokedex. And the answer to that is also: no. The new city has its own Pokedex with fifty Pokemon to collect.

The city (Cerulean City) was flooded when the Cerulean Cave collapsed, destroying the East Asian-themed lower city and leaving more western homes and cafes behind it. Then this flooded, probably because of the global catastrophe, and now only the tops of certain buildings and homes built on high peaks are still above the waves.

But no fear, Ditto has learned the Dive command, that lets you swim freely underwater without draining stamina. You get a bubble around your head if you’re in human form, around your entire body in Magnetite form. I haven’t tried Golem form yet; I expect an even bigger bubble.

The thin plot has you rebuilding Cerulean City from the ruin it’s become; each new chapter in the rebuilding take new Pokemon that you’ll be encountering, most of whom want you to perform a small quest before they’ll help you. The first task was to build a Sharkpedo submarine, which is a nice house for two Pokemon. Catch a Pokemon sleeping in its mouth for a special memory.

Second is to rebuild the Pokemon Center. I believe rebuilding the Clock Tower is in there somewhere as well; I’ve got the plans but haven’t set any Pokemon to working on that, yet.

After that, I suppose it’s just working toward the end, which is, looking at the habitat dex, finding the eight or so special treasures hidden around and putting them in a special display that will summon the final Pokemon. Probably Starmie.

I haven’t seen any signs of legendary Pokemon, yet. I’d expect Kyogre to at least come by to check things out.

There are some dry areas — the Pokemon Center is in one such. I’d tried an experiment where I sealed off a house and then tried inhaling all the water to make my own dry spaces, but no such luck.

Kasul had asked if they had plants under water. They do! Except instead of watering them, you have to bring along a Pokemon who can cover them with air, which is weird. The new fruit is (of course) watermelon, and at least one found document goes over some watermelon recipes to try. We’ll probably want a water Pokemon to help with the cooking to see if we discover anything new.

There’s a few new resources. The most prominent one are shiny pearls. You can collect grubby pearls from all over; Shelldir and Cloyster can shine those up for you. Most of the underwater-themed buildings and furniture require a bunch of these. There’s a huge building project that’s also awaiting completion; forgot to talk about that earlier. It’s a temple of some sort. If there’s going to be a new legendary Pokemon, it’s going to spawn there. If it’s Kyogre, and I can add him to my party, bonus 🙂

The ruins of Cerulean City are remarkably intact. I was able to make several habitable just by using beach sand I’d had from clearing out the place and adding a door.

There is a new Dream Island, based off a Starmie doll. I haven’t been to it yet, but I fully expect it to be chock full of the sorts of things you’re going to need in order to lure the expansion ‘mons to your Cloud Island. It’ll be fun to see what buildings they have there. I’ve made lots of buildings entirely from parts I get from Dream Islands. Since there are so many nearly intact buildings in Bubbly Basin, I probably won’t have to do that quite so much. Still might be fun — probably will save that for the Cloud Island. I’m assuming I will be able to buy a Starmie doll there.

So, just a couple hours in, I’d say it’s more of the same. I’d found myself continuing to log into Pokopia even after I completed the Pokedex, so I was very much the target market. That said, I’m not really feeling any urgency toward making the town look super pretty; that effort is for my Cloud Island. But I will get it to environment level 10 to ensure I get all the cool blueprints for the new stuff. And then I’ll probably be done with it.

Everyone expects the next big update to be holiday themed, so that might be fun 🙂