It has been a wonderful year for Switch 2 owners so far, and for me that was really kick-started by Pokémon Pokopia. Combining cosy crafting with one of the most beloved franchises of all time was a match made in heaven, and getting to play as a Ditto to do it all was such a clever idea. I spent hours building blocky homes for all the best pocket monsters, and was so excited to see which of my favourites made the cut. With so many hundreds of Pokémon to potentially include though, the five main areas of the game simply couldn’t contain them all. Now thanks to part one of the DLC we have a new area to explore, so get ready to dive down to Bubbly Basin.
To access Bubbly Basin you’ll need to have made your way to the second area of the game, Bleak Beach. Once you’ve filled this seaside locale with Pokémon and lampposts you’ll be pointed towards a little island, which houses the mythical Pokémon Manaphy. For the low low price of one piece of seaweed, Manaphy will teach you to dive underwater. With this you can explore previously hidden underwater places, and with the help of the adorable seal Poplio access a whole new location.
As you’d probably expect, Bubbly Basin is an underwater area full of water type Pokémon. Whether you love Luvdisc or get nervous and clammy around a Shelder, there are bound to be critters you love here. Once you arrive you’ll probably want to start gathering these fishy friends by building habitats, which as ever means arranging grass, flowers and decorations close to each other to tempt them into moving in. With added elements like seaweed and coral to consider there are loads of combinations to discover, and finding all the bits and pieces you need is better than ever thanks to the diving.
In all the areas prior to Bubbly Basin you need to navigate cliffs and caves by jumping around and building paths, but now you’re underwater and the rules of gravity no longer apply. Anywhere you want to explore is just a short swim away, and yet despite this there’s still plenty of hidden nooks and collectibles to find in this impeccably designed world. Diving also makes building a breeze, because there’s no gravity to worry about when you’re making a skyscraper out of sand.
As a fully fleshed out area, Bubbly Basin also features plenty of requests to complete. Most of these involve making Poplio happy by helping his friends and building stuff, but they’re all fun to do and kept me invested as I gathered materials for crafting and found new recipes.
Bubbly Basin doesn’t exactly break the mould when it comes to Pokopia areas, but if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. You can create your own fun by crafting, try to catch ‘em all but with lovely houses instead of balls, or work through little side objectives on the Pokémon Center PC. Depending on how much you want to do everything you could spend anywhere from three to thirty hours here, making it a substantial bit of content whichever way you slice it.
Much like the base game, Bubbly Basin doesn’t really have many issues to complain about. There’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the diving controls, but once you get used to moving around this way it’s hard to go back to dry land. The requests are a little too samey too, with nothing quite as impressive as adding power back to the harbour town or starting a rainstorm.
Bubbly Basin is a fantastic start to the planned Pokémon Pokopia DLC schedule, adding a hefty chunk of game and a gorgeous underwater wonderland to explore. Diving makes exploring and building feel fantastic too, and ensures this new area feels unique among the others. If you needed a reason to dip back into Pokopia then Bubbly Basin is a no brainer, so make like a Ditto and dive already.
