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Pokemon Pokopia Video Discussed Peakychu and Professor Tangrowth

Stephanie LiuBy
Pokemon Pokopia NPC Design Pokemon Pokopia Video Discusses Peakychu, Mosslax, and Tangrowth Development
Image via Game Freak

In a behind-the-scenes video that showed off the development of Pokemon Pokopia, Game Freak went into detail about how it and Omega Force designed new NPCs like Peakychu and Professor Tangrowth. The entire video is available on the company’s official YouTube channel, but the only subtitles are auto-generated. It shows off early looks at the game, Ditto forms, and the supporting cast.

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Shigeru Ohmori, who worked on Pokopia as the senior director, general producer, and concept designer, is the star of the show here. At the beginning of the video, he talks about the base concept of Pokemon Pokopia before moving onto specific details about the NPCs like Peakychu, Mosslax, and Professor Tangrowth in the game. Professor Tangrowth was a Tangela early in development, and it wasn’t a professor. It was after someone pointed out that it should evolve into a Tangrowth after so much time, and that it would be more interesting to turn it into a professor, that we got the Professor Tangrowth we know today.

It was after creating Professor Tangrowth that they applied the idea of “how Pokemon would look after a long time” to other Pokemon. Peakychu, for example, is a Pikachu that used way too much electricity and short-circuited, causing it to no longer produce any electricity in Pokemon Pokopia. One version of Peakychu in the concept art showed it glowing. The word hakkou in Japanese can mean “glowing/giving off light” or “unfortunate,” and that’s why Peakychu feels like a tragic heroine. Her characterization is based on a pun (that being said, this could just be a joke for the video).

As mentioned earlier, the Pokopia development video also discusses topics other than NPC design. Ohmori talked about the “positive apocalypse” concept of Pokemon optimistically living in a peaceful world. He really wanted to focus on the kindness in this world, and that’s why he was adamant about Pokemon Pokopia not having any battles.

Here’s the full video:

Pokemon Pokopia is readily available on the Switch 2. The first DLC, Bubbly Basin, is now out as well.

Stephanie Liu
About The Author
Stephanie is a senior writer who has been writing for games journalism and translating since 2020. After graduating with a BA in English and a Certificate in Creative Writing, she spent a few years teaching English and history before fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a writer. In terms of games, she loves RPGs, action-adventure, and visual novels. Aside from writing for Siliconera and Crunchyroll, she translates light novels, manga, and video games.