A wise sage once said, “Never pre-order games.” But if you simply must purchase a product before you know if it’s any good, then the next, admittedly more cumbersome axiom might apply: “Don’t get too excited about the pre-order bonuses. They’re almost never worth it.” Even so, those who plan on pre-ordering Nintendo Switch 2 life-sim Pokémon Pokopia on Amazon might find themselves particularly underwhelmed with what they’ll get in exchange.
Should you buy Pokopia before it releases on March 5 through the Bezos website, you’ll get — drumroll please — a houseplant. The greenery isn’t even a subtle nod to a grass-type Pokémon like Oddish. It’s not even a particularly nice plant, either. The Amazon-specific plant looks like a background asset, or the sort of thing you might find in a pre-furnished modern apartment complex.
Pre-order bonuses typically aren’t exactly thrilling. With mainline Pokémon games, for example, you often just get a handful of Poké Balls. But part of the reason Pokémon fans are making fun of the Amazon pre-order is because the online retailer made the mistake of trying to promote the bonus as if it were something worth getting excited about. Is something called a “flat leaf plant” really worthy of an exclamation point? Fans don’t think so, which might explain why Amazon’s X post on it has somehow been viewed 1.2M times.
“This is possibly the worst pre-order bonus that has ever existed, I’m actually impressed,” one X user wrote.
“It’s so bland as if it’s the first, unlocked-by-default item that the game uses to teach how you place things down for the first time,” another wrote.
Many replies make fun of the bonus with an outsize reaction that pretends it’s the best thing ever.
As you can imagine, the denizens at r/FuckNintendo are having a field day with this. “But look how detailed the plant is,” one forum frequenter wrote. “That’s PS2 HD quality right there.” Meanwhile, some Pokopia fans saw the news and worried that they might miss out. Everyone can get the lauded flat plant through normal play, which underscores just how bleh the “bonus” truly is.
So, should you pre-order elsewhere? Other retailers are offering an in-game Ditto rug as their pre-order bonus, including Amazon. The best pre-order bonus might be the one from The Pokémon Center, which gifts people a real-world Ditto plushie with their purchase. The choice is yours, trainer.
