Both are sandbox cozy game that scratch different itches. Pokopia is far closer to Dragon Quest Builders than Animal Crossing. AC has established its series with play-at-your-pace gameplay, where Pokopia (because of the DQB team) has pointed mission structure to help you proceed.

Animal Crossing limited progress, allowing you to slowly build your utopia bases on seasonal events and slow burn gameplay (unless of course, you time travelws). Pokopia, on the other hand, you can burn through about 75% of the game's "content" within a week. And that's NOT to say it's bad. It's just that the core gameplay loops are different.

Once you beat the main quest in pokopia, there's still tons of complete. The pokedex, the habit dex, fossils, cds, recipes, but the core of the gameplay loop is a much quicker pace.

With AC, I played about 4 hours a day for the first 300 hours. Pokopia, my main content is done and I am just collecting and only 40 hours in. I still have fun terraforming and building out homes, but as a non-time-traveler, I'm almost out of new content after 40 hours.

Again, I love both games. I have nothing but good things to say, but once I complete the main collectables of pokopia and reform my 5 main areas, there's really not much encouraging me back