Pokopia Bubbly Basin Walkthrough: Dive to the Ocean Temple

Buying the Expansion Pass and finishing it are two different projects. Our Bubbly Basin breakdown covers the first one — what the $34.99 pass contains and how the free Ver. 2.0.0 update splits off from it. This is the second one: you own the thing, you are standing at the bottom of the sea, and you want the route from arrival to Manaphy without wandering.

That route has real structure. A Dive unlock with a Mythical cameo. A gate with a trainer-rank check on it. An environment-level grind, then six separate friend requests scattered across a sunken city, then a temple that eats fifty star-spotted rocks. In order, then.

Unlocking Dive starts with feeding Manaphy

The official expansion page lists two prerequisites for Bubbly Basin: complete the request "Raise the environment level!" in Bleak Beach, and learn the new move Dive from the free update.

What the official copy does not tell you is how Dive actually arrives. Game8's walkthrough fills that in: with the Bleak Beach story done and the area's environment level at 5, talk to Professor Tangrowth at the Bleak Beach Pokemon Center. Manaphy appears on a nearby island asking for 5 Seaweed. Feed it, and it teaches you Dive. Serebii's dive page confirms the framing — the ability to dive and swim "was given to all players after helping Manaphy in Bleak Beach" as part of the Version 2.0 update.

So the Mythical that headlines this DLC greets you before you have spent a single minute underwater. Nice touch, and worth knowing because it means your first blocker is Bleak Beach progress, not anything in the Basin itself. If your environment level is short, our habitat and comfort guide covers how that number moves; the Ditto transformations guide covers the traversal moves worth having before you head down.

With Dive learned, the entrance is close: Game8 places the Bubbly Basin Gate in a hole in the sand in the ocean behind the Bleak Beach Pokemon Center, with Popplio guiding you down, and notes your trainer rank needs to be at least Ultra to open it. That is the last gate. Past it, you are in.

The rules underwater

Diving controls differently from everything else in the game: shoulder buttons move you up and down, holding B swims. Three environmental rules from Serebii's dive documentation will shape how you build down here:

• Depth means darkness. Go too deep and the water goes completely dark; you need illumination to see anything. Pack light sources before you explore the trench.
• Crops need bubbles. Underwater farming only works if the plants are surrounded by bubbles — which takes either a Pokemon with the Water specialty or a powered Bubble Machine. Plant without either and nothing grows.
• Buoyant blocks float builds. They can be placed anywhere in water and built upon, which means structures at any height with no connecting platform. Underwater architecture plays by different rules than the surface.

There is also a speed option: eat a smoothie and you get boosted Lapras power, letting you swim as Lapras underwater and move a lot faster. For covering the Basin end to end, that is the difference between a commute and a crawl.

One roster note before you pick your follower crew. Serebii's underwater-capable list runs to 97 rows, and 88 of them swim freely — the other nine are restricted to walking on the seafloor: both Shellos forms, both Gastrodon forms, Smeargle, Tinkaton, Pincurchin, Wiglett and Wugtrio. If a build plan depends on a Pokemon working mid-water, check which side of that line it sits on first.

You are swimming through Cerulean City

Serebii's location page describes Bubbly Basin as based on a sunken Cerulean City, and the landmarks are not subtle: Nugget Bridge, Cerulean Cave, the Cerulean Gym and Bill's House are all down here. The sibling question our DLC guide left open at launch — whether the Cerulean identity was real or a fan reading — has been settled by the shipped game naming its own landmarks.

Three hidden rooms are worth hunting while you are exploring anyway: Misty's room behind the gym, an underwater lab at the bottom of the sea trench, and a Coral room near the temple. The trench is where the darkness rule above stops being trivia.

The seafloor itself is your supply run. Grubby pearls, sea glass fragments, seaweed and Leppa Berries occur naturally, and whirlpools pay out watermelon seeds, seabed flower seeds, star-spotted rocks, grubby pearls, sea glass fragments and Pokemetal. Start collecting star-spotted rocks the moment you arrive — the back half of this walkthrough spends them by the dozen.

First job: environment level 3

The Basin runs the same environment-level loop as every other region: build habitats, keep residents comfortable, watch the number climb. There are 36 Basin habitats to work with, starting from Basin tall grass — four clumps of seabed tall grass — and running through coral gardens, dig sites and themed rooms. Our Pokedex guide covers how those habitats feed the separate 50-entry Basin dex and its six-rung reward ladder.

Level 3 is the number that matters, because two things unlock there. Nintendo Life's walkthrough notes the Pokemon Center rebuilding kit becomes available to purchase in the PC shop, and — the main event — Popplio moves. Follow Popplio to the area above the town and it places the Ocean Temple Kit, opening the request "Build the Beautiful Building." That is the Basin's main story.

Popplio's six friends

Popplio will not build alone. Six friends need recruiting first, and Popplio describes each one by a hint rather than a name — Serebii records the epithets: the one with coral horns, the one good with claws, the shy spiky one, the one with a big huge mouth, the one with charming whiskers, and the floaty pink one. Here is who they are and what each actually wants, per Game8's request walkthrough:

Two of those rows deserve a flag. Corphish's submarine is the expensive one — 33 items of material for one friend — so bank those whirlpool star-spotted rocks early. And Frillish's tunnel is the one that sends you into Cerulean Cave with a Dowsing Machine.

Note the pattern: half of these requests are really habitat-construction orders. The Basin's friend quests and its environment level feed each other, which is why doing the level-3 grind first is not wasted work.

Building the Ocean Temple

With all six friends aboard, the kit needs feeding. The material list, per Serebii and Game8:

The last two rows are craftables with their own costs: each seashell fencing takes 1 star-spotted rock + 1 shiny pearl, and the ocean door recipe is found buried at the building site itself, at 1 star-spotted rock per door. Add it up and the true star-spotted rock bill lands around 62 counting the fencing and doors, before Corphish's submarine took its ten. Clear the sand and seafloor blocks off the footprint before construction can start.

Then comes the workforce: assign Popplio's six friends plus eight more of your own Pokemon to the site, add Popplio, and the crew of fifteen gets to work. Game8 puts construction at one real-time hour — the Basin equivalent of the base game's big build projects, so start it before an evening session rather than at the end of one. Our specialties and building kits guide covers how build crews work if this is your first large kit.

Manaphy, Phione and what is left

When the temple stands, walk in. Manaphy is inside, and interacting with it completes Bubbly Basin's main story and puts the Mythical on your Basin dex. Game8's Manaphy page notes it does not have a habitat of its own — you can build it a house or invite it into any unoccupied habitat, and its preference runs Cool, with a taste for water, ocean vibes and bitter flavors.

Phione is the epilogue. It does not spawn in the Basin at all: Serebii's legendary page lists Phione as the Dream Island encounter tied to the Starmie Doll — the exact doll Frillish's request had you dig out of Cerulean Cave. Place the doll and examine it to summon Drifloon, and you land on a Basin-specific Dream Island. It is not a guaranteed hit: Nintendo Life describes that island as having a chance of Phione showing up and Serebii is blunt that dolls fine-tune which island you get without guaranteeing the encounter. Check your Pokedex the moment you arrive, and if Phione is not there, quit out and try again the next day. Our resource guide covers the Dream Island loop, and the legendary and mythical guide covers the base game's doll roster this slots into.

After the credits-equivalent, the Basin keeps going: Nintendo Life points players at pushing the environment level to 5, and the habitat list runs all the way to No. 036, Mermaid's Gym — a pearl-sofa arena that draws Starmie. Between that, the 50-entry dex and the shop inventory that scales from level 2 to level 10, the temple is the end of the story but nowhere near the end of the checklist.

Quick Action Checklist

• Dive unlock: Bleak Beach story done, environment level 5, talk to Professor Tangrowth, feed Manaphy 5 Seaweed.
• Gate: in the sand behind the Bleak Beach Pokemon Center; Game8 puts the requirement at Ultra trainer rank.
• Hoard star-spotted rocks from day one — the temple, its fencing, its doors and Corphish's submarine together want 70+.
• Raise the Basin to environment level 3, buy the Pokemon Center kit, then follow Popplio to start "Build the Beautiful Building."
• Recruit all six friends; Corphish (submarine) and Frillish (Cerulean Cave tunnel) are the long ones.
• Temple bill: 50 star-spotted rock, 30 stone, 25 seashell, 10 shiny pearl, 10 seashell fencing, 2 ocean doors — then 15 Pokemon and one real-time hour.
• Meet Manaphy inside; take the Starmie Doll to a Dream Island for a chance at Phione, and retry the next day if it is not on the island.
• Farming underwater needs a Water-specialty Pokemon or a Bubble Machine; deep water needs light; buoyant blocks float free-standing builds.