Definitely considering this one, it looks like Pokémon flavoured Ark. Ark is incredible but also hot garbage and player experience hostile (micro raptors? Ichtheyornis? Pegomastix? The fuck outta here) not to mention the insane bugs that are just completely ignored for years.. Something similar from a different studio is pretty appealing
Maybe not the game for you if your hatred of ark comes from bugs lol. This game is fun but very jank and buggy which makes arks mechanics look like a masterpiece in comparison and I’m no ark fan.
Okay so "very" may be a bit too forceful of a word. There are bugs, though they are fairly mild to medium at worst. The most common ones are pathing issues on base, the rare humanoid enemy getting stuck under ground, and some hitbox-related problems that are easily circumvented. The biggest issue which the devs are aware of is multiplayer save game corruption and they've released a guide on backing up saves as a temporary bandaid. In all, this is a rather impressive release and should improve rapidly. MUCH worse games with heavier budgets have been released in the last year alone.
You'd have a point, if the comparison wasn't between a decade plus old game and one that released in the last week, as early access. ARK is genuinely one of the single worst experiences to try and get into, and has multi year long bugs that haven't been touched.
I haven't bought Palworld, but you can actually launch the game, and join your friends in a few minutes tops. I have attempted to play with friends on ARK. Repeatedly. I have yet to actually do so, even after self hosting my own server on a couple occasions. IMO, this makes ARK as a title and game to play, completely worthless.
Seems friendlier than ark though. Ark will just bug out and remove your favourite creature from existence permanently. Or just kill you and every creature you own by having terribly balancing. I've fallen through the world in palworld but it just pops you out at your homebase with your gear and your pals.
I typically don't download games in preview, but I've found quite a bit of depth and cozy fun here. There's some weirdness and definite room for improvement, but I can recommend it.
It's basically Pokemon in a survival world, but both your character and the Pals level up which is interesting, and the tech tree had some significant depth to it
Yeah, I'm like 18 hours in. Adjust the settings before you go in to make it be the Zelda/Pokemon/COD clone you prefer and have fun exploring and letting fake pokemon do your work for you. Interesting bits of mysterious storyline so far too.
There are already people claiming this, but I have yet to see any actual proof of claim. Unfortunately the court of public opinion has already started to turn even without actual proof. Got to love a good witch hunt.
I mean half of them are obvious merges of Pokémon with assets copied one for one in some cases. Really wouldn't be surprised at all of they used an AI for this
The trailer reminded me of that other game craftopia that really didn't click with me. Pulled up the trailer for that and wouldn't you know it, same developer. Craftopia still isn't out of early access and sits at a comfortable 57% (recent) steam user rating. So I doubt I'll get palworld.
FWIW, I tried to like Craftopia and it didn't click, but I'm really enjoying Palworld. If you enjoy Pokemon you should be able to get your money's worth.
It's weird. I would say it feels very unpolished, yet at the same time, it works way better than I would have thought for an early access monster collector. It totally feels like a meme, but it's actually quite fun at the same time. I don't think I'll play it forever, but it's definitely my addiction this week. I only downloaded it because a friend suggested it, it has Pokemon elements, and it's included in game pass so I had nothing to lose, but I've already put probably 15 hours into it this weekend.
I keep hearing "pokemon elements" is there actually the move selection, level system and typing strategy that went into Pokemon? Cause as fun as monster collecting is, if the combat lacks depth idk how long the game will last.
Honest opinion: Gameplay mechanics are really interesting, visuals are quite good. If you ever wanted a "pokemon but without keeping it kids friendly" game, this might scratch that itch just fine.
I didn't got deep into this game, but it has a noticable lack of direction. The game doesn't tell you what to do aside from the basic base building; but I like it.
Oh also, it's quite buggy in this state and crashed occasionally; so you might want to give it a few more updates before buying if you dislike that.
I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth with how much I've played the current version. If they somehow pull a cubeworld and make it worse, I'm sure the community would love to source an old and good version.
Devs started making changes that killed a lot of fun to, presumably, appeal more to CoD players. Some of the balancing decisions also made a lot of the guns a bit less exciting to use and made most of them essentially the same thing. The two most popular classes (medic and sniper) have been nerfed to oblivion. It feels like they are trying really hard to curate a very specific experience, and that seems to have burned out a lot of people or driven others away.
Personally, I think they should have leaned harder in the direction of more realism and rewarding creativity.
Sniper and Medic are the peak COD classes though. Assault rifles/SMGs with infinite self-heal or sitting somewhere back one-shoting people.
I felt the game move away more from COD since not everyone is running Medic with Vector. Also Sniper and Medic are still the most popular classes, so they were certainly not nerved into oblivion.
Lethal company will have a long tail of popularity, akin to among us. It has a shit ton of mods and infinite Coop replayability. It's the perfect party stream for groups. It will remain popular for very long if the devs play their cards well.
For somebody specifically interested in the online competitive format of Pokemon - is there anything of the sort in Palworld? The last game that kind of scratched that itch for me was the Digimon Cybersleuth series.
Xbox and PC Gamepass launched with an older version of the game than Steam waiting for MS to approve the update.
It just got patched this afternoon, I imagine it runs better now. Although, I had only minimal problems launching and playing the game from PC Gamepass this weekend.
Huh and this isn't even free and it's still in early access.
Also from the steam page: "Don't worry; there are no labor laws for Pals." Ew. Not even the fact there are no labour laws, as it is expected from primitive game, but the fact some gross brain decided to specifically mention it as a perk of the game.
"Build a factory, place a Pal in it, and they'll keep working as long as they're fed—until they're dead, that is." - no seriously, fuck them.
Jesus Christ I hope you're vegan. If you're upset about a silly joke considering the diagetic implications of monster collector/automation games: what we do to beings that have actual feelings should be a real concern for you.
Pokémon spends a lot of time—a silly amount of time, really—explaining how the fighting you're doing against other trainers isn't a bad thing, it's not cruel. It's more like sport. They like doing it. You bond with them over it. Everyone faints, no one dies. And when you're fighting Team Rocket, well, that's just a good cause. Something your Pokémon believe in just as much as you do.
So the lore goes, anyway. A bit naive, but sincere and earnest. Good values.
This very funny Palworld description is saying it's okay to treat them like slaves.
Like, they might not want to work on your cabin for you, but actually, there is no labor board to stop you from forcing them to. Do you think that keeping slaves is funny? Like, no other context, just: I have slaves, that is funny to me.
If the writer of this laugh out loud, very funny steam description doesn't mean it that way, they should change the joke. As a high-school graduate, you should be able to pick up subtext like this. It's very simple.
Sorry for the bold, I just wanted to make sure you saw me insulting you.
Keep in mind, I've never played this game: I have no opinions. Are they treated like slaves? Would you care to enlighten us?
thanks for actually trying to help instead of mindlessly using the little funny internet number
for some reason, that i did, i was checking it multiple times yesterday but never noticed it