It's significantly more fun than any recent pokemon game and its not exclusive to a console. It's fantastic for an early access release
It's also just a really good survival game.
I justify it as even if it never receives an update, I'm still satisfied with what I paid for it. It's brought me and my friend many hours of fun.
Agreed. Not really for kids though. It has a different vibe. I liken it to a tamer version of Animal Crossing v. Cult of the Lamb.
A lot of early access stuff popping lately. I'm seeing Enshrouded a bunch too.
Please don't let there be a mass early access thing again. Waiting two years for a complete game ruins the fun sometimes.
I could see why PalWorld would do it early though before the cease and desist letters come en masse from Nintendo.
Huh? Early access games have been a thing for at least the past 5 years solid, no question. At this point it’s just a standard. It’s rare to find a game come out that isn’t early release. The trend isn’t going away because there will always be a line of morons to buy the game full of bugs and people lap it up.
They definitely needed the cash flow to keep going. I think the other part of their early access, aside from public testing, is they needed a target. It feels like they had an idea for a game but didn't know how to flesh out the game. Just like Minecraft, the community will heavily influence the dev. That community feedback before a full release is a good thing and it will make Pal'mon an iconic game if the devs can deliver.
It's worse because this particular company has a habit of doing a bunch of unfinished games. Palworld, Craftopia and Never grave are all by the same company. They're all also unfinished.
Pocketpair is also 100% not an indie company as the head of Pocketpair is already a Businessman who owns an exchange for cryptocurrency
It's exclusive to PC and XBox just FYI. They have a contract going on with Microsoft that forbids them from releasing to other platforms.
It is fun. Of you played Ark it has the same vibes minus the 12 hours of berry hasting to catch one Dino.
It's better than ark.
As much as it pains me to agree with you, I think I agree with you.
This game is dangerous...
I played it for the first time yesterday with my S/O, and we looked at the clock only to realize we had played for a little over ten hours straight... only stopping for lunch/dinner
I just got done with an eight hour session. This game is exceptionally dangerous
I'm absolutely loving it. I was expecting a total shit post of a game but there is actual depth to this. And for a game this early into early access it's running amazingly. The only real bugs I've run into so far is occasionally my worker pals get stuck and start to starve so I have to throw them into the box and then take them back out real quick. In the end though that happens like three or four times in several hours?
I just started playing last night. I got raided ans my entire base got burned down. I could not figure out any way to stop it from spreading. Why would i spend any effort on building an awesome base if one fucking fire will burn the whole thing to the ground without me being able to do anything but watch it all fall apart?
Im really hoping its a bug because its going to nope out a lot of people when it happens to them.
If you ever had a sibling overwrite a save file you had put dozens to hundreds of hours into you know what im talking about (sorry bro, i still feel bad a about accidently saving over your 90 hours on ff9)
Water pals can put out fires in your base I'm pretty sure
I have about 40 hours into the game. My friend about the same. He knows three people with 20+. I have read several forum posts and watched reviews on this game. In a handful of instances the fire is mentioned. It's a rare occurrence started by a Pal being on fire or using fire very close to your building. You can stop this by scrapping a section not on fire and by keeping anything that requires fire away from buildings. That said, I spent a day roasting an egg next to a furnace inside my wooden hut and nothing happened.
Also, it's early access.
And one situation create bad does not a game make. Or something. :D - Anyway, gather stone and build your shit outta stone. Looks decent too.
the raids are definitely something i'd polish if i were them, it's rather arbitrary and not really fun in any way.
i like the idea of having a reason to build defenses, and the risk of losing stuff, but it's rather wack to start by flinging gravel at you and then at some point start dropping meteors, neither are particularly engaging and with the swarm of pals you'll have after just a short while there's not really much you yourself can do to affect things other than build walls..
i think it'd work better if it sent a mini-boss and some normal pals, so you could either focus on the miniboss or pick off the small ones.
I've mostly ignired raids. So far my guild and I have lost a total of "3 signposts" to raids over the course of a week. Just have piles of pals in base that aren't completely incapacitated and they fend off the raids more or less by themselves.
Pals with watering ability will put out fires, if they're not busy fighting. If you have stashed repair kits, handiwork pals will also grab them and fix your stuff.
I do have to ask, why did you make a wooden base when stone doesn't take that long to unlock?
It’s clearly got more potential than it’s currently using right now, game is fun but will almost certainly be better in 3-6 months. No shame in waiting for a finished product, either.
i mean they've sold like a million copies, i don't think they're going to be hurting for cash any time soon, just pirate it and maybe buy it later if you feel a desire to.
Dude. They sold a million copies in the first 8h. They're at 5m as of a few days ago.
Judging from their previous games, like Craftopia, don't expect a 1.0 release, like at all.
I wonder if anyone involved in this debate has even played both games... because outside of having a bunch of adorable yet vicious critters with grimdark world implications.. they're nothing alike
Might as well be comparing Resident Evil to House of the Dead, both have zombies, both take place in a house, both have terrible voice acting.. but one's intended to be scary and has very limited resources and depressing music to give that feel, while the other is a goofy action game intended to be B-Grade schlock where you just mindlessly shoot things
Palworld gameplay isn't even remotely similar to Pokemon. Its basically Ark Survival that just so happens to have plagiarised pokemon designs instead of dinosaurs.
I kinda wish they didn't go such overt plagiarism in terms of design because then Palworld could be a nice game on its own
that's my take on it really, they clearly knew their designs were copied bs, and totally did not have to make it that way. For me personally it totally throws off the potential vibe and just feels like poking a bear for absolutely no reason. Plus I also think the game is kind of offensive and in poor taste but that seems to be a minority opinion to say the least.
It may be fun but I'll never know because it looks very not fun.
It's fun
I know I'd hate it. It looks like a mix of my least favorite game mechanics: grinding, foraging and crafting.
I have the same feeling as you.
Yeah it's a bog standard survival game at its core with not-pokemon tacked on, so if that's not your thing then avoid it
If you like survival games (Ark, Rust, Valheim...), you'd probably like it. It's a pretty decent survival game, and getting it's nice having the Pals grind your resources for you.
I don't like those, but I liked the OG DayZ (the ArmA II mod).
It's a $30 game that looks like a $5 game but somehow plays and engages the player better than most $70 games I see these days
In what way does it look like a 5$ game?
just pirate it
Can confirm: It's fun enough for $26. It's kinda like if ARK, Pokemon, and BOTW had a baby. It is most similar to ARK though, so if you're looking for a straight up pokemon game, this might not be what you're looking for.
I don’t think I would have purchased it, but it was a blast to play with PC GamePass. Had a solid weekend where I couldn’t put it down, eventually I got into a loop of just going egg hunting and waiting for them to hatch and uninstalled because I was finally burned out.
Considering that Pocketpair can't even seem to be able to finish their other (highly plagiarised) games "Never Grave" and "Craftopia", I'm not spending a single cent until they actually finish it.
Why are we holding big corpos accountable for selling unfinished games that later get patched with free DLC, but then allow a faux indie company (The CEO of Pocketpair actually is a businessman who owns a crypto exchange. So not at all an indie company) to do the same for the same price as the whole ark survivor bundle?
I played for 15 minutes and said "I'd rather play BotW."
Beating fluffy animals with a club to death or enslavement just isn't my speed.
Especially when they start running from you...
They know. They're afraid. They won't let you make their name Toby.
I'm pretty sure John Daly sold his soul to the devil. The more I hear about how he treats his body the more amazed I am that he can still play golf. Or live.
He's a freak of nature.
I have yet to have a solid informed grasp of whether Palworld manifested their sources of inspiration in good faith, but my tentative opinion at the moment is that hopefully this presses the Pokemon Company to innovate and elevate their overall game. The switch generation to me represented a generation of mismanagement and obvious management generated timelines and barriers, which is super unfortunate for Pokemon's transition to a console.
Competition hopefully might change that.
The aesthetic is very similar, but the only thing I've seen that looked like it was straight up ripped off was a statue of a Lugia, the Lizard Punk dudes look very much like a creature from Final Fantasy, and the fact there is an area of the map that is the Altus Plateau from Elden Ring; like nearly 1:1 except the scale is smaller.
Everything else could just be chalked up to the fact the designs are pretty simplistic representations of real animals, but you can also see clear inspiration taken from a plethora of games even if they aren't straight up duplicating anything.
Transition to console? Where did they live before?
Pokemon was a handheld franchise. All main series titles were Gameboy/DS games until the Switch came along.
Consoles had spinoffs like Stadium and Snap.
The funniest thing is how many people are taking the game setting way, way too seriously. "OMG YOU ENSLAVE CUTE CRITTERS AND MAKE THEM WORK!!!111" - Like that hasn't been a thing in Pokemon since Green/Blue. Remember Lt. Surge, "fighting the war" with pokemon? Or the first episode of the anime, with a bunch of pikachu generating electricity for the pokecenter? Every mainline game has shown pokemon being used as workforce in one way or another, in Vermillion City there's even a house being built with Machoke doing all the heavy lifting.
Regarding Palworld proper, I've been enjoying this game a lot. It scratched some itches I didn't even know I had. Might last me a number of weeks yet, then I can wait for future updates while feeling duly sated.
Meanwhile, I've just downloaded a DS emulator, finna proudly play the old games. Lmao.
I watched the trailer and read the steam description. I don't like how it treats and lets you treat the pals. My 8yo was very excited to see a pokemon clone game, and asked me to stop the trailer 30 seconds in because of them beating up the pals and using them as slaves.
Yeah because taking your pets to an arena-style fight to "fainting" is also a great model for the kids lmao
Pokémon's dog fighting aside, Palworld has a certain cynicism that imo takes it out of the realm of a kids game. The game allows you to capture humans and then has a little blurb about how it's "inhumane" to do so. There's a niche for an "adult" monster capture game that Palworld is filling. I'm curious about how the game will continue to develop in early access. They have a lot of funding & hype, let's see if they can see it through to a full release (or wallow in development like so many other Early Access survival games).
The concept itself is different from the execution though. She watches pokemon, and they regularly talk about respecting the pokemon and treating them with respect. Anybody who treats pokemon as an object without love is shown in a bad light; even team rocket is shown to have great love for their Meowth that they are willing to walk away from Meowth when they think Meowth would have a better life elsewhere. On palworld steam description, they literally say pals can be treated any way you want because they thankfully don't have any human rights issues. Kids don't think of the bigger picture, deeper meaning beyond what they actually see. The game is not a kids game, and that is fine. However, the game looks cute and charming, and very like pokemon, which makes me concerned for any kid who likes playing this game.
Then don't play it. Also, your last sentence literally describes Pokemon. Wild animals beating the crap out of each other and enslaved by post war child army.
I said this in another comment, but the concept itself is different from the execution though. She watches pokemon, and they regularly talk about respecting the pokemon and treating them with respect. Anybody who treats pokemon as an object without love is shown in a bad light; even team rocket is shown to have great love for their Meowth that they are willing to walk away from Meowth when they think Meowth would have a better life elsewhere. On palworld steam description, they literally say pals can be treated any way you want because they thankfully don't have any human rights issues. Kids don't think of the bigger picture, or the deeper meaning beyond what they actually see. I'm not saying the game is bad. I'm just saying I don't like the game for how it is, and it's definitely not a kids game where as pokemon can be.
Brother every pokemon is a slave. You force them into a ball by beating them and then force them to fight other pokemons until they pass out.
So the dog-fighting ring of Pokémon battles is fine but making the Pokémon manufacture pants is too far?
I don't use mine as slaves. I just force them to hang out with me at my camp and they just happen to do chores for me.. cause they like it
It's definitely not a kid game. The descriptions of the pals tells how some of them are used for torture, sex, drugs, religion all sorts of wild shit. I really hope they keep that up to because imo the game is better for it.
Pokemon always was a dog fighting economy. Growing up with it never thought about how dark it was but we old now.
Fun seeing an absurd matured version of monster catching dog fighting economy.
Idk if it'll be living up to hype a year from now, but for now pretty fun. Also love seeing game freak miss out on all this money. You dummies have known people wanted something like this for decades!
The electric Pokemon were forced to work at the power plant in the first season of the anime. Pokemon have always been slaves. I totally get not liking the presentation, though. It's far more grotesque and not abstracted away.
Considering how the steam page reads, it's like a full blown parody by simply pointing out what Pokemon's world must be like through the eyes of an adult.
Pals can be used to fight, or they can be made to work on farms or factories. You can even sell them or eat them!
Put an army of Pals on the job. Don't worry; there are no labor laws for Pals.
Letting Pals do the work is the key to automation. 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.
Endangered Pals live in wildlife sanctuaries. Sneak in and capture rare Pals to get rich quick! It's not a crime if you don't get caught, after all.
Okay, then I suppose the game is not suitable for eight year olds. That's fine, I play a lot of games that are not suitable for eight year olds.
Obvious bait is obvious
That's what pokemon is though. It's cock fighting and animal slavery. I knew that as a teen when I played the original games and watched the original show. And pokemon Manga is even more violent.
It definitely takes the "Pokémon are slaves" thing and runs with it. You can kill and eat the pals. Some of them are very "human". You basically stop short of actually whipping them, though I'm sure they'd add that in.
Edit: maybe I'll clarify, the Syndicate is a group against the mistreatment of pals. You can capture them and force them to work for you. The player is very much the bad guy here.
The player is the bad guy because of a mechanic that exists but isn't encouraged? There are plenty of games that allow the player character to commit awful crimes. You only play as the bad guy if you're playing as the bad guy.
Wtf?! I guess that's part of the charm.
Stop parroting media lines. Its not a fucking slavery sim, nor has any game that uses the mechanic of Help ever been.
The game is still in early access and has plans to officially support mods. Either the devs will make a "PG" setting or someone will mod it to be more child friendly.
I haven't played the game yet. Not sure if I will. But I've seen some gameplay, and, honestly, it bothers me too, and not just because beating up Pokemon feels bad. My main problem is that it could have been done in a better way that would make me feel less bad lol
The pals should be dangerous! Even the basic starter ones!
I play a Pokemon TTRPG where you can beat up Pokemon with your bare hands if you want. The difference is, they're not helpless. A trainer without any investment in their personal combat skills is roughly a suitable match for a low level Ratata. Even in the video games, there's a reason Professor Birch got cornered by a couple Zigzagoon. It's the same reason you're not allowed in the long grass without a Pokemon.
Pokemon are magical monsters that can just straight up kill you. There's a big difference between fighting something like that, on basically equal footing, and punching a helpless stuffed animal.
After seeing a few videos about it, it's a pass for me. Pretty plainly a soulless legally distinct mishmash of random design elements with nothing to bring to the table creatively
Nah. It's the Vampire Survivors of the "catch em all" genre. I thought it looked like ass in the videos - and it does! - but when you have your own hands on the controller it's a different experience. Again, like VS, it lands in a sweet spot re: progression, expansion, new interactions, etc.
I tell people "it's the least polished game I've ever played for 20+ hours".
It looks fun, smooth, but I can't unsee how much shit they've ripped off and killing Pokemon just rubs me the wrong way.
What did they rip off? There are over a thousand pokemon, most of which are very similar to real animals or mythical creatures so you're inevitably going to have some similarities. If there were actually copyright infringement going on, Nintendo would be all over it. Don't tell me anubis (the pal) copied lucario when lucario copied anubis (the god)
Breath of the Wild - Stamina meter in the same style, position, and orientation. Glider and air movement, (Haven't checked if they ripped off the cliffside climbing too but probably.)
Pokemon - At least half their designs are 80% likeness to already existing Pokemon, you use 'balls' to capture the creatures when they're weak enough, you use these captured creatures to fight for you, you're considered a 'trainer'.
Like do I really need to spell out every fucking piece of this game that was stolen to you? Taking tons of shit from other games and mashing it into a new game is not creative, shouldn't be celebrated, and damn sure isn't legal. Nintendo have already confirmed they've only recently been made aware of it and are "investigating" it. The fact it hasn't been Thanos snapped yet doesn't mean it won't be.
Narrator: It's not.
All millions of people playing their asses off as a joke.
It's pretty fun
Yknow what they say about folks who narrate, right?
