I’ve also been playing palworld and have never played or been interested in any Pokémon games. For me, the “catching pals” aspect detracts from the survival crafting aspects. Base automation is also in a weird place where stuff is mostly automated, but you can’t really automate everything like you can in a game like Factorio.

Despite all this I’ve put about ten hours into the game and loved every minute of it. I’m just a little off the mark of the game’s target audience, which makes the early access lack of polish a little harder to put up with. I would still absolutely recommend the game, though.