All the people blaming “clickbait youtubers” or “AI bots” for this game blowing up are idiots. Its actually fun, it delivers a satisfying game loop that no pokemon game ever has, and it has support for multiplayer. It’s big enough to explore a lot, has a deep tech tree to unlock, some pretty interesting base automation mechanics, and over 100 pokemon to discover and catch, and a surprisingly robust breeding system to unlock new pokemon instead of evolving. It’s just FUN, and lots of games lately lack that. Despite it being buggy and early access, its very playable. I hosted a dedicated server and my friends and I can play together and explore and adventure and find bosses, and work on our base together. Haven’t had a game that lets me do that in a long time.
The fact that you call em pokémon instead of Pals tells a lot.
Well, it is Pokemon you’re capturing and using after all
You’re not realising the implications of refusing to give Palworld it’s own identity, are you?
Oh god
We are getting hit by “What Pikachu is that” from the younger generation now, just like we did back then by our parents ʘ‿ʘ
I don’t really give a shit
Awesome. Game Freak needed some competition, they’ve been coasting for at least a decade.
I like Pokemon games for the adventure, turn based combat, and polished stable of monsters. Does palworld have those things?
I like Pokemon for making me feel connected to my Pokemon, and for exploring the world with them.
Imo Palworld had those and does them even better.
Interesting, I thought they were more… disposable? But now that I think about it, in ark, you had your near and dear creatures and then you had the faceless workers.
Honestly? I think they should be more disposable. You can do stuff like sell, butcher, overwork or fuse away your Pals (all of which are rather deliberate on the player’s part), but I genuinely think if there was some threat of permadeath or having them stolen by the Syndicate baddies if you get sloppy, it would give the adventure a greater sense of threat/risk. People seek out Nuzlocke rules for a reason, and currently I find the options for dropping your items and Pals on death don’t really make compelling gameplay sense (you just walk back and get them).
Setting/story-wise, Palworld supports that kind of thing so I figure it’s most likely coming as an option eventually. The game is on track for some interesting things, and as half-baked as parts might seem now, it’s already fairly fun. Definitely an addictive formula.
It’s worth waiting to see where they take it if the journey and developing those bonds with the creatures are a big part of the draw for you. I doubt you’ll get compelling turn based combat at any point, though.
They are as disposable as you want them to be. I personally try to take good care of my pals
I have the ability to learn the butcher’s knife, but I will never learn or use it. Just awful. But I like that it’s there…
I hope the devs add a way to release the pals withou the butcher knife. My box is starting to fill up and I need space
You can sell them to the pal vendor! I refuse to butcher my pals too
adventure
uuuuh since G5 the Pokémon plots are rehashed and banalised as heck, and there’s almost never any sensation of valuable risk or conflict to the plot. G6 literally makes the first arc of the plot “join this bunch of loser schoolers and do nothing”.
Yeah I would like a better Pokemon game, not an fps survival with monsters. The idea is that people looking for a Pokemon game probably aren’t simply looking for a collectible monster game, they want the things that are associated with Pokemon games.
Yeah I would like a better Pokemon game,
Don’t we all.
For long I’ve dreamed of the heights Pokémon could reach if the mainline videogame production was handed over from a small indie company to a respectable developer with a better track record such as Camelot or CDPR.
Camelot can’t write themselves out of a paper bag. The Golden Sun games were good for their time, and had me hyped as a pre-teen, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the dialogue or story was actually good. Seriously, if you took off the portraits while characters were speaking, could you tell just by the way they talk who is who (besides Kraden, cuz that mofo likes to TALK)? Could you describe their personalities based on their dialogue, and not the character art? It’s part of why the third Golden Sun failed: it was just too generic, and they tried to stretch the little personality they could muster across 8 characters, just because the 2nd game had 8 characters, but it left them all feeling like hollow husks for the most part.
I’m not saying the games are bad, but there are definitely much better JRPG devs out there.
I mean, it’s more competition for ARK than Pokemon. I doubt Game Freak learns anything from all this unfortunately.
I heard cassette beasts is providing some direct competition but it wasn’t nearly as successful.
Yeah, that one is real competition - at least gameplay wise - and a wonderful example of taking inspiration from Pokemon while still making something their own. It really deserves more attention than it got.
Instead we get plagiarism simulator 9000 because it made for great YouTube clickbait.
Cassette Beasts has so much soul put into it, it’s a fucking crime that it ain’t more popular
Maybe. Maybe not. Pokémon isn’t successful because it’s good. It’s successful because people want to play Pokémon. If they can have the same experience of capturing and training Pokémon in a different format and name, it may compete with them. Admittedly, PalWorld is missing a lot of the higher level Pokémon things, but I don’t think that matters to the vast majority of players, and hunting for perfect traits may make up for it.
I don’t think it’s a particularly great game, but I also don’t think Pokémon is.
Game Freak will learn absolutely nothing from this, except “People like Pokemon, lets crank out one every 6 months instead of yearly and make them even shittier!”
Is this some kinda joke I’m not in on? It’s just a shitty ark knockoff
It’s really not though
It’s a good Arc knockoff.
Gotta be honest, rockpapershotgun’s coverage of this game hasn’t gotten me very interested in this being anything other than a hyped flash in the pan but we’ll see
Katharine’s review today steps back from that flash-in-the-pan take (and it wasn’t a good one).
No doubt there’s some empty calories here, though.
Idk I guess I still didn’t get the vibe it was anywhere as special as the hype train is treating it. It honestly feels weirdly artificial for a hype train too.
You’re getting downvoted, but I think there’s something to this, even if it’s not the whole story. The game had a robust presence unnaturally quickly on Tiktok and among streamers. This studio isn’t big enough to have engineered a big campaign, but it’s quite possible they did some small, targeted marketing and it really paid off.
I’ve been seeing people mention “the game has been in development for 2 years” and all these trailers and stuff but… I didn’t hear a thing until the game released, it exploded and now it’s all I’m seeing.
Exactly. Cassette Beasts and various other indie games have made bigger rounds before.
The only reason Palworld got popular was because of clickbait youtubers
Literally the only thing I know about it is “pokemon with guns” and “it’s SOOOOOOOO popular! You should try it because it’s popular! READ HOW POPULAR THIS IS!”
It’s just a well made game in an era of badly made games that hype themselves up bigger than they are.
Palworld is “just” good monster collection, good combat and some good survival crafting. I’m not going to play it, but it’s very easy to see the appeal.
It’s like the newer doom games. They’re “just” good shooters. You “just” get to go through well built levels, nice visuals and good music.
The one thing I don’t care much for in PalWorld is building structures (walled structures), it feels kinda janky and restrictive at the moment. Which it hasn’t been a major part of the game so far, but it’s one of the few things that’s bothered me about it. Otherwise, it’s been a breath of fresh air compared to Pokemon’s recent outings.
I’ve got a dedicated server I play with a few friends, and I got really stoned on the first day and just kept building a building for our base. Next thing I know I’ve spent six hours on 5 floors (not including an attic space and WiP rooftop garden… need to unlock more building stuff).
Happiness is a dead lamball rolling down a cliff
Their little death squeals fuel me
Have you seen the most recent Let’s Game It Out?
All this time and I still feel horrid farming Lamballs. Why on earth is the fodder creature so damn cute?
I still avoid killing them. :(
