In what looked like a lopsided Rocky vs. Apollo Creed battle, a true rival to Nintendo’s globally dominant Pokémon series emerged. And it was very effective.
We’re talking, of course, about “Palworld,” an indie production by Japan-based Pocket Pair. This is finally Pokémon for us, the beloved genre mashup we never thought we needed in our lives.
“Palworld” burst onto the scene a few weeks ago, entering early access on Game Preview on Steam and Xbox, selling 8 million copies in its first week (and has now sold nearly 20 million copies since its launch in late January). Book). By comparison, Nintendo’s latest Pokemon game sold about 23 million copies in its first year.
But it remains to be seen whether it will eventually wither away or flourish. It’s a Frankenstein mashup of Borderlands-like comic humor, Dark Souls-like third-person combat, Valheim-like open-world survival craft, and guns, and it’s a gloriously hot mess in many ways. Lots of guns.
Of course, “Palworld” begins in the Parapagos Islands (expect a lot of puns in this game). It starts out the same way as many survival crafters. Collect sticks and stones, craft stone axes and mining pickaxes, and build a small base. , hunt local wildlife. However, the wild animals in this case are his 100+ cartoon-like monsters, whose names are based on both function and fun. First up is the rum ball. This is a fluffy ball-like lamb. And when you see tikipi (chickpea) and rifmunk (leaf chipmunk) and fiery foxparks (fox sparks), you get the picture. It’s a play on words all the way. I think my favorite is Tea Phant. The tea fant, a cute little porcelain cross between an elephant and a teapot, quickly became useful for watering the plants at my base.
And does that result in, uh, slave labor? What do you mean? You see, besides combat, all these pals also have other skills that they can use to protect their base, make food, craft tools, plant crops, and more. I love that implementation. While I’m adventuring, my friends back home are working autonomously on tasks I’ve assigned them, such as creating arrows and “Pulse Spheres” that can be used to capture more allies.
And when I say world, it’s quite wide. It’s a series of biomes and islands that are pretty difficult to traverse (at least until you get a flying horseback). And it’s full of companions of varying levels and aggression. There are also syndicates of poachers who have camps in various locations. Often there are companions in cages who need help. Look, you’re a good person! (Ignore the fact that in later levels you unlock a butcher knife for unnecessary Pals…) Pal’s world (see what I did there) has Thankfully there’s no gore. The allies simply flutter and appear to pass out after defeat, and humanity’s enemies dematerialize.
Similar to inspirations like Pokemon, the monsters come with a plethora of element-based attacks (grass, electricity, darkness, fire, etc.) and unique abilities, with both alpha and shiny versions available. Many of their abilities are just for riding, but some assist in combat. For example, the fiery Fox Park can be lifted up and used like a flamethrower, and Tansy (a baby chimpanzee) takes out an assault rifle for some reason.
But we don’t live in complete paradise here. The game isn’t finished yet, and there are still many serious issues that need to be addressed (and it’s being updated frequently to that end). Xbox and Game Pass owners can play co-op, but only with up to four people. If you are a Steam player, you can play on a server with up to 32 people in total. Unlike Valheim, you don’t import characters or possessions from one server to another. If you join someone else’s game, you will be returned to level 1.
Also, the official multiplayer servers are currently in complete disarray. My first experience was ruined by a hacker (on seemingly every server) who used an exploit to kill everyone and destroy everyone’s base (even though PVP didn’t exist yet). Ta. Text-based chats were being spammed by bots trying to direct people to websites. This was a problem he had going back 20 years to the original “World of Warcraft.” Why hasn’t the game fixed this issue yet? In the end, I met some people, created a joint base, and had a happy few hours until I leveled up. The server crashed, and when it came back up a few minutes later, the entire server had been wiped, and the characters and characters were gone. Progress is gone. So avoid them completely for now.
The long list of improvements and additions I’d like to see in Palworld is still a diamond in the rough, even if it’s unfinished and occasionally glitchy. I hope it will surprise us all.
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“Pal World”
- Platform: PC, Xbox
- Price: $29.99
- Rating: Comic Violence Teen
- Score: 7 out of 10