Game:

Palworld (2024)

Duration: 3:15:31

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Palworld is a somewhat unhinged survival game where you "Fight, farm, build and work alongside mysterious creatures called "Pals"". In this magical world where you can catch these pals in the wild and pit them against other pals, you also get the opportunity to use them to aid in your survival. They can help on your farm, they can work in the mines, the can be put to work building weapons, and much much more.

A few things to note of Palworld.
1) It is essentially pokemon survival game. That does not in the slightest make it bad. It makes it innovative. It takes an already existing format that has been stagnant for nearly 30 years and actually makes it do something new for a change. This is a good thing and I (Sean who is writing this) will die on this hill. It doesn't make it better by default, there are plenty of worse pokemon "clones" out there, but the point is that it doesn't make it worse for being based off a successful franchise.

2) It is essentially every survival game ever. That does not in the slightest make it bad. It's been a while since there has been a single survival game that has all the boxes I like ticked (base building, base management, crafting, collecting resources, unlocking new tech in a tech tree, etc). If it featured no pals in it and it were just a survival game with NPCs, that'd already make it passable, so I don't see this as a bad thing. Doesn't innovate too much, but it does feature very satisfying movement (modern Legend of Zelda movement primarily) and more rewards for exploring, which is appreciated.

3) This is the big one and actually a negative in my opinion. It is VERY edgy for no reason except to be edgy. There are obviously things you'd do with pokemon if they were real that makes it edgier (you'd eat pokemon because meat, you'd have them help with mining or woodcutting or farming, you'd use them as mounts, etc). But then there are intentional choices that were made that make it edgier for no reason except likely for marketing/stream-ability/word of mouth of the game. I'm not the biggest fan of this and do think it's slightly worse as it went too far (did you seriously need to call a 5'x5' farm plot a "plantation"?), but it is what it is.

4) Final part here, there is a crusade against the game currently. Some of it is genuinely warranted; I do think they were too edgy, though wouldn't call for its complete downfall as a result. I'd likely just want a few things renamed and move on. Most of it is not. There are VERY vocal groups that are livid at its "glorification of animal cruelty". And others that are livid at "the company that just stole pokemon models right from the games". Neither of these are exactly true. As of yet, there has not been any evidence put forward of AI art, lifting assets from other games, or child labor. Any allegation against them I have seen has already been debunked. If they actually did anything wrong, I do genuinely want them to be held responsible. However, I don't want a well made game potentially held back due to falsified rumors of a very vocal group with no backing. Please, when it comes to this game, do your research. Come to the conclusion yourself for what you think it did right or wrong and keep an eye out in case there are actual lawsuits. If there are none, then stealing assets definitely didn't happen and it clearly means it is far enough away from pokemon for even the vengeful Nintendo to allow. If Nintendo is ok with it, you really should be too (for pokemon comparison at the very least).

All that said, Devin and I are genuinely having a blast with this game. We're going to keep playing this game as time allows, so expect more uploads on it! In Devin's own words(Sean's words), "It combines the addiction of a survival game with the addiction of pokemon's gotta catch em all". It's the best of both worlds! So watch as we fill up our collection, find all those gray areas, and dismantle an evil organization!

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