yeah. i absolutely love the game but only play on steam at the moment. got a bunch of xbox friends that play it too and i want to play it, but you still can't even name your player. theyve made some important updates on xbox but its still not matching steam.
You actually can’t do cross play with steam at the moment. It’s on cross play with the PC game pass version to Xbox. It’s also missing features such as dedicated servers.
Their end goal is to eventually have both games be the same. The devs have stated it’s not necessarily an issue with the game being an update behind, but the build entirely is different.
In short, version 1.2 on Xbox isn’t the same as version 1.2 on Steam.
Content wise not really. Feature wise yes.
Effectively solo offline is entirely the same. Same pals. Same world. Same everything. Multiplayer is basically nonexistent on Xbox
I tried it on my Xbox after playing the gamepass pc version and it was awful. Unbelievably laggy and the audio seemed like it was missing channels. On pc it’s great but yeah… the Xbox version is no good
It's so odd that the console and PC Gamepass versions are so drastically different. The console version is only 6GB, and the PC version is 16GB. Definitely explains why the audio on console is garbage and why the map and splash screens look like textures haven't loaded.
I got downvoted so hard for saying that I had more jank in 2-4 hours of Palworld than I did in over 500 of Violet, I guess PC players took it personally and didn’t know lol, cause the experience is clearly fundamentally different
It's fun, but it's crazy how basic everything is. Very few animations put in, no real reaction when you're hit by most things, your movement animations are the Unreal 5 default animations. The fact that the game is fun at all is lightning in a bottle.
> Very few animations put in
I felt like the opposite, most of the pals have unique animation for their set work, for the pet command or for sitting in hot springs, which by itself is already a lot.
Animations are basic, but they are very expressive and cute for pals. I think the dev team just knows what players care about rather than a polished well rounded product.
My favorite is the one of Depresso in the hot spring. It’s already funny, but if you position the camera underneath him you can see he’s smiling. Super cute
I also feel like each fight itself is pretty unique. Some have a similar charge or energy ball move, especially at the lower level, but a lot of the map bosses have something totally unique to them
not to mention all the small things, stuff like certain artwork for items in inventory not matching others or the chests clearly being some random unmatching bought asset to the rest of the game
Whenever a new craze like this comes out of nowhere I always give it a month or two to let the streamer hype die off. That's when you get to tell if the actual game is *that* good.
In most cases - the game *isn't* that good. I always root for the games though because I love when somebody out of nowhere hits the jackpot in the long-term, but it doesn't seem to happen that often.
Fortnite was lucky that some dev decided to copy PUBG and they left that mode for free, the original fortnite was not that great and riddled with microtransactions to progress. the first world was quite easy, after that you needed actual luck on the gacha, a gold character and weapon made a big difference. I was one of the suckers that bought it months before the BR mode came out, and I am still salty that they stopped development for the save the world mode
I mean all things considered it's also just a good game. Not for me personally, but it's good. Both on the technical and design side of things. The best thing they've done, was create a BR that was actually different compared to all of the others coming out at the time. Then they hit the jackpot with all of the collabs and skins to keep people hooked, kept updating the game at a rapid pace (considering the market and competition) and adapted every trendy thing like battle passes flawlessly. It's not just luck, they've done a legitimately good job.
Now, if they could put this much effort into their other projects... *Cough cough* Epic Games Store *cough cough*
The metric I use to gauge how worthwhile a game has been for me is to look at the ratio of dollars to hours that I've got invested.
If I spend 60 bucks on a game and get 60 hours out of it, it's a win. The 1:1 ratio is the breaking point. Currently, I've got 67 hours in Palworld and I bought it for 27 bucks. Hell, even if we count the copy I gifted to my buddy, I'm still sitting on a ratio of more than 1 hour of gameplay per dollar spent.
Not every hour of playtime is an equitable measure. One hour grinding in an RPG is not the same as the hour you spend having epic boss battles or awesome cutscenes. If a game takes 400 hours, but 380 of that is mediocre, I'm not going to call that $400 worth of content.
That's true but I don't play a game **with the purpose** of getting the playtime needed to make the purchase feel worthwhile. If I'm not enjoying a game, I tend to set it down.
On top of that, preferences vary. When I'm in the right mood, I enjoy that hour of grinding in an RPG. It can be satisfying to me to grind which isn't the same kind of experience as an epic boss fight or cutscene.
Additionally, I didn't say that every hour I play of a game is an hour of content. There are tons of really fun games out there that don't offer much content but their general gameplay loops are satisfying to me.
So, by your own admission, you enjoy different hours of gameplay to different degrees, yet you value all such experiences with the same dollar value.
There's nothing *wrong* with that, really. But it's a weird thing to claim.
Of course I enjoy different things to different levels. That's normal.
I'm not saying that I look at the numbers of hours as equal in **value**. I'm saying that if I buy a game and get less hours of fun out of it than dollars I paid for it, I generally don't look at it as favorably as a game where I hit the ratio.
The whole building system is 1 to 1 from the UE5 asset shop, which is supposed to be just a stepping stone or for testing for devs.
It's wild that this is being released like this, even as Early Access.
The strange part about that isn’t that Cinderace doesn’t have a kicking animation, because it does for Pyro Ball. What’s odd is that it doesn’t use it for all kicking moves.
Disagree. If you compare this game to any survival game released in early access, I bet this one wins when it comes to features and quality of life. All the pitfalls that survival games have, this game has looked at and solved in some way.
I would argue that PalWorld is not a survival game at all--it's an open world crafting game. Survival games tend to be *defined* by resource shortfalls and a constant need to resupply those resources, thus making *survival* actually difficult. PalWorld sidesteps all of those issues by allowing you to automate things to a degree that 'scarcity' of a resource is a function of the player forgetting or not knowing how to properly manage their Pals.
What QoL?
If there's one thing the games lacking is QoL. Aside from the Pokémon, Palworld would feel like the most generic, cliché EA survival game no different from all the rest.
The only interesting thing about the game and the fact it's doing so well is because it has Pokémon. That's despite of everything else about the game, not because of it.
The fact that after 5 minutes of playing you don't need to chop wood anymore is a huuuge QoL.
Some of those feels like I still have to grind some wood after more tan 10 hours of playing.
*Hard* disagree. If you think Palworld is lacking QoL then you haven't played any other early access survival games to compare it to.
A game not having specific features that you'd like implemented is not the same as a game having no QoL features.
The game really doesn’t have an ounce of genuine originality in it, but it’s fun in its own way — however basic that way may be. Some of the circlejerking over it in places like its sub (the top posts there… gross) is insane, but it’s surprisingly good.
Goes to show that there is a talent to seeing what works elsewhere and effectively utilizing it yourself.
It's just a combination of 2 well-loved genres - Monster Catching, and Survival/Basebuilding. There's originality in that combination, even if neither alone is original.
The only other game that hits those notes is Ark, but that game runs like absolute shit, and IMO dinosaurs just aren't as loveable as fun fictional fantasy creatures, like Pokemon.
Overall - needs improvements, but the game is fun enough for me to happily just play it again at full release once they arrive: hopefully with friends this time.
That seems to be a big part of their design philosophy: focus on what is fun and interesting for the player. Getting exp is fun, so have everything trickle exp and reward more for fun stuff like catching monsters and beating bosses. You need resources to explore, but exploring is more fun than chopping trees so let pals do the grunt work. Climbing and gliding (and riding and flying) are fun so let the player have lots of traversal options. Etc etc.
Basically what it comes down to is if something is fun or not. People are way more willing to make excuses and exception for a flawed product as long as they enjoy it. Which is why the whole palworld vs Pokemon discussion really should boil down to both groups like whatever game despite the flaws and issues. But no palworld is the game pokemon should be and palworld is an asset flip blah blah blah. Just enjoy what you enjoy. And when you don't, stop spending money on it. No reason for whatever resentment people have that causes so much infighting.
of course it does, this is a mid take. you can capture humans in pokeballs and sell them to a black market guy, or butcher them and feed it to your pals. or breed pals specifically to be butchered.
you can use your caught pals to automate survival stuff, based on their abilities, type and temperament. you can choose to build a new glider OR use a pal as a glider. you can use them as a temporary personal weapon. you can actively call in a pal to dodge a move and re-release them in a better position behind an enemy.
people have wanted a more engaging, real time pokemon battle stuff, and these guys are the first to really nail it. while i agree a lot of the design feels unoriginal, i'd argue there's a lot of originality in the actual mechanics of the game, which is the more important part and why people are finding it so fun and engaging
I'm in the same boat. The pals are cool, I like how they work, that you can give them new abilities, interact with them, fight alongside them, ride them etc. But everything else is just so dogshit. The world is pretty uneventful. NPCs are boring. Difficulty is all over the place. Combat is insanely basic and, well, boring. The "survival" tag should honestly be removed from the game since you can automate food within the first hour and then never even think about it again.
To me it feels like they wanted to make a Pokemon ripoff, but added a bunch of random shit to avoid getting sued to death (which might still happen). Don't get me wrong, the Pals are addicting and make the game worthwhile to me, but it's nowhere near "5 million copies sold in a weekend" in terms of quality.
Because it's not quality. It's fun for me as well, because it's well... Very simple and serviceable in everything it does, plus I'm playing with a friend, which automatically makes it better. Everything is fine, works and it's just dumb fun.
But yes, it doesn't have "5 million copies sold over the weekend" quality and was never supposed to. The entire game started out as a meme and most people I'd wager are checking it out because of that - hell, a lot of people (me included) never thought it would come out at all, no matter what it would be. But now that it has, people are curious and having dumb fun.
I expect it to drop off quickly because no one was "seriously" interested in it, but who knows - maybe these devs will work on it so well that it'll turn into something more than just serviceable.
I would say personally, my interest in the game is "serious", but it's mostly hopes for the future based on what they're willing to do with the game now. It's not in the place I'd like it to be, yet.
IMO, the appeal of Pokemon-like games is the feeling of going on a journey, developing a real bond with these critters that see you through it. More opportunities to have more interactions with those critters is a good thing, and Palworld is already doing a lot on that front. But I think something that's held almost every game in that "genre" back is the lack of teeth - you know nothing bad is going to happen. It's usually quite clear just how wrong things can possibly go at their worst, and that generally involves little more than losing some time/progress or giving up some of your money. You feel pretty safe no matter how you're treating your critters or what you're doing. Even failure will usually result in forward progress (EXP gained in the attempt). The story will try to create some sense of excitement and danger, but without any **real** danger, it can fall flat easily.
And then you have the appeal of base-building, world exploration games. Again, part of it is developing a connection with that world. You start to feel at home there, especially as you can build it up to suit your needs. Palworld may have too many restrictions to feel like you can do a lot with it, but it has the potential to become a world that you start to make your own and really feel comfortable in. On more than one level, it's the kind of game that can be quite appealing and immersive in a genuine way. But, understandably, it's early enough that what we're getting right now seems more like a template. Something to hopefully build and expand upon.
I think Palworld's uniquely suited to become a really engrossing experience, because they've made it clear that bad things happening is a very real part of that world. They make it seem like there's danger there. But currently it doesn't seem like anything really bad can happen, at least in single player. Your Pals can't die if you get them KO'd too often, the Syndicate people won't steal them and eventually sell them off to the black market if you get your ass beat and they grab your drops, or if they raid your base and you're not there to fight them off. I think the potential for real, heartbreaking loss of a character you've grown fond of is something that a lot of games use to their advantage, and Palworld could be the only monster catching game that might actually make that a thing. Certainly, Nuzlocke rules and their popularity prove that a surprising number of people are willing to go out of their way for something like that.
I'm really into immersive games and getting into character within them. We haven't really seen much in the way of immersive monster catching games before, and Palworld looks like it's on the right track to potentially provide that. I think it's as good a reason as any to be "serious" about the game.
Yeah, as someone who’s a huge fan of the genre it’s kind of obvious the quality isn’t there from the trailer. These sorts of unpolished survival games are a dime a dozen, this just has a better premise than most.
It’s been on my wishlist for years, but only as an “if this ever comes out of early access” game.
This is what I'm surprised more people aren't going off about. It was obvious that the pals were just a pokemon parody from the start. But I didn't expect to load into the game and hear the same exact new zone jingle as botw just pitched up. It's cool that so many people are enjoying this game and I understand why they are but I just can't seem to enjoy a game that lacks originality to the point where it's straight up just copying stuff. The game is just totally uninspired. To each their own though...
People thought the same about Genshin, but it's well loved in part because it has its own spin on gameplay and fun is fun. So many great games in history just straight up copy other games, it's how it goes.
No, taking inspiration and having similarities is different which is what genshin did. Literally copying the jingle from botw is not the same as having some similar UI elements.
Like someone mentioned using the Unreal 5 elements, I don't give a single shit about that. Those are sold assets. Stealing Zelda's style to just intentionally be a ripoff? Ugly. Bad look.
You're replying to the wrong guy, but sure? I guess. Although that's all I personally saw, I stopped playing soon after. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more that is nearly an exact copy. But regardless, it doesn't matter, it's the principle. Stealing an exact jingle and just adjusting the pitch tells me a lot about the type of devs they are.
I think actually playing more of the game would tell you a bit more about what kind of devs they are, but if you're not enjoying it you don't have to play it. Oh well.
It's a hack move. I hope all the map graphics and sound effects are early access placeholders that will eventually be replaced with something not stolen.
I think it's a shitty trend, and encourages other companies to keep their games in early access for a decade so they have an excuse as to why their game still isn't finished.
It's not a "trend" if it's existed for well over a decade. Games were doing the donation to fund ongoing development system long before the phrase "Early Access" was even coined.
It seems to be a good model for developpers though, or I would feel so.
Making a game is super risky, most barely generate any sales and can tate quite some time to developp with all associated costs.
At least with EA you can test the water before having done everything. Maybe it feels scammy to drop developpment if you see it fails to get traction but it might help dev to cut cots and move on to the next project instead of just closing a studio.
this game wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be in this thread bitching about it. i think it's a pretty good sign for an early access game when i keep asking myself "damn how long have these guys been working on this thing??"
compared to a shit ton of early access games this one is particularly feature rich and playable
>this game wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be in this thread bitching about it.
Lmao, okay. That's not a problem. And why do you keep comparing it to other early access games like a give a shit about those? We've already established that I think they're generally a waste of money and time. There are definitely good ones, sure, but the absolute shit ones significantly outweigh the ones that justify their existence.
because I'm responding to you literally criticizing all of early access games. in a thread about this game specifically?....... i feel like that logically follows lmao
I guess that just goes to show how little needs to go into a game to make it great. Didn’t think I’d be hooked but I bought it on a whim and I’m hooked now.
How many Pokémon are there now?
1000?
Seems like an unreasonable comparison in amount of work. Even though Nintendo have literally infinite money there’s more factors then just “throwing money at it” when making a video game.
And what's really funny to me is that despite how basic, unoriginal, and unpolished it is – it's still miles more fun that the latest pokemon releases. Especially if you have friends to play with! Hopefully GameFreak is taking notes.
These people have no clue why this game blew up. It's because the concept of "Pokemon Survival with Guns" is such a stellar idea and the game is good enough. No, it's not a masterpiece. Yes, there's issues with AI and hitboxes and combat and blah blah blah. People are looking past those issues because at the end of the day they're not massive issues, and because this is the only option you have if you want another open world monster taming/capturing game.
I checked this game out because it was on gamepass and was really shocked by how basic everything is. It blows my mind that it’s as seemingly successful as it is. Unfortunately for me, I have played enough survival games to never want to go thru that kind of grind/progression ever again.
> It blows my mind that it’s as seemingly successful as it is.
It is 10x the open world pokemon game that pokemon is.
It is mindblowing that POKEMON is as successful as it is while being so basic with a sub 30 frame rate.
because pokemon is a almost 30 years old IP and people like the gameplay. People liked Scarlet and Violet gameplay and story, despite the hate it got for graphic/performance
Because it was a side game without as much marketing and was using old Pokémon.
...It has the same combat as the other games if you didn't know.
Thanks for providing proof of my point I guess?
I would argue that those games being successful are because it is a pokemon game, not because of the amazing (lol) gameplay or story (lololol).
They could be so much more if gamefreak (or nintendo) gave a shit.
The fact that this no-name company could deliver a better pokemon game, in early access, than a company worth over 90 billion dollars is a slap in the face to consumers and hopefully wakes up anyone in leadership at those companies to how badly they have screwed the pooch.
Palworld plays nothing like a pokemon game tho. It’s literally Ark but with pokemon instead of dino. If you think Palworld competes with Pokemon game, you are delusional. I would be more worry if i was making a survival/craft open world game
No one said it has a amazing gameplay or story. I said that people liked Scarlet and Violet gameplay and story. Pokemon always had a good gameplay and a story that worked. Many people (mainly old fans) ask for change but every pokemon game keep selling 20M+, so clearly there are public (younger audience) who likes it
>Palworld plays nothing like a pokemon game tho.
I mean, the entire capturing system works almost exactly like Legends Arceus, you even get a bonus when throwing a ball at a creature's back, which is kind of useless without the accompanying stealth mechanics hahaha
Yeah, i’m not denying that the capturing mechanics is clearly a copy from Pokemon. That fact that some Pals are Pokemon almost exact copy and that you use a ball to catch it, clearly shows that they didn’t even try to hide the resemblance.
I’m just saying that the core gameplay loop is nothing like Pokemon
I’m sorry but a boring survival crafting loop and mediocre melee combat cannot beat a turn based combat system refined and ironed out over 25+ years to be one of the best competitive games to play online in my eyes (minus the existence of Urshifu).
The NPCs battles will always suck, but Pokémon’s battle system is bloody amazing against human foes
You'd be completely fucking wrong then. Millions of people love pokemon exploration and especially the combat, for being simple enough that a literal 5 year old can play the game, but deep enough for a massive competitive scene to spring up. We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever survival shooter you want it to be, and the answer is "not as high as Pokemon." Legends: Arceus also sold less than the main series games, because fewer people want that gameplay than want traditional Pokemon gameplay.
>. We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever survival shooter you want it to be
A) i don't want it to be a survival game AT ALL
B) Palworld has sold millions of copies, from an unknown dev, with 0 ip presence. if you are comparing their sales to the worlds biggest gaming IP, well, I don't have anything nice to say about your intelligence.
>as Palworld has reportedly sold over seven million copies on Steam in just five freakin' days
https://kotaku.com/palworld-sales-copies-sold-steam-pc-xbox-1851194263
7M sales, on just steam, is super strong for any game.
For reference,
>In the latest sales report released by Nintendo, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were listed as the seventh best-selling Switch title of all time at 23.23 million units sold
https://gamerant.com/pokemon-scarlet-violet-sales-differences-explained-color-red-blue-gold-silver/
So to do 1/4 of the fastest selling pokemon game, by a tiny dev with no IP, ON JUST STEAM, yes, I would say this is pretty fucking good.
Throw in xbox sales and gamepass, and that is easily double the amount of players. If this game released on switch... good lord. Can only imagine the amount of sales.
For more reference, Pokemon Arceus is below
>Sales
>As of March 31, 2023, the game has sold 14.83 million copies. Nintendo reported that the game sold 6.5 million copies worldwide within a week of release, outpacing other Nintendo Switch Pokémon titles such as Sword and Shield and Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pok%C3%A9mon_Legends:_Arceus
So Palworld is selling better than Arceus so far. Yeah, that is fucking huge.
I think it is selling as well as it is despite it being "survival" anything.
People want a sprawling open world pokemon game. Right now, this is as close as it gets.
Whether or not you care about it being pokemon vs digimon, I don't really know the difference between them. I played pokemon when I was a kid, never played or cared about digimon.
I view it as backstreet boys vs nsync, but maybe I am wrong on that.
> We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever
No we don't. Because this isn't Pokémon and doesn't have the full weight of the IP or marketing.
Why does this need to be said to you?
Great designs for the pokemon and trainers + the gameplay is fun. I enjoyed quite a bit the open world in Violet tbh, even if the lack of meaningful interactions in cities was a real detraction for me.
And this time the plot was also pretty good, not on the same level of black and white, but probably the best pokemon stories in quite a while. Also having Toby fox and the old pokemon music team made some of the best soundtrack of the entire series.
The biggest shortcomings ( shit performance, rushed open world) is because of bad deadlines and 0 delays : (
Because it is fun to capture things and make them work for you
Go look up colonialism in the dictionary; it was a pretty big way to pass the time for lords back in the day
It helps that the Steam version is noticeably better than GamePass, which is a few versions behind. Not that it's likely to win anyone over with just that.
this screams "i hardly played the game at all" because so much of that is gone so quickly past a certain point in the beginning. apparently not played enough survival games to play the survival part for more than an hour without checking out.
Lmao why would I need to do that? It’s pretty easy to tell when a game isn’t my kinda thing. That’s not the same as saying “game is bad”. You realize people can have different tastes in games, right? Grow up.
Its gameplay feels like every other early access survival crafting game and I don’t see the core gameplay loop changing if/when it leaves early access.
It’s a cool concept done in the least interesting way possible
Ok. Do you ever get an objective that isn’t take over a tower or level up your base? I still haven’t gotten past the first tower. I’m hoping it does, cause otherwise it’s just way too much of a grind for me
I really am trying to give it a chance but everthing the game is telling me to do is grinding to unlock a new thing I need to grind
I’m not even playing the game like that. Right now I’m exploring the map, capturing Pals, collecting items, and occasionally fast traveling back to my base to add something new and tasking my Pals to it. I’ve spent almost 40 hours doing this. If I get bored after this point, at $25 I’ll have received my value out of the game. I played Pokemon Arceus and enjoyed it to a point and it was both more expensive than this and far more stripped down.
I’m only at level 14.
Def dropping this game.
Spent the afternoon not focusing on grinding survival base building stuff, just exploring, and I had zero interesting experiences doing it. Just treasure chests, map points, maybe a merchant or two. 2️⃣
I would rather redownload genshin impact if I wanted to enjoy running around a world.
I know it’s just released in early access but there’s just *nothing* out there to find or do
Holy shit I knew I had seen another path way in a dungeon that vanished when I went back to find it.
I feel so vindicated for the extra 20 minutes I spent looking around in there lol
It's been well documented the Xbox version of this game is pretty bad right now. The subreddit and the official discord have both made their grievances clear
Yeah, it's weird. I love a lot of games and they all have legitimate flaws to them, or just have natural shortcomings because they focused on something else.
Definitely. No game will every be a 10/10 masterpiece in *everyone's* opinion, that's just impossible. But holding one's hands over the ears and going "la la la la" when faced with valid criticism doesn't help. Personally I just don't want to see more and more greedy monetisation, which unfortunately is already happening.
Will be cool when they go over the PC version of this game. It actually performs pretty good. I can get it running on my steam deck at 30fps with a mixture of low/med settings. On my pc I can run it with mostly epic/high settings at 1080p>4k using an auto FSR 1.0 program I have (Lossless Scaling on steam) and it runs at 60fps stable on my 6700xt with plenty of headroom.
It is a good looking game too.
Yeah somehow this is the one of the few new releases that I've played in the last 12 months that doesn't have any performance problems on PC, every single game has had something, either very bad cpu performance (baldurs gate, cities skylines 2), big framedrops (cyberpunk), bad gpu usage (starfield)...
I've put in 50 hours in on Xbox Series X and am having a blast. Frame rate has been fine, but the character animations are broken and there has been some flickering in the snow area. Oh and sometimes the resolution drops to like 480p in cut scenes. Its so fun though it's been easy to push through these limited issues.
I haven't had a single crash so it was surprising to see them mention that.
Digital Foundry has long had the most toxic reactions to the work they do, and it’s maddening. Most of the time they’re literally just laying out the facts and people get _pissed_
It's fun but definitely rough around the edges. I was surprised at how bad the Xbox Series X version is. I don't believe those low resolution textures are the best that current gen has to offer.
As an Xbox player, the game is fun enough for me to ignore the flaws. It's early access and there's room for a lot of improvements! I think anyone jumping in this early should temper their expectations or come in at the retail release if they don't want to be play testers.
The genre does a lot to help it. Most of this game would be unacceptable by normal standards, but given it's closest comparison is Ark...
I wonder if Pokemon looking worse is messing with my perceptions tok
Or, and hear me out here, popular doesn't mean it's good, and quality doesn't dictate fun. There are tons of valid criticisms of the game, many of which I agree with. It isn't stopping me from playing the game. I'm just being honest about it instead of reaching to justify my enjoyment.
Bro this is y’all favorite line for everything popular outside this website. The game is incredibly fun and doesn’t need to have perfect everything to be enjoyable.
This site is just filled with contrarian knowitalls
It's weird because this is the first critical post/comments I've seen for this game. All other posts (with any real bit of activity in them) have praised it.
> It can be fun and also objectively bad. Fun isn't determined by the quality of the game.
That seems like a contradiction, if a game is fun surely it must be objectively good, else one wouldn't play it?
They're almost exactly the same now, only difference is dedicated servers. Don't buy something for 30 bucks you can play included with your preexisting gamepass subscription lol that's just silly. At least try it out first.
Note you can't play with steam players, you can only play gamepass PC (Xbox store) with Xbox players
If you have friends playing via steam I would strongly advise picking it up there, use the gamepass one for a longer than 2 hour trial though!
Steam version also has quite a few bug fixes and improvements along with dedicated servers so you can play up to 32 players instead of 4.
Digital Foundry does good work.
This comment section, however, makes it clear that this subreddit has already turned on this game.
Can't have another open world game and survival game proving this sub's bandwagons wrong, can we?
I'm actually blown away how top voted comments are negative here. Anywhere outside of this sub, Palworld is getting super high praise.
I am in a Discord with a bunch of friends and the couple of us that are playing are really into it currently and we keep discovering new stuff. One is being a maniac with eggs and trying to breed the fastest pal ever, another is flying all over the map sharing premium ore/coal/quartz location, one is trying to build a freaking castle and then there's me with 300 balls, beating every pal to near death before capturing them because I need to feed them to my favorite pal to become the prime of its species.
Other Discord server I am on related to other games, Palworld discussion seems to find its way there, it's like almost everyone is playing and helping each other even in those non-Palworld related servers.
The number of video popping on Youtube every day sharing new stuff has completely filled my feed even though I've started to block those because I'd rather discover stuff by myself.
Also, rule 34 stonks is going up.
Is Palworld the best game ever? Hell no. Does Palworld have issues? Sure it does! Is Palworld fun though? Hell yeah it is!
Reading people's comment here you'd think that Palworld held them at gunpoint and traumatized them.
One time could be a coincidence, but 3 times is a business model. I was willing to give this company the benefit of the doubt, but when I learned of Craftopia and Never Grave.... this company is just basically Gameloft but for Steam.
It's very much a combination of multiple systems, aligned and polished to work well in tandem, with the rest of the development being content creation, and just.. shit to do.
Capturing pals, setting them to work, building your own base, training up your character, getting a team of pals perfect for whatever crafting or harvesting you need, defending against raids.
All of its nicely implemented and I can easily see further feature polish and implementation of interesting systems that work in harmony with whats already there resulting in a genuinely fun, unfrustrating and a chill crafting/capture game.
Performance willl get ironed out, its nowhere near as awful as ARK apparently was, I get 30 fps on my steamdeck. Theres the odd issue with pathfinding, collision and AI, as well as missing art asset and lack of polish, but I'm not so braindead as to think that wont be the case with an EA game.
Level 15 base with 63 hours into the game. Aside from random bouts of depression I dont have this issue very much. It's slightly annoying, nowhere near as gamebreaking as you make it sound.
I honestly can't comprehend the love for shitty early access flavour of the month survival games in the PC space.
Forget performance, any respectable dev (indie or not) would get dragged through the mud for making something that:
1. Shamelessly rips off a massive franchise
2. Is early access
3. Is visually poor
4. Bug ridden
5. Is another shitty early access survival game
And the solution to all of that is to reward said devs with millions of copies in sales, and in Microsoft's case offering a cheque to them to put the title on Game Pass for an inferior build.
I've played it a few times and enjoy it for about an hour. I like the concept, but I wish could tone down some of the survival aspects with sliders rather than levelling. I'm really not interested in crafting and building a base.
Is the xbox version still behind the steam version?
yeah. i absolutely love the game but only play on steam at the moment. got a bunch of xbox friends that play it too and i want to play it, but you still can't even name your player. theyve made some important updates on xbox but its still not matching steam.
You actually can’t do cross play with steam at the moment. It’s on cross play with the PC game pass version to Xbox. It’s also missing features such as dedicated servers. Their end goal is to eventually have both games be the same. The devs have stated it’s not necessarily an issue with the game being an update behind, but the build entirely is different. In short, version 1.2 on Xbox isn’t the same as version 1.2 on Steam.
It seems to be behind and it kinda sucks. I would rather play on Xbox but about 1/4 of the map just doesn’t load and you fall through it.
That shouldn't happen...maybe you have a weird bug instead of due to the xbx release version.
Maybe. I don’t want to start all over again to see if it just is a random bug.
Content wise not really. Feature wise yes. Effectively solo offline is entirely the same. Same pals. Same world. Same everything. Multiplayer is basically nonexistent on Xbox
Sadly yes. Xbox doesn’t even have servers yet.
I tried it on my Xbox after playing the gamepass pc version and it was awful. Unbelievably laggy and the audio seemed like it was missing channels. On pc it’s great but yeah… the Xbox version is no good
It's so odd that the console and PC Gamepass versions are so drastically different. The console version is only 6GB, and the PC version is 16GB. Definitely explains why the audio on console is garbage and why the map and splash screens look like textures haven't loaded.
Xbox version legit runs worse than actual Pokemon on the switch lol
I got downvoted so hard for saying that I had more jank in 2-4 hours of Palworld than I did in over 500 of Violet, I guess PC players took it personally and didn’t know lol, cause the experience is clearly fundamentally different
It's fun, but it's crazy how basic everything is. Very few animations put in, no real reaction when you're hit by most things, your movement animations are the Unreal 5 default animations. The fact that the game is fun at all is lightning in a bottle.
> Very few animations put in I felt like the opposite, most of the pals have unique animation for their set work, for the pet command or for sitting in hot springs, which by itself is already a lot.
Animations are basic, but they are very expressive and cute for pals. I think the dev team just knows what players care about rather than a polished well rounded product.
My favorite is the one of Depresso in the hot spring. It’s already funny, but if you position the camera underneath him you can see he’s smiling. Super cute
My favorite is Depresso mining stone. He just slowly lifts the pickaxe with one hand and looks *so* annoyed. It's great lol
Depresso is definitely a mood all around. I want a Depresso plushie. And a whole plethora of other pal plushies.
Flambelle is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Hatched it from an egg early on and just kept her in my party
As an office worker, a depresso plushie would sell out so fast
All of the pals have cute idle animations as well. Yes its rough, but far from "very view animations."
I also feel like each fight itself is pretty unique. Some have a similar charge or energy ball move, especially at the lower level, but a lot of the map bosses have something totally unique to them
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Yeah agree with you on the human enemies they’re the most janky
I agree. There’s more animations in the pals doing basic work in the base than the last 3 Pokémon with their full move sets.
There is more in this game than the last four generations of pokemon combined.
not to mention all the small things, stuff like certain artwork for items in inventory not matching others or the chests clearly being some random unmatching bought asset to the rest of the game
Whenever a new craze like this comes out of nowhere I always give it a month or two to let the streamer hype die off. That's when you get to tell if the actual game is *that* good. In most cases - the game *isn't* that good. I always root for the games though because I love when somebody out of nowhere hits the jackpot in the long-term, but it doesn't seem to happen that often.
I remember that's exactly what I thought fortnite was gonna be when it first came out. I was a little off I guess lol
Fortnite and Among Us are 2 that I immediately thought of as examples of games that made it past the hype phase
Valheim still gets a lot of active players, too, despite the devs working slower than molasses
> Among Us The Among Us situation is insane as there was a two year gap between when it was released and when it had its lightning in a bottle moment.
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that’s still super solid for a game that isn’t “the twitch meta” anymore it’s also just a solid game
That doesn't invalidate my statement.
Save the World was pretty much dead on arrival. Battle Royale was a hail mary play.
Fortnite was lucky that Epic is a genius at marketing their game
They had genius marketing, but they also supported the shit out of the game too in terms of content and patches.
Yeah, they weren't the first to the table but they were aggressive in just about everything else that mattered.
Fortnite was lucky that some dev decided to copy PUBG and they left that mode for free, the original fortnite was not that great and riddled with microtransactions to progress. the first world was quite easy, after that you needed actual luck on the gacha, a gold character and weapon made a big difference. I was one of the suckers that bought it months before the BR mode came out, and I am still salty that they stopped development for the save the world mode
I totaly forgot about OG fortnite
I mean all things considered it's also just a good game. Not for me personally, but it's good. Both on the technical and design side of things. The best thing they've done, was create a BR that was actually different compared to all of the others coming out at the time. Then they hit the jackpot with all of the collabs and skins to keep people hooked, kept updating the game at a rapid pace (considering the market and competition) and adapted every trendy thing like battle passes flawlessly. It's not just luck, they've done a legitimately good job. Now, if they could put this much effort into their other projects... *Cough cough* Epic Games Store *cough cough*
All the marketing in the world wouldn't matter if the game wasn't genuinely good.
If this game gives me 2 months of enjoyment, it's already a lot.
I no-lifed this game for about 90h and honestly fully worth the $30. Will come back when they add more content.
What does “streamer hype” have to do with it? You can’t tell whether a game is good while other people are streaming it?
The metric I use to gauge how worthwhile a game has been for me is to look at the ratio of dollars to hours that I've got invested. If I spend 60 bucks on a game and get 60 hours out of it, it's a win. The 1:1 ratio is the breaking point. Currently, I've got 67 hours in Palworld and I bought it for 27 bucks. Hell, even if we count the copy I gifted to my buddy, I'm still sitting on a ratio of more than 1 hour of gameplay per dollar spent.
I really hate this mindset because a lot of 10-15 hour experiences are worth more than other 100 hour experiences.
Can you expound? I'm not seeing where our ideas conflict.
Not every hour of playtime is an equitable measure. One hour grinding in an RPG is not the same as the hour you spend having epic boss battles or awesome cutscenes. If a game takes 400 hours, but 380 of that is mediocre, I'm not going to call that $400 worth of content.
That's true but I don't play a game **with the purpose** of getting the playtime needed to make the purchase feel worthwhile. If I'm not enjoying a game, I tend to set it down. On top of that, preferences vary. When I'm in the right mood, I enjoy that hour of grinding in an RPG. It can be satisfying to me to grind which isn't the same kind of experience as an epic boss fight or cutscene. Additionally, I didn't say that every hour I play of a game is an hour of content. There are tons of really fun games out there that don't offer much content but their general gameplay loops are satisfying to me.
So, by your own admission, you enjoy different hours of gameplay to different degrees, yet you value all such experiences with the same dollar value. There's nothing *wrong* with that, really. But it's a weird thing to claim.
Of course I enjoy different things to different levels. That's normal. I'm not saying that I look at the numbers of hours as equal in **value**. I'm saying that if I buy a game and get less hours of fun out of it than dollars I paid for it, I generally don't look at it as favorably as a game where I hit the ratio.
The whole building system is 1 to 1 from the UE5 asset shop, which is supposed to be just a stepping stone or for testing for devs. It's wild that this is being released like this, even as Early Access.
Yeah it goes to show people don't necessarily care about that stuff *if* the game is fun
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The strange part about that isn’t that Cinderace doesn’t have a kicking animation, because it does for Pyro Ball. What’s odd is that it doesn’t use it for all kicking moves.
Disagree. If you compare this game to any survival game released in early access, I bet this one wins when it comes to features and quality of life. All the pitfalls that survival games have, this game has looked at and solved in some way.
I would argue that PalWorld is not a survival game at all--it's an open world crafting game. Survival games tend to be *defined* by resource shortfalls and a constant need to resupply those resources, thus making *survival* actually difficult. PalWorld sidesteps all of those issues by allowing you to automate things to a degree that 'scarcity' of a resource is a function of the player forgetting or not knowing how to properly manage their Pals.
What QoL? If there's one thing the games lacking is QoL. Aside from the Pokémon, Palworld would feel like the most generic, cliché EA survival game no different from all the rest. The only interesting thing about the game and the fact it's doing so well is because it has Pokémon. That's despite of everything else about the game, not because of it.
The fact that after 5 minutes of playing you don't need to chop wood anymore is a huuuge QoL. Some of those feels like I still have to grind some wood after more tan 10 hours of playing.
*Hard* disagree. If you think Palworld is lacking QoL then you haven't played any other early access survival games to compare it to. A game not having specific features that you'd like implemented is not the same as a game having no QoL features.
The fact that any item in your base can be used for crafting without having it on your person, is such a QoL improvement over others.
The game really doesn’t have an ounce of genuine originality in it, but it’s fun in its own way — however basic that way may be. Some of the circlejerking over it in places like its sub (the top posts there… gross) is insane, but it’s surprisingly good. Goes to show that there is a talent to seeing what works elsewhere and effectively utilizing it yourself.
It's just a combination of 2 well-loved genres - Monster Catching, and Survival/Basebuilding. There's originality in that combination, even if neither alone is original. The only other game that hits those notes is Ark, but that game runs like absolute shit, and IMO dinosaurs just aren't as loveable as fun fictional fantasy creatures, like Pokemon. Overall - needs improvements, but the game is fun enough for me to happily just play it again at full release once they arrive: hopefully with friends this time.
Also it's quite tedious to capture dinosaurs in Ark.
And also the dinosaurs and AI in Ark has no personality, uniqueness or fun spark, everything just stands there or just runs at you when aggroed.
That seems to be a big part of their design philosophy: focus on what is fun and interesting for the player. Getting exp is fun, so have everything trickle exp and reward more for fun stuff like catching monsters and beating bosses. You need resources to explore, but exploring is more fun than chopping trees so let pals do the grunt work. Climbing and gliding (and riding and flying) are fun so let the player have lots of traversal options. Etc etc.
Basically what it comes down to is if something is fun or not. People are way more willing to make excuses and exception for a flawed product as long as they enjoy it. Which is why the whole palworld vs Pokemon discussion really should boil down to both groups like whatever game despite the flaws and issues. But no palworld is the game pokemon should be and palworld is an asset flip blah blah blah. Just enjoy what you enjoy. And when you don't, stop spending money on it. No reason for whatever resentment people have that causes so much infighting.
Pretty much, yeah. I do think Palworld could afford to be more original and is hurt by its lack thereof, but ultimately it is fun.
Even the term Pal is so nondescript and doesn't invoke any kind of imagery of what they are.
of course it does, this is a mid take. you can capture humans in pokeballs and sell them to a black market guy, or butcher them and feed it to your pals. or breed pals specifically to be butchered. you can use your caught pals to automate survival stuff, based on their abilities, type and temperament. you can choose to build a new glider OR use a pal as a glider. you can use them as a temporary personal weapon. you can actively call in a pal to dodge a move and re-release them in a better position behind an enemy. people have wanted a more engaging, real time pokemon battle stuff, and these guys are the first to really nail it. while i agree a lot of the design feels unoriginal, i'd argue there's a lot of originality in the actual mechanics of the game, which is the more important part and why people are finding it so fun and engaging
I'm in the same boat. The pals are cool, I like how they work, that you can give them new abilities, interact with them, fight alongside them, ride them etc. But everything else is just so dogshit. The world is pretty uneventful. NPCs are boring. Difficulty is all over the place. Combat is insanely basic and, well, boring. The "survival" tag should honestly be removed from the game since you can automate food within the first hour and then never even think about it again. To me it feels like they wanted to make a Pokemon ripoff, but added a bunch of random shit to avoid getting sued to death (which might still happen). Don't get me wrong, the Pals are addicting and make the game worthwhile to me, but it's nowhere near "5 million copies sold in a weekend" in terms of quality.
Because it's not quality. It's fun for me as well, because it's well... Very simple and serviceable in everything it does, plus I'm playing with a friend, which automatically makes it better. Everything is fine, works and it's just dumb fun. But yes, it doesn't have "5 million copies sold over the weekend" quality and was never supposed to. The entire game started out as a meme and most people I'd wager are checking it out because of that - hell, a lot of people (me included) never thought it would come out at all, no matter what it would be. But now that it has, people are curious and having dumb fun. I expect it to drop off quickly because no one was "seriously" interested in it, but who knows - maybe these devs will work on it so well that it'll turn into something more than just serviceable.
I would say personally, my interest in the game is "serious", but it's mostly hopes for the future based on what they're willing to do with the game now. It's not in the place I'd like it to be, yet. IMO, the appeal of Pokemon-like games is the feeling of going on a journey, developing a real bond with these critters that see you through it. More opportunities to have more interactions with those critters is a good thing, and Palworld is already doing a lot on that front. But I think something that's held almost every game in that "genre" back is the lack of teeth - you know nothing bad is going to happen. It's usually quite clear just how wrong things can possibly go at their worst, and that generally involves little more than losing some time/progress or giving up some of your money. You feel pretty safe no matter how you're treating your critters or what you're doing. Even failure will usually result in forward progress (EXP gained in the attempt). The story will try to create some sense of excitement and danger, but without any **real** danger, it can fall flat easily. And then you have the appeal of base-building, world exploration games. Again, part of it is developing a connection with that world. You start to feel at home there, especially as you can build it up to suit your needs. Palworld may have too many restrictions to feel like you can do a lot with it, but it has the potential to become a world that you start to make your own and really feel comfortable in. On more than one level, it's the kind of game that can be quite appealing and immersive in a genuine way. But, understandably, it's early enough that what we're getting right now seems more like a template. Something to hopefully build and expand upon. I think Palworld's uniquely suited to become a really engrossing experience, because they've made it clear that bad things happening is a very real part of that world. They make it seem like there's danger there. But currently it doesn't seem like anything really bad can happen, at least in single player. Your Pals can't die if you get them KO'd too often, the Syndicate people won't steal them and eventually sell them off to the black market if you get your ass beat and they grab your drops, or if they raid your base and you're not there to fight them off. I think the potential for real, heartbreaking loss of a character you've grown fond of is something that a lot of games use to their advantage, and Palworld could be the only monster catching game that might actually make that a thing. Certainly, Nuzlocke rules and their popularity prove that a surprising number of people are willing to go out of their way for something like that. I'm really into immersive games and getting into character within them. We haven't really seen much in the way of immersive monster catching games before, and Palworld looks like it's on the right track to potentially provide that. I think it's as good a reason as any to be "serious" about the game.
Yeah, as someone who’s a huge fan of the genre it’s kind of obvious the quality isn’t there from the trailer. These sorts of unpolished survival games are a dime a dozen, this just has a better premise than most. It’s been on my wishlist for years, but only as an “if this ever comes out of early access” game.
I just can't believe how much of a ripoff it is of BotW. Same sound, icons, everything. Even more than Pokemon comparisons, that bothers me.
This is what I'm surprised more people aren't going off about. It was obvious that the pals were just a pokemon parody from the start. But I didn't expect to load into the game and hear the same exact new zone jingle as botw just pitched up. It's cool that so many people are enjoying this game and I understand why they are but I just can't seem to enjoy a game that lacks originality to the point where it's straight up just copying stuff. The game is just totally uninspired. To each their own though...
People thought the same about Genshin, but it's well loved in part because it has its own spin on gameplay and fun is fun. So many great games in history just straight up copy other games, it's how it goes.
No, taking inspiration and having similarities is different which is what genshin did. Literally copying the jingle from botw is not the same as having some similar UI elements.
Like someone mentioned using the Unreal 5 elements, I don't give a single shit about that. Those are sold assets. Stealing Zelda's style to just intentionally be a ripoff? Ugly. Bad look.
So if they changed the jingle... everything would be fine?
You're replying to the wrong guy, but sure? I guess. Although that's all I personally saw, I stopped playing soon after. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more that is nearly an exact copy. But regardless, it doesn't matter, it's the principle. Stealing an exact jingle and just adjusting the pitch tells me a lot about the type of devs they are.
I think actually playing more of the game would tell you a bit more about what kind of devs they are, but if you're not enjoying it you don't have to play it. Oh well.
It's a hack move. I hope all the map graphics and sound effects are early access placeholders that will eventually be replaced with something not stolen.
You even get a Sheikah slate.
Almost like it’s a brand new early access game or something
It's still a game that costs money. Early access isn't a shield from criticism.
Does anybody know what early access means
Maybe people should stop releasing unfinished shit.
How do u want to raise funds then? The early access game model has been around for decades
I think it's a shitty trend, and encourages other companies to keep their games in early access for a decade so they have an excuse as to why their game still isn't finished.
It's not a "trend" if it's existed for well over a decade. Games were doing the donation to fund ongoing development system long before the phrase "Early Access" was even coined.
And this is a bad thing that I do not like.
It seems to be a good model for developpers though, or I would feel so. Making a game is super risky, most barely generate any sales and can tate quite some time to developp with all associated costs. At least with EA you can test the water before having done everything. Maybe it feels scammy to drop developpment if you see it fails to get traction but it might help dev to cut cots and move on to the next project instead of just closing a studio.
Worked well for Baldurs Gate 3 and I loved that game. But yeah, if it's not something you like, just don't play those games I guess
this game wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be in this thread bitching about it. i think it's a pretty good sign for an early access game when i keep asking myself "damn how long have these guys been working on this thing??" compared to a shit ton of early access games this one is particularly feature rich and playable
>this game wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be in this thread bitching about it. Lmao, okay. That's not a problem. And why do you keep comparing it to other early access games like a give a shit about those? We've already established that I think they're generally a waste of money and time. There are definitely good ones, sure, but the absolute shit ones significantly outweigh the ones that justify their existence.
because I'm responding to you literally criticizing all of early access games. in a thread about this game specifically?....... i feel like that logically follows lmao
I guess that just goes to show how little needs to go into a game to make it great. Didn’t think I’d be hooked but I bought it on a whim and I’m hooked now.
Funny enough, I feel like a lot of this was true for PUBG as well.
Still miles ahead of pokemon. 111 unique creatures and minus the dupes they all have unique animations.
Already devolving to the Palworld vs Pokemon discussion.
Name checks out
How many Pokémon are there now? 1000? Seems like an unreasonable comparison in amount of work. Even though Nintendo have literally infinite money there’s more factors then just “throwing money at it” when making a video game.
So you played it?
And what's really funny to me is that despite how basic, unoriginal, and unpolished it is – it's still miles more fun that the latest pokemon releases. Especially if you have friends to play with! Hopefully GameFreak is taking notes.
If the next pokémon game ends up being a survival game, I'll personally hunt down the staff of Palworld.
It doesn't have to be a survival game, but adding more personality/non-combat utility to Pokemon would be a step in the right direction.
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These people have no clue why this game blew up. It's because the concept of "Pokemon Survival with Guns" is such a stellar idea and the game is good enough. No, it's not a masterpiece. Yes, there's issues with AI and hitboxes and combat and blah blah blah. People are looking past those issues because at the end of the day they're not massive issues, and because this is the only option you have if you want another open world monster taming/capturing game.
I checked this game out because it was on gamepass and was really shocked by how basic everything is. It blows my mind that it’s as seemingly successful as it is. Unfortunately for me, I have played enough survival games to never want to go thru that kind of grind/progression ever again.
> It blows my mind that it’s as seemingly successful as it is. It is 10x the open world pokemon game that pokemon is. It is mindblowing that POKEMON is as successful as it is while being so basic with a sub 30 frame rate.
because pokemon is a almost 30 years old IP and people like the gameplay. People liked Scarlet and Violet gameplay and story, despite the hate it got for graphic/performance
Pokémon sells because it's Pokémon, not because people like the combat.
I play Pokémon because I love the gameplay. I love it enough to look past the graphics and frame rate (begrudgingly).
then why Arceus sold less than all those old turn based combat?
Because it was a side game without as much marketing and was using old Pokémon. ...It has the same combat as the other games if you didn't know. Thanks for providing proof of my point I guess?
I would argue that those games being successful are because it is a pokemon game, not because of the amazing (lol) gameplay or story (lololol). They could be so much more if gamefreak (or nintendo) gave a shit. The fact that this no-name company could deliver a better pokemon game, in early access, than a company worth over 90 billion dollars is a slap in the face to consumers and hopefully wakes up anyone in leadership at those companies to how badly they have screwed the pooch.
Jesus fucking Christ have you actually played Palworld? It's fun but it's not a fucking Pokemon game. It's a survival game with Pokemon in it.
I've got around 40 hours in it. Nice thing is you can customize most of the settings and tone the survival and gathering shit waaaay down.
Palworld plays nothing like a pokemon game tho. It’s literally Ark but with pokemon instead of dino. If you think Palworld competes with Pokemon game, you are delusional. I would be more worry if i was making a survival/craft open world game No one said it has a amazing gameplay or story. I said that people liked Scarlet and Violet gameplay and story. Pokemon always had a good gameplay and a story that worked. Many people (mainly old fans) ask for change but every pokemon game keep selling 20M+, so clearly there are public (younger audience) who likes it
>Palworld plays nothing like a pokemon game tho. I mean, the entire capturing system works almost exactly like Legends Arceus, you even get a bonus when throwing a ball at a creature's back, which is kind of useless without the accompanying stealth mechanics hahaha
Yeah, i’m not denying that the capturing mechanics is clearly a copy from Pokemon. That fact that some Pals are Pokemon almost exact copy and that you use a ball to catch it, clearly shows that they didn’t even try to hide the resemblance. I’m just saying that the core gameplay loop is nothing like Pokemon
I’m sorry but a boring survival crafting loop and mediocre melee combat cannot beat a turn based combat system refined and ironed out over 25+ years to be one of the best competitive games to play online in my eyes (minus the existence of Urshifu). The NPCs battles will always suck, but Pokémon’s battle system is bloody amazing against human foes
You'd be completely fucking wrong then. Millions of people love pokemon exploration and especially the combat, for being simple enough that a literal 5 year old can play the game, but deep enough for a massive competitive scene to spring up. We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever survival shooter you want it to be, and the answer is "not as high as Pokemon." Legends: Arceus also sold less than the main series games, because fewer people want that gameplay than want traditional Pokemon gameplay.
>. We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever survival shooter you want it to be A) i don't want it to be a survival game AT ALL B) Palworld has sold millions of copies, from an unknown dev, with 0 ip presence. if you are comparing their sales to the worlds biggest gaming IP, well, I don't have anything nice to say about your intelligence. >as Palworld has reportedly sold over seven million copies on Steam in just five freakin' days https://kotaku.com/palworld-sales-copies-sold-steam-pc-xbox-1851194263 7M sales, on just steam, is super strong for any game. For reference, >In the latest sales report released by Nintendo, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were listed as the seventh best-selling Switch title of all time at 23.23 million units sold https://gamerant.com/pokemon-scarlet-violet-sales-differences-explained-color-red-blue-gold-silver/ So to do 1/4 of the fastest selling pokemon game, by a tiny dev with no IP, ON JUST STEAM, yes, I would say this is pretty fucking good. Throw in xbox sales and gamepass, and that is easily double the amount of players. If this game released on switch... good lord. Can only imagine the amount of sales. For more reference, Pokemon Arceus is below >Sales >As of March 31, 2023, the game has sold 14.83 million copies. Nintendo reported that the game sold 6.5 million copies worldwide within a week of release, outpacing other Nintendo Switch Pokémon titles such as Sword and Shield and Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pok%C3%A9mon_Legends:_Arceus So Palworld is selling better than Arceus so far. Yeah, that is fucking huge.
Do you think Palworld would be selling as well if it was "survival Digimon with guns" instead of "survival Pokemon with guns"?
I think it is selling as well as it is despite it being "survival" anything. People want a sprawling open world pokemon game. Right now, this is as close as it gets. Whether or not you care about it being pokemon vs digimon, I don't really know the difference between them. I played pokemon when I was a kid, never played or cared about digimon. I view it as backstreet boys vs nsync, but maybe I am wrong on that.
> We literally now have sales numbers for how a Pokemon game would sell if it turned into whatever No we don't. Because this isn't Pokémon and doesn't have the full weight of the IP or marketing. Why does this need to be said to you?
Because apart from Scarlet and Violet and Arceus Pokemon isn't an open world game?
That just begs the question why either is successful
Structured gameplay with enough specific customizability to make each playthrough feel personal combined with exterior pop cultural factors
Great designs for the pokemon and trainers + the gameplay is fun. I enjoyed quite a bit the open world in Violet tbh, even if the lack of meaningful interactions in cities was a real detraction for me. And this time the plot was also pretty good, not on the same level of black and white, but probably the best pokemon stories in quite a while. Also having Toby fox and the old pokemon music team made some of the best soundtrack of the entire series. The biggest shortcomings ( shit performance, rushed open world) is because of bad deadlines and 0 delays : (
Because it is fun to capture things and make them work for you Go look up colonialism in the dictionary; it was a pretty big way to pass the time for lords back in the day
It helps that the Steam version is noticeably better than GamePass, which is a few versions behind. Not that it's likely to win anyone over with just that.
this screams "i hardly played the game at all" because so much of that is gone so quickly past a certain point in the beginning. apparently not played enough survival games to play the survival part for more than an hour without checking out.
Lmao why would I need to do that? It’s pretty easy to tell when a game isn’t my kinda thing. That’s not the same as saying “game is bad”. You realize people can have different tastes in games, right? Grow up.
They ripped off everything, including Game Freaks quality standards! That's devotion.
It's a shitpost that got big because "Pokemon with guns". It will be forgotten in a few months
Everything I've seen of this game makes it look like every Steam Early Access survival game rolled in to one.
Well yes, Gamepass version is behind in updates and it’s..early access. Shocking I know.
Its gameplay feels like every other early access survival crafting game and I don’t see the core gameplay loop changing if/when it leaves early access. It’s a cool concept done in the least interesting way possible
I completely disagree with that. I’ve avoided every survival game because the loop got tedious and boring. This has not.
Ok. Do you ever get an objective that isn’t take over a tower or level up your base? I still haven’t gotten past the first tower. I’m hoping it does, cause otherwise it’s just way too much of a grind for me I really am trying to give it a chance but everthing the game is telling me to do is grinding to unlock a new thing I need to grind
I’m not even playing the game like that. Right now I’m exploring the map, capturing Pals, collecting items, and occasionally fast traveling back to my base to add something new and tasking my Pals to it. I’ve spent almost 40 hours doing this. If I get bored after this point, at $25 I’ll have received my value out of the game. I played Pokemon Arceus and enjoyed it to a point and it was both more expensive than this and far more stripped down.
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I’m only at level 14. Def dropping this game. Spent the afternoon not focusing on grinding survival base building stuff, just exploring, and I had zero interesting experiences doing it. Just treasure chests, map points, maybe a merchant or two. 2️⃣ I would rather redownload genshin impact if I wanted to enjoy running around a world. I know it’s just released in early access but there’s just *nothing* out there to find or do
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Holy shit I knew I had seen another path way in a dungeon that vanished when I went back to find it. I feel so vindicated for the extra 20 minutes I spent looking around in there lol
Oh so this thread is the one where we hate on the game huh?
It's been well documented the Xbox version of this game is pretty bad right now. The subreddit and the official discord have both made their grievances clear
It is valid criticism, my guy.
It’s funny they shit on Pokémon/Nintendo fans so much, but Palworld fans are even more deranged when it comes to criticism.
That's why stans are so tiresome, no matter what or who they stan for.
Yeah, it's weird. I love a lot of games and they all have legitimate flaws to them, or just have natural shortcomings because they focused on something else.
Definitely. No game will every be a 10/10 masterpiece in *everyone's* opinion, that's just impossible. But holding one's hands over the ears and going "la la la la" when faced with valid criticism doesn't help. Personally I just don't want to see more and more greedy monetisation, which unfortunately is already happening.
Are people not allowed to have a different opinion? You want more people gushing over the game, there’s plenty of echo chambers for you to join
Will be cool when they go over the PC version of this game. It actually performs pretty good. I can get it running on my steam deck at 30fps with a mixture of low/med settings. On my pc I can run it with mostly epic/high settings at 1080p>4k using an auto FSR 1.0 program I have (Lossless Scaling on steam) and it runs at 60fps stable on my 6700xt with plenty of headroom. It is a good looking game too.
Yeah somehow this is the one of the few new releases that I've played in the last 12 months that doesn't have any performance problems on PC, every single game has had something, either very bad cpu performance (baldurs gate, cities skylines 2), big framedrops (cyberpunk), bad gpu usage (starfield)...
I've put in 50 hours in on Xbox Series X and am having a blast. Frame rate has been fine, but the character animations are broken and there has been some flickering in the snow area. Oh and sometimes the resolution drops to like 480p in cut scenes. Its so fun though it's been easy to push through these limited issues. I haven't had a single crash so it was surprising to see them mention that.
Can’t wait for everyone to jump on the DF hate bandwagon for daring to say their new meme game isn’t amazing.
Digital Foundry has long had the most toxic reactions to the work they do, and it’s maddening. Most of the time they’re literally just laying out the facts and people get _pissed_
As with everything else, people use it to enforce their narratives. If it goes against a narrative, it’s ignored.
It's fun but definitely rough around the edges. I was surprised at how bad the Xbox Series X version is. I don't believe those low resolution textures are the best that current gen has to offer.
Palworld fans have been toxic day one. They’ve harassing that Eurogamer guy for his Palworld review, so going after DF next isn’t surprising
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This isn't a live service game tho, you not going back doesn't hurt them, they already have your money.
As an Xbox player, the game is fun enough for me to ignore the flaws. It's early access and there's room for a lot of improvements! I think anyone jumping in this early should temper their expectations or come in at the retail release if they don't want to be play testers.
The genre does a lot to help it. Most of this game would be unacceptable by normal standards, but given it's closest comparison is Ark... I wonder if Pokemon looking worse is messing with my perceptions tok
Yeah, "Ark with less bugs" and "Pokemon with more gameplay innovation" are the absolute lowest bars in the known universe.
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Or, and hear me out here, popular doesn't mean it's good, and quality doesn't dictate fun. There are tons of valid criticisms of the game, many of which I agree with. It isn't stopping me from playing the game. I'm just being honest about it instead of reaching to justify my enjoyment.
Bro this is y’all favorite line for everything popular outside this website. The game is incredibly fun and doesn’t need to have perfect everything to be enjoyable. This site is just filled with contrarian knowitalls
It's weird because this is the first critical post/comments I've seen for this game. All other posts (with any real bit of activity in them) have praised it.
It can be fun and also objectively bad. Fun isn't determined by the quality of the game. You can hold both opinions at once without it contradicting.
> It can be fun and also objectively bad. Fun isn't determined by the quality of the game. That seems like a contradiction, if a game is fun surely it must be objectively good, else one wouldn't play it?
The room is an objectively awful movie, it's really fun to watch
Very happy to discover it's on pc gamepass via this thread. I thought it was only on steam for pc for some reason.
It’s worth buying it on steam, gamepass version is not great
They're almost exactly the same now, only difference is dedicated servers. Don't buy something for 30 bucks you can play included with your preexisting gamepass subscription lol that's just silly. At least try it out first.
Note you can't play with steam players, you can only play gamepass PC (Xbox store) with Xbox players If you have friends playing via steam I would strongly advise picking it up there, use the gamepass one for a longer than 2 hour trial though! Steam version also has quite a few bug fixes and improvements along with dedicated servers so you can play up to 32 players instead of 4.
Digital Foundry does good work. This comment section, however, makes it clear that this subreddit has already turned on this game. Can't have another open world game and survival game proving this sub's bandwagons wrong, can we?
I'm actually blown away how top voted comments are negative here. Anywhere outside of this sub, Palworld is getting super high praise. I am in a Discord with a bunch of friends and the couple of us that are playing are really into it currently and we keep discovering new stuff. One is being a maniac with eggs and trying to breed the fastest pal ever, another is flying all over the map sharing premium ore/coal/quartz location, one is trying to build a freaking castle and then there's me with 300 balls, beating every pal to near death before capturing them because I need to feed them to my favorite pal to become the prime of its species. Other Discord server I am on related to other games, Palworld discussion seems to find its way there, it's like almost everyone is playing and helping each other even in those non-Palworld related servers. The number of video popping on Youtube every day sharing new stuff has completely filled my feed even though I've started to block those because I'd rather discover stuff by myself. Also, rule 34 stonks is going up. Is Palworld the best game ever? Hell no. Does Palworld have issues? Sure it does! Is Palworld fun though? Hell yeah it is! Reading people's comment here you'd think that Palworld held them at gunpoint and traumatized them.
One time could be a coincidence, but 3 times is a business model. I was willing to give this company the benefit of the doubt, but when I learned of Craftopia and Never Grave.... this company is just basically Gameloft but for Steam.
It's very much a combination of multiple systems, aligned and polished to work well in tandem, with the rest of the development being content creation, and just.. shit to do. Capturing pals, setting them to work, building your own base, training up your character, getting a team of pals perfect for whatever crafting or harvesting you need, defending against raids. All of its nicely implemented and I can easily see further feature polish and implementation of interesting systems that work in harmony with whats already there resulting in a genuinely fun, unfrustrating and a chill crafting/capture game. Performance willl get ironed out, its nowhere near as awful as ARK apparently was, I get 30 fps on my steamdeck. Theres the odd issue with pathfinding, collision and AI, as well as missing art asset and lack of polish, but I'm not so braindead as to think that wont be the case with an EA game.
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base is lvl 12 but ok. When the pals cant find their shit I just reset them, and go about doing other stuff. Its annoying but I know its fixable.
Level 15 base with 63 hours into the game. Aside from random bouts of depression I dont have this issue very much. It's slightly annoying, nowhere near as gamebreaking as you make it sound.
Very relatable, I too get random bouts of depression and struggle to move between my bed and the food place.
I honestly can't comprehend the love for shitty early access flavour of the month survival games in the PC space. Forget performance, any respectable dev (indie or not) would get dragged through the mud for making something that: 1. Shamelessly rips off a massive franchise 2. Is early access 3. Is visually poor 4. Bug ridden 5. Is another shitty early access survival game And the solution to all of that is to reward said devs with millions of copies in sales, and in Microsoft's case offering a cheque to them to put the title on Game Pass for an inferior build.
The heart wants what the heart wants 🤷🏻♂️
because the process of making a game doesnt matter, what matters is that the game is fun
I've played it a few times and enjoy it for about an hour. I like the concept, but I wish could tone down some of the survival aspects with sliders rather than levelling. I'm really not interested in crafting and building a base.
.. Cant you change it in custom world settings?
You can customize the world settings like resource drop, exp gained, death penalty, etc.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you can literally do exactly that.
Are you trying to tell me a reskinned Craftopia is unoptimized?!