Consider this post less a "review" than a "first impression" or "time capsule" of sorts of the 0.1.2 PC release of this game. At the time of writing this little spiel this weird mashup of BOTW world traversal, Pokemon Legends: Arceus style creature collecting, and survival/automation games like Factorio or Ark: Survival Evolved has gone viral and lit up the charts like its Woodstock. Is it worth the hype? Well my answer here is complicated and colored by my own (lack of) experience with the survival genre.
THE FIRST ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: EARLY ACCESS
First off I wanna address the reality of this being an early access title. Which is to say there three realities I can't ignore in this write up:
1) The game is in an incomplete state and all the "jank" and design imprecision that comes with that. This is to say several mechanics don't quite "click" as well as I'd like them to. The game's version of creature catching just isn't as satisfying as its Pokemon generation 8 equivalent for example. Often its not really obvious if I have damaged the creatures enough for them to not deflect the ball and I have even had the balls pass through the enemy models at points when engaging in close combat....which is an issue when your opening weapons choices are likely to be a club, repuposing a pick ax or torch for combat, or making a spear AKA close combat weapons. This means the players first exposure to catching is going to be through janky close quarters throws and that even putting aside the long range weapons being put front in center in trailers and such. Its a rough first impression to say the least.
2) The price will likely go up in the future to a full price release. As a $30.00 release? I think this is a good value proposition at that price considering this is effectively a $70.00 modern AAA open world title and the baseline level of polish that entails purchasable at roughly 43% of the total cost. As a full cost game? I think the gameplay loop might be a tad too simplistic for that price point especially when you look at the experiences being offered by many other indie and "AA" devs for less upfront cash.
3) The opening hours of this game can be a bit repetitive currently when you are just building up your wood, stone, blue ore, and yellow ore supplies and building the foundational tools/crafting tables/statues. Lots of walking back and fourth in the starting hillside base since you aren't gonna wanna risk undoing your resource collecting with an ill-advised combat encounter (when playing on default settings). A fact made worse by the very low early game weight limit. Despite my rather negative prose here I actually am of two minds about this setup. On one hand this makes the early game a bit of a slog but on the other it also does a great job of putting you into the shoes of your avatar building out his or her little boom town settlement from literal sticks and stones. This is all to say if this is your first survival game experience you might be in for a rough time if you just wanna jump into the creature collecting aspect but if you stick with it you can be very satisfying to fill out your base and build up a creature army.
THE SECOND ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: THE CREATURE DESIGNS ARE MAYBE PLAGIARIZED
TLDR: Someone on Twitter/X by the name of "Byo" compared the skeletons of the Switch era Pokemon models and several palworld creatures and found them to be eerily similar which may suggest the use of AI as a plagiarism tool given the CEO of PocketPair's very libertarian dudebro persona and pro-AI statements in interviews. To be clear the automation of digital art via AI is something that should be agitated against for several reasons (its a union busting/job killing tool, consolidates more cultural power into the 1%/ruling class, leads to worse art in most cases, etc.) but game development is a multi-disciplinary process. Simply put, is it fair to write off the work of the sound team, game designers, and programmers just because upper management, legal department and the art team screwed up on their ends? This is all to say I can criticize the ethical failings of the game's art team while praising what this game does well and not be contradictory. If anything the fact this team wasn't just a couple hacks doing an Steam asset flip makes the plagiarism accusations more salient and tragic. Had these guys hired a proper art team to their project's scope or hell even just went up to the IP holders of any of these big Pokemon competitors like Namco-Bandai's Digimon or Monster Rancher for the rights to plop in their stock assets and animations into this gameplay system we could be looking at the next big thing on the level of Fortnite or Minecraft. As it currently stands I see this getting blown the fuck out by TPC's lawyers and disappearing by the end of the year. Perhaps resurfacing in a year or two with even uglier looking characters and zero cultural momentum. A tragic fate given the very strong foundations here if the devs could get a chance to polish the early game and catching mechanics.
THE FIRST ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: EARLY ACCESS
First off I wanna address the reality of this being an early access title. Which is to say there three realities I can't ignore in this write up:
1) The game is in an incomplete state and all the "jank" and design imprecision that comes with that. This is to say several mechanics don't quite "click" as well as I'd like them to. The game's version of creature catching just isn't as satisfying as its Pokemon generation 8 equivalent for example. Often its not really obvious if I have damaged the creatures enough for them to not deflect the ball and I have even had the balls pass through the enemy models at points when engaging in close combat....which is an issue when your opening weapons choices are likely to be a club, repuposing a pick ax or torch for combat, or making a spear AKA close combat weapons. This means the players first exposure to catching is going to be through janky close quarters throws and that even putting aside the long range weapons being put front in center in trailers and such. Its a rough first impression to say the least.
2) The price will likely go up in the future to a full price release. As a $30.00 release? I think this is a good value proposition at that price considering this is effectively a $70.00 modern AAA open world title and the baseline level of polish that entails purchasable at roughly 43% of the total cost. As a full cost game? I think the gameplay loop might be a tad too simplistic for that price point especially when you look at the experiences being offered by many other indie and "AA" devs for less upfront cash.
3) The opening hours of this game can be a bit repetitive currently when you are just building up your wood, stone, blue ore, and yellow ore supplies and building the foundational tools/crafting tables/statues. Lots of walking back and fourth in the starting hillside base since you aren't gonna wanna risk undoing your resource collecting with an ill-advised combat encounter (when playing on default settings). A fact made worse by the very low early game weight limit. Despite my rather negative prose here I actually am of two minds about this setup. On one hand this makes the early game a bit of a slog but on the other it also does a great job of putting you into the shoes of your avatar building out his or her little boom town settlement from literal sticks and stones. This is all to say if this is your first survival game experience you might be in for a rough time if you just wanna jump into the creature collecting aspect but if you stick with it you can be very satisfying to fill out your base and build up a creature army.
THE SECOND ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: THE CREATURE DESIGNS ARE MAYBE PLAGIARIZED
TLDR: Someone on Twitter/X by the name of "Byo" compared the skeletons of the Switch era Pokemon models and several palworld creatures and found them to be eerily similar which may suggest the use of AI as a plagiarism tool given the CEO of PocketPair's very libertarian dudebro persona and pro-AI statements in interviews. To be clear the automation of digital art via AI is something that should be agitated against for several reasons (its a union busting/job killing tool, consolidates more cultural power into the 1%/ruling class, leads to worse art in most cases, etc.) but game development is a multi-disciplinary process. Simply put, is it fair to write off the work of the sound team, game designers, and programmers just because upper management, legal department and the art team screwed up on their ends? This is all to say I can criticize the ethical failings of the game's art team while praising what this game does well and not be contradictory. If anything the fact this team wasn't just a couple hacks doing an Steam asset flip makes the plagiarism accusations more salient and tragic. Had these guys hired a proper art team to their project's scope or hell even just went up to the IP holders of any of these big Pokemon competitors like Namco-Bandai's Digimon or Monster Rancher for the rights to plop in their stock assets and animations into this gameplay system we could be looking at the next big thing on the level of Fortnite or Minecraft. As it currently stands I see this getting blown the fuck out by TPC's lawyers and disappearing by the end of the year. Perhaps resurfacing in a year or two with even uglier looking characters and zero cultural momentum. A tragic fate given the very strong foundations here if the devs could get a chance to polish the early game and catching mechanics.