Shockingly, animal cruelty doesn’t make for a fulfilling experience
I was morally obligated to keep an eye on Palworld. I’ve been playing Pokémon on and off for four fifths of my time on this Earth. I’m a card-carrying Dwarf Fortress weirdo, which Palworld’s lead developer has cited as his favourite game. Ignoring Palworld would’ve been a dereliction of professional duty. Now that I’ve spent a dozen hours with itfollowing the game’s emergence into Early Access, I can comfortably say that duty might have been fine to leave derelict.
Palworldis lucky to be arriving in a world where the Switch’s proper Pokémon games are as rough as they’ve ever been, with the open world of Scarlet and Violet visibly tearing itself apart at the seams. Palworldmight have me soaring over a generic Unreal 5 landscape on the back of a knockoff Charizard, but for a brief moment, it’s a glimpse at what an open-world Pokémon could be: one that isn’t flickering in and out of existence whenever you’re arrogant enough to move. I’m a creatures guy! If a game’s letting me loose to collect little freaks, I’m content. But once I’ve landed to add one of Palworld’s creatures to my base-building roster, I’ll remember which game I’m actually playing, because it’ll toot out a little triumphant jingle as it informs me that my new friend has the Work Slave passive skill.
I START OFF PUNCHING TREES AND PICKING UP ROCKS WHICH BECOME RUDIMENTARY TOOLS
Let me put it this way. Watching that first Palworldtrailer from 2021 was like seeing a picture of Bugs Bunny smoking weed and half-ironically thinking it’s sick. Actually playing Palworldis like having to hang out for hours with somebody who’s made Bugs Bunny smoking weed their whole deal. It’s over-committing to the bit, except the bit in this case is, well, abusive labour conditions and animal cruelty. And not only is the bit bad –it’s actively making the rest of the game worse.
POKÉMON WITH GUNS?
First: the big question. Is Palworld just Pokémon with guns? It’s certainly doing its best to look the part. If I open up my Poké… Paldeck and scroll through the Pals I’ve captured in Pal Spheres, I’m mostly left impressed by the hubris of Palworld’s Japanese developer imitating the Pokémon style so closely when it’s in the centre of Nintendo’s lawsuit kill radius. In a lot of cases, Palworld isn’t mimicking Pokémon’s creature design aesthetic as much as it is building from the reassembled pieces of existing Pokémon, adding a colour swap and a couple of tweaked details to hide the Frankenstein stitching. It’s a surreal gallery of familiar eyes, limbs, and silhouettes. Vix
