In this special dedicated to Palworld we want to discuss it with you, removing its official review guise and analyzing some crucial aspects: and no, it’s not Pokémon with guns, that’s enough
Whether Palworld was a flash in the pan or not, only time will tell. Everything will depend on the ability of the developers, the Pocket Pair guys, to update this with consistency, dedication and lots of new content godson born not for the love of videogame art, but rather to entertain, intrigue and, above all, earn money. A resounding success, confirmed by the ever-increasing number of copies sold despite it also being available via Game Pass, which affected a game that initially managed to make people talk about itself exclusively by associating it with one of Nintendo’s franchises (in quotation marks, given that it isn’t exactly his): Pokémon. And although it is true that there is no point in writing a review, given that the game is still in Early Access, we still want to talk to you seriously about Palworld. And let’s do it, let’s go.
Before starting, some guidance
Before we move on to our Non-Review of Palworld, let us remind you that we have already covered it many aspects of the game through potentially very useful guides. We leave you a short list with the most important ones below:
No, it’s not Pokémon with guns, just | Non-Review Palworld
Shall we start from the elephant in the room? Let’s start with the elephant in the room: “Palworld is Pokémon with guns.” Yes, but definitely not. Although it is true that, once the first steps have been taken in the gaming world, the association with the Game Freak franchise comes almost naturally due to the models of the various Pals, the similarities between the two titles definitely end here (we do not want to delve into the topic of “intelligence artificial” and “plagiarism”: there will be a different place). Indeed, we would go so far as to say that the predominantly survival nature of Palworld makes it much more similar to an Ark than to Pokémon.
In the world of Palworld we will simply have to survive. The Pals, these graceful living beings whose features resemble Nintendo’s Pokémon, can indeed be used to fight alongside the player in battle, but also for a myriad of other tasks. You can, literally, use them as a workforce and have them collect wood, stone and any type of material that could be useful to you. Those of the fire element can keep the flames of your furnace alive or cook the food you deliver on a bonfire, while the ice elements are responsible for keeping those already cooked fresh. In short: full-blown slavery.
Full-blown slavers | Non-Review Palworld
The large amount of resources that we will collect (and have collected) in the world of Palworld will allow us to evolve both our equipment and our base of operations. Just like in Ark, in fact, we will witness one true evolutionary growth of the human beingor, and we will move from having a wooden club in our hands to hit opposing Pals on the head, to lower their life points and then be able to capture them with a Pal Sphere, to various types of guns, correlated with as many variations on the theme in the field of projectiles, with which to defeat increasingly stronger Pals and be able to expand our possibilities of surrender.
The evolution will take place through the use of Technology Points, which you will get in variable quantities when you level up. The accumulation of experience points is very fast by capturing Pals, but you can also obtain them by collecting resources, opening chests and finding collectibles. In reality, any action you undertake in Palworld will allow you to obtain experience points, with a certain degree of proportionality with respect to the difficulty of the action, obviously. And the same will be done by the Pals you have in your team, for a maximum of six each time, who will obtain the same amount of experience as you, always based on the actions carried out during the exploration of the game world.
The Pals will require a certain degree of attention, however, especially the ones you employ inside the base. A few cuddles and caresses, in short, starting from a banal manger and a bed on which to sleep, up to more complex structures such as spas. You will also need to have various types of medicines available, which can be crafted with the appropriate workbench, to cure a wide range of pathologies that your Pals may encounter.
There are a few links here and there | Non-Review Palworld
As regards the exploration of the game map, we can safely say that, despite being very extensive even now that it is in early access, the punctual and more than frequent presence of fast travel points does not make backtracking boring, on the contrary. However, you will have to prepare fully every time you leave for an expedition, because you could easily find yourself in more difficult places, like bandit camps (yes, there are obviously human enemies too) or Pal’s lairs that are stronger than normal.
In itself, Palworld’s biggest references in terms of exploration are definitely towards The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (find our review here!) which was able to create a new genre of open world maps. The use of stamina is therefore essential for climbing huge rock faces, swim in the water for long distances and use the glider to launch yourself from increasingly higher heights. And you can also use the Pals as gliders, what do you think?
Dungeon and technical sector: highly improvable | Non-Review Palworld
Scattered around the game map there will be many dungeons of various nature and which will give rather interesting rewards. The dungeons are, in our opinion, the worst implemented game mechanic in all of Palworld, precisely because of how they were structured. Huge rooms full of enemies that lead to other rooms full of enemies and so on, until you reach the final “boss” of the dungeon, defeat him and take the reward. All the same, confusing (because they have no map) and not very stimulating, if not for the resources and experience points that can be obtained simply by holding your nose.
Technically speaking we are faced with a mediocre title, we say it clearly. We tried the Xbox version of Palworld and perhaps it will run much better on PC, but the problems are right at the base and not on the optimization front. The game world devoid of details of any kind is saved only thanks to the color palette and some suggestive glimpses here and there. The animations are basic, the Pal’s hitboxes are completely random (although we admit that with the updates these seem to have improved) and sometimes we can witness some nice minor graphic glitches. In short: everything could be improved from this point of view, but honestly we didn’t expect anything more. And maybe a background soundtrack during the exploration wouldn’t have hurt.
But so?
Ark, Pokémon, Breath of the Wild. From what has been said so far, you will definitely have noticed that Palworld is a jumble of titles. So derivative that it doesn’t even attempt the path of originality even as the creator himself has already stated, who confirmed that he didn’t want to create something new, but something that he could sell and entertain gamers. Whether or not it is ethical to create something from this assumption, and since we are not in the review stage, we ask ourselves: but is it really wrong to have fun with Palworld?
Because let’s face it: the cards on the table for having an addictive and engaging title are all there even for a single-player, let alone for a title like Palworld that you can also play in multiplayer. What would be wrong, then, in having fun for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours in the game created by Pocket Pair? In our opinion: absolutely nothing. There cannot and must not be only The Last of Us or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, there cannot be only industry giants that churn out titles with million dollar budgets. There are also the Palworlds of the situation, which monopolize the public for a period and then… who knows? As already mentioned, everything will depend on how this Pocket Pair card is played. This millionaire card called Palworld.
Palworld is currently available on PC and Xbox Series S, as well as free to download for all Xbox Game Pass subscribers! Let us know what you think below in the comments and stay tuned with us at techgameworld.com for all the news, guides and reviews on gaming and tech themes! And if you are interested in game keys at advantageous prices, we recommend you take a look at the InstantGaming catalogue!