Palworld’s success is partially born from Pokémon fans’ discontent : gaming

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This take reminds me of how disappointed I was when I got Pokémon Violet, excited to see what pokémon would be like in open world, and then I realized there was nothing to do in between towns and bosses. Overall, it felt less interesting than older games where you needed to solve puzzles and mazes to progress. It's not even like there is much of an incentive to do things in your own order because every challenge has fixed levels. You could play multiplayer but there was nothing to do in multiplayer but to roam around. Due to the short draw distance and low frame rates it wasn't even like admiring the creatures roaming around felt so impressive.

The real time catching mechanics in Arceus were pretty fun, I liked the stealth elements, but without them SV felt like it was only going through the motions of having an open world, without understanding how to make use of it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

arceus (and SV) wouldbe been way better if they learned to design compelling points of interest in their open world and not do amateur work that looks like auto generated landscape

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

The best thing to do in pokemon violet is to make the jump over the cliffs when you're level 15 and can face level 30 pokemon on top of the cliffs in the first zone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, it's success is because it's extremely addicting. Especially for people with ADHD because there's so many small and easily achieveable dopamine hits that's easy to get lost for hours.

[–] money_loo 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well guess I’ll be avoiding this one!

I’m too old to be getting addicted like that anymore lmao.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Tbf it is fun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I'd be incredibly happy if that were true, but it isn't. We've had proper Pokemon alternatives since before Pokemon even existed and they haven't slowed that shitty franchise one bit. Megaten is still niche, Digimon is still niche, cassette beasts (the actual goty) has an even smaller audience than those games, if this was major discontent with Pokemon cassette beasts at least would be in a much better place (since it literally released last year, perfect to take advantage of Pokemon's unending failures). Gotta nip that unwarranted optimism in the bud, gamefreak sucks and will never improve, their fans suck and will never improve.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I don't thinks so. It popular because "pokemon with guns" became a viral meme which sucks.

A a discontent pokemon fan myself I would love someone to make a pokemon clone since Game Freak is not really interested in doing good pokemon games anymore. But "Ark Survival Evolved with knockoff pokemon skins instead of dinosaurs" is not what I want

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own. When the trailers came out people were laughing but they weren't exactly eager to play.

Given the persistent popularity of survival crafting games, I think "Ark with knockoff pokemon" is exactly what people wanted. After all, even before this, Pixelmon was one of the most popular Minecraft mods.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own

The day before sold millions (but this one was refunded by millions too) and everybody and their mom knew it was a scam since it was announced like 2 or 3 years ago. Internet is weird, if something becomes viral it will sell, the quality does not matter, people just wants to be in

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

The Day Before did not sell a single million units and Palworld is not getting widely refunded, even though everyone who starts it, dressed like a caveman, immediately realizes they aren't getting to play with guns anytime soon. There were streamers showing this even before the game was out.

It's true that virality is unpredictable and popularity is not a measure of quality, but I think a lot of people are being overly dismissive of the fact that Palworld managed to hook people with something that appealed to them. Not to say it's a bastion of quality and originality, obviously not, but it has something going for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing. Palworld did some advertising, but the mass adoption appears to be mostly word of mouth that the game is actually fun when it was made available in early access.

That matches what I have seen from people commenting and my personal experience as I don't remember hearing about it before and hopped on because of friends recommending it. Palworld is a word of mouth success like Valheim and for similar reasons of competent styling, smooth gameplay, and survival that isn't punishing the player from the moment the game starts.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDayBefore/comments/lwaach/people_keep_saying_its_a_scam_whats_the_scam/

That's a 3 years old post. Everybody knew it was a scam back then. to the point the studio released "We are not a scam, trust me bro" statements (which made it more obvious it was a scam)

I don't remember hearing about it before

Internet has been talking about "pokemon with guns" for 2 years or so since the developers were already famous because they launched a "Breath of the Wild" knock off (Craftopia) that also sold well (not at the same level of palworld, but for being the first title of a brand new indie studio it sold really well)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Apparently not everyone knew the day before was a scam or it wouldn't have sold millions of units. Just because some people predicted it does not mean that the general population had any awareness of that expectation.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago

it wouldn't have sold millions of units

People started to sell their steam accounts that owned the game and keys for the game for hundreds of dollars when it was announced the game was some bad that it was going to be removed from steam

If something is popular it will sell, the quality does not matter. You have the best example in Pokemon itself

[–] almar_quigley 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

The hype around this game is really weird. I played it and thought it was really janky and unfun but what’s weirder is so many people loving the game but not complaining about the price tag for a game in preview.

[–] glimse 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's almost like people have different tastes in games...

Elden Ring was insanely popular and I didn't like it at all. Doesn't mean the hype was invalid, it just wasn't for me

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

No! You're not allowed to like games I don't like!

[–] BleakBluets 6 points 5 months ago

It is insane to me that people defend this game. Ten years ago this game would have been dismissed as survival-crafting shovelware (although GameFreak's lastest entries haven't been much more polished).

Palworld is only superficially similar to Pokémon, but people treat it like it's a logical evolution to Pokémon's game design. I thought I was going insane, but I think I am now realizing that I am old and out of touch.

P.S. There is nothing wrong with liking survival-crafting as a genre (I adore Minecraft myself), I just think this game overly relies on addictive design and isn't particularly deep or unique mechanically.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I mean 30 bucks seems pretty standard. Actually the same price as ARK which also was an early access title at that time which increased its price to 60 once it released. Especially after the kicker that ARK got a bloody dlc while it was still in early access.

[–] Zahille7 5 points 5 months ago

To be fair, there were more like 2 or 3 DLCs for Ark before it officially released

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Off the top of my head, there's Temtem and Cassette Beasts that try to mimic the formula more closely, and then there are a bunch of "Pokemon but _____" takes on the formula that you can find with a quick Google. This is "Pokemon but ". Last I heard, Ark didn't let you assign dinosaurs to a factory or have some of the more RPG systems like boss fights, but quite frankly, I found Ark so obtuse that I didn't play for long.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The problem with TemTem is that it's an always online game, if the servers are turned off you won't be able to play, not even the single player campaign so it's a hard pass.

And the art style of both games are not my cup of tea, the do a disservice selling me the game.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm a fairweather Pokemon fan at best, but I'm with you on Temtem for the same reason; many people don't have the same reservations as you and I, so I thought I'd mention it. I think Cassette Beasts is that game and reviewed well, and to ignore it might be to ignore exactly the game you're asking for, but I'd also point you toward the "creature collector" tag on Steam. I've never heard of Coromon before doing that search to leave this reply, but mousing over it for a second shows a video that proves they know what they're making (87% positive Steam reviews). Same goes for Nexomon: Extinction (92% positive). No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

A Pokemon clone with high production values made in Japan. Or if it's not made in Japan one that uses it own art style, I simply can't stand the "Fake anime" aesthetic that most indies use, like they learned to draw using this as refference

Think of Shin Megami Tensei (but not SMT V, that one sucks, they removed the dungeon crawling and the puzzles)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Cassette Beasts was the true goty last year!

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