Is this game really that good or is it just massively overhyped? I watched a videogamedunkey video about it, and I know he overly satirizes things for humor, but it just didn't look all that great.
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It's a very specific type of game. If you don't like Rust, Ark, Raft, or any of those games like it Palworld probably isn't for you. At least not until mods come out.
I'd put rust aside from other survival crafters because the challenge is pvp. Actually surviving alone in rust is easy and even boring. Though I also haven't played palworld multiplayer yet, but you definitely shouldn't jump into MP to start a game like this.
Palworld's multiplayer is more cooperatively focused, not PvP focused like Ark and Rust. It's fine to jump into MP on day 1.
Idk I don’t like Rust or Ark but I’m totally hooked to Palworld
Survival crafting games have always been extemely bare minimum effort by most studios. Look how well Ark did despite it being buggy garbage with dlcs. Palworld has almost everything you'd want from a survival crafting game and is 10x more polished than its competition. Dunkey highlights the bugs, which are definitely there, but for day 1 it is actually very well done and includes a lot of polish and QoL features that I would normally expect an early access game to add months after launch. I don't know if he made a video from day 1 of ark or rust but it would be orders of magnitude worse than this. Also keep in mind this is the opposite of the type of game he usually plays.
Besides all that, it's multiplayer and the core gameplay is simply fun.
It’s a very fun, silly, well-made game with a very addictive loop where you’re given a lot of small, easily achievable tasks that have you going: “one more and I’m done”.
On Sunday I played for 13 hours. I don’t know if they have a team of psychologists that found out how to make the game addictive, but the results speak for themselves.
It’s a fun and beautiful place to explore, full of vibrant colors and cute pals. Your base building is not boring because the boring resource gathering is automated by your pal slaves. It scratches optimization itches, and you also get raided which can result in hilarious outcomes that give you an opportunity to rebuild and organize your base more efficiently.
It's a survival crafting game. It's functional, but yeah, I think overhyped. Most people play for the novelty, and that covers for the boring gameplay.
That's overly reductive. I don't play it like a crafting game, I play it like a pokemon game and I'm having fun catching new pals while barely touching the base building.
It's incredible for early access and will be the game of the decade if the devs continue to polish and refine it. And if it doesn't get sued for its similarities to Nintendo IPs, which I doubt will happen but is still possible.
It's really good in a "this has no business being good" kind of way, I really like it.
It's a game that should be terrible but is actually fun as hell.
It hits the sweet spot in different areas. You can tell it’s a bunch of ideas from other games stitched together. Its Ark but more accessible, with pokemon flavor, elden ring’s tough enemy in the newbie area, deep rock galactic pick your friend up off the ground, automation lightly inspired by factio. If you look closely it’s got dark humour in all of the Pal descriptions. It’s just broadly appealing and enjoyable If you don’t take things too seriously, or if you can find the humour in the fact that everything is extremely familiar and just slightly altered to avoid being sued into extinction. If you read the developer interview it’s pretty funny too, new daily flash drives as version control, he couldn’t get hired at a big studio and was super surprised that steam would let Just anyone publish anything. It feels like it shouldn’t exist
I'm also curious.
Everything about it looks like it copied a bunch of elements from other games and just seems very mediocre.
Not sure why people are so hyped about it.
yeah it seems like Genshin Impact copied Breath of the Wild, and Palworld copied Genshin Impact, and added Ark Survival Evolved (which copied Pokemon and Don't Starve), and Valheim (which copied Minecraft and Fortnight)
(just speaking generally here, please don't do a deep dive into how accurately these examples align)
I think it's overhyped, but it's not as if there's nothing good there.
It's goofy, it's got those building and travel mechanics people like from other games, you can capture a cute/funny team of animals that people love from pokemon, it's a good stream game with multiplayer which means lots of free publicity
I think it could be way better than it is, but it's easy to see how it got to where it is.
It's overhyped, but it is a fairly good Breath of the Wild mixed with Pokémon with light survival game elements and base building. It's nothing particularly new or special, but it is pretty good at being what it is, which is a weird combination of a bunch of existing things.
It's not game of the year or anything, but it's fine. I got bored after a while because there's no real challenge to the game. It needs to have something pushing you to progress, and that really isn't there at the moment.
Good is subjective. I don't think I would like the game very much now, but me ten years ago probably would have put thousands of hours into it.
Pokemon fans were so desperate for any kind of innovation instead of the same game over and over and over with worse pokemon designs. At this point the ai ripoffs feel more like pokemon than actual pokemon. An ice cream cone? Ice cube head penguin? Really gamefreak?
It is crazy. Not to mention all of the other attempts at the Pokémon "formula" have mostly just rehashed it. Cassette Beasts is the first I saw that really made some changes... And even they were slight. Digimon and Shin Megami Tensei are quite different but they've also been around for yonks.
What's the other one?
pubg, at 3.2 million concurrent players 6 years ago.
Thanks. I'm not really a mainstream gamer anymore. I don't even know what genre pubg is, heh.
It's a Battle Royal, basically a big map that shrinks over time and if you are outside the "play area" you receive damage until you get inside again or you die.
PUBG introduced a brand new genre, which is why it was so popular at the time. Lots of games have popped up to copy it since then.
Pubg wasn't the first. The crown for that is for H1Z1 or Z1 battle royale as it's known these days. It was a dayZ clone with a stand alone battle royale version.
Even H1Z1 wasn't the first if you include mods for Arma, minecraft, DayZ and probably more.
Pubg standalone may not have been first, but in its mod form for arma i think it was the first. Someone less lazy can probably look up the specific dates
Pretty sure the hunger games mod for minecraft was first.
Super Bomberman from the SNES already had the concept of a looting, survival multiplayer game in a shrinking map.
crying H1Z1 noises
nintendo did it to themselves, the one franchise they refused to innovate in
Impressive
Very nice.
Now let's see Paul Allen's numbers.
The original Pokemon universe is limited because it's "family friendly all ages", and there's so much depth to be had that fans want but can't get. This is why Palworld is exceeding; it's embracing themes that the original Pokemon universe can't.
And just not vomiting up garbage games.
Arceus showed ambition, then did nothing to build on it or fix the bugs.
For anyone considering the game, there's a relevant quote from the developer in one of their blog posts, that I think could help them decide whether it's a game for them or not:
Although Pal World is a very interesting game, I would like to add one point: it is not at all suitable for players who prefer single-player games and want to enjoy the story, so please be aware of that. There's almost no story, so those people won't enjoy it. Fans of survival craft genres such as Minecraft and Valheim will enjoy this game.
I'm not a fan of survival games. Is Palworld that fun? I may give it a try. It's on Game pass anyway.
After CSGO?