Looks like a weird Pokémon knockoff game. I don't get the hype.
Latest indie darling blow up videogame fad that you'll hear less of in a month or so. I say that somewhat derisively but I think it's pretty normal, Lethal Company was the last one and that was a neat little horror co-op game imo.
I think the reason word of mouth is spreading so much can be attributed to two things:
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It's somewhat edgy, misanthropic and subversive take on Pokemon/Nintendo's family friendly aesthetics. I can't say much about this as I haven't played the game myself to judge just exactly how much is being played straight and how much is satire (and I don't plan to), but I'd guess people who grew up with Pokemon as a franchise have been looking for that edgy take and are reacting to that, and the resulting controversy is driving the engagement algorithms (I mean just look at hexbear lmao), and
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it's fulfilling a niche that Nintendo hasn't by being an online multiplayer Pokemon-esque game that's not turn-based; just judging based on some of the clips I've seen but working together with your friends to catch a high level Pokemon-alike actually does look kinda fun. This one's really on Game Freak for allowing Pokemon to go stale by playing it safe and not innovating the game design at all, so Palworld coming in to steal Nintendo's lunch money here's pretty deserved, I think. (Although yeah, I guess Ark did it first but the cartoony character designs are doing a lot of heavy lifting in making the on-screen action legible).
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They played up the edgelord stuff in the advertising, the game itself really isn't that edgy. If I hadn't seen all the attempts at selling it via edge I would assume that all the edgy content in the game is just poor translations.
It isn't subtext though, it's just text. Literally. The game says it's all slavery and torture and stuff, but the pals seem happy enough to work on their own, and stop working when they feel like it. That's what I mean when I say it feels almost like a bad translation. The story in the text and the story in the gameplay are completely unrelated. I think they just did it solely for the meme value.
but the pals seem happy enough to work on their own, and stop working when they feel like it.
Having seen nothing but some footage because I had the same question as OP this does feel like we're doing MGS V again where the whole "uhh how is the guy kidnapping and brainwashing people with literal 1984 posters the bad guy, he saves the world"?
It's very weird. I've seen plenty of actually edgy pokemon games, every other pokemon romhack has a ton of "and the pokemon die for real in this one! It's super dark and mature and edgy!" stuff in it.
A lot of this weird freaking out about this game seems to come from people who seem to think "pokemon" is the only thing that has ever done a creature catching and battling game, and have never heard of any other games in the genre.
(and have never actually played Palworld, because it's much more of an Ark survival evolved knock off than a pokemon knockoff, the creature designs are just very heavily inspired by pokemon, with a few being directly based on specific pokemon, so people look at a screenshot of one of them and say that they "ripped off" pokemon, because drawing cute cartoony creatures with anime eyes in that style means it must be a rip off and not homage or inspiration.)
The game tells you some of the monsters are weak and only good for food
Could Pokémon have literally done the same thing in gen 1? Not as Farfetched as you'd think
make some kind of point how the hundreds of millions of people playing Pokemon apparently think cockfighting is okay because they played a video game about cartoon monsters fighting each other.
Goadstool, you’re the best, but nobody thinks this or is genuinely arguing it
I don’t think they’re trying to make a point about anything lol. They’re just making a game about being a Pokémon warlord because they think it’s epic
I wanted Pokemon with guns. What I got was yet another unfinished "survival" game with a legally distinct coat of paint.
The same way I felt about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom... and I beat them both!
I was being glib though. I wasn't interested in the guns so much as I was factory automation with not-Pokemon.
Honestly, it's very early. It's one of the most feature complete early access games I have played in a long time.
It has similar survival aspects compared to Ark, valheim, and Conan. Building is not punishing with reasonable material requirements. You assign pals to your base, and they perform actions based on their available skills (mining, logging, handiwork, planting, watering, etc) and their passive traits (randomly assigned modifiers). You can keep a party of 6 with you, including one that can be out walking along as a companion. Some can be mounted, some can be used for extra oomf in combat, some will guide you to resources.
There are dungeons around the map that have bosses and loot, as well as some more elusive pals.
It's a bit like Satisfactory in that you setup resource nodes and your outpost will generate those and allow you create things from it. There are a lot of pals to find apparently, as I continue to find new ones while exploring. There are boss battles, sometimes you'll find a camp of syndicate guys (poachers) and free their captive pal from a cage to obtain it.
Idk man, I'm having a blast playing it. It's very forgiving for a survival game, and reasonably easy to manage your base. Resources are plentiful, gameplay loop is pretty solid, and exploration is fun.
Where it will go from here, considering this is the first public build of an early access title, idk. But it has a really good foundation.
It's less edgy pokemon and more just open world pokemon. The vast majority of the edgy stuff are just things that appeared in the pokemon games but you weren't allowed to do yourself.
We had Pokémon that had fought in wars and a genetically altered Pokémon that killed the scientists trying to control it the very first game.
It’s what gamefreak have refused to do and it’s good.
E: oh yeah, there’s a bunch of absolute freaks going nuts on twitter trying to prove that the developer used ai to make assets from nintendos ip. If you’ve got any experience with 3d modeling or llm/gpt it’s very funny to scroll through. Primo “fifth grader lawyer” time.
Yeah, looking at these designs, yeah, they're fake pokemon, but clearly designed by a person. Weird how people seem to think artists have vanished since AI popped into existence, and that lazy or derivative art has ceased to exist. (Not that I think the art is lazy, the designs are very cute, and if they were trying to avoid making their creatures look like pokemon, they would basically have to throw out 90% of appealing art design in the process. I don't blame them for leaning in on the "discount pokemon" angle at all.)
There’s a very funny interview translation going around where the lead dev or whatever is asked “what is your creative vision” and replies “I don’t have a creative vision, I just want to make fun games”
It’s gonna take some serious icj convincting the idf of genocide level proof to not just see the dev and games success as our last gasp of wholesome %100.
Because Hexbear has the weirdest struggle sessions sometimes.
(It's a new monster-catching game that took a animal expolitation spin on Pokemon, and now everyones debating if Pokemon is unethical or not)
uhh it's outside of hexbear too.
unlike cats, which should not be outside.
unlike cats, which should not be outside.
if the people whinging about how wind turbines kill birds really cared about birds, they would advocate to ban all cats, which kill way more birds than wind turbines ever will
Ark survival evolved and factorio but its pokemon crafting survival game but a very rough unreal engine game that looks like an nft game.
I tried it on gamepass, its definitely a video game. No idea why its talked about so much.
It's pretty fun, if you almost liked Ark survival evolved and like pokemon you'd probably enjoy it.
it's a joke that got taken too far. it's the free market functioning as it should. it's Pokemon With Guns. it's probably not actually a video game. buy it today!
