Palworld is a breath of fresh air

It has been difficult to find a new game for a long time. One that I would pick up and continue playing. Most often, games these days could hype me up, grab my attention, but fall off after a month. I finally found my new staple game. Palworld certainly has been a breath of fresh air to me. The game is easy to start, rewards progress, and encourages new playthroughs. The gameplay loop is appealing and simple: find Pals, build your base, and become more powerful. Therefore tickling players on how they could be much more creative on their server. At the time of writing this article, we’ve already started several servers. So yeah, I’m having fun.

Palworld exposes my frustration with Pokémon

Yes, as a consumer it is within my right to express my opinion for a particular brand. That is I have frustrations with Pokémon. In the monster collector game called Palworld, the Pals are not just “things” to collect. Pals serve as companions in this almost empty Early Access world. Having them journey by my side and see them work in my base expose the irony and my frustration on the recent Pokémon games.

For example:

• The Pokémon TV series, movies, and even the commercials show Pokémon working alongside people.
• The Pokémon world is portrayed as a utopia where Pokémon and man living side-by-side.
• However, we do not see the portrayal in mainline Pokémon games where the player can employ Pokémon to certain tasks, except in Sword and Shield where you send off your Pokémon to a Poké Job. Though they return with Exp, EV training, or items.
• In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon can collect items on the ground or clear up an obstacle. But nothing remarkable as having a Pokémon craft an item.
• The reality is that you are a Pokémon trainer: you catch and level up your Pokémon to become the champ.
• I’ve emphasized the need on expanding the bonding between the player and Pokémon on PSV.
• Your Pokémon can’t even even keep up with you when exploring in Scarlet and Violet.
• They show you a glorious 3d commercial for the TCG.

I’m still a Pokémon fan, but playing Palworld provides a fresh take on the monster collector genre. Seeing your Pals ‘sandbox’ or roleplay in the base is a refreshing scene indeed. Coop, real-time combat, base building, and monster collecting altogether seems to be a good formula for a videogame. Like Ark. But taming dinos is different to throwing balls at said monsters.

Pals are more than your party

After playing for an hour, we realized that Pals are more than just battle buddies. They’re the building blocks of your base. And having a self-sustaining base doesn’t have to be initially complicated. I mean, a pair of Pals can already sustain your base.

Pals are your friends. They’re your workforce. They make your shelter. And they make Palworld livable. Pals are more than background props (even when the player is running around the base) as they are fully involved in maintaining your base and production. For example, if your base catches fire, you need to have a water-type Pal douse out the fire. That is there are problems that cannot be solved without a Pal. Furthermore, there are facilities that only Pals can operate.

The Pals are your pals.

It’s obvious now that your Pals are your pals in the game. In fact, every player will come up with their own favorite Pal. And Pals that they hate. You start to see these Pals as companions. They smile at you when they finish a job. Sometimes, they will even smile at you before starting a job. As a result, players fall in love with certain pals. But later on, we would have to rely upon these Pals for specific facilities. For example, a primitive furnace can only be operated by Pals with kindling. Or an electric generator can only generate electricity via an electric Pal.

Solo is fun but coop is FUN

The coop on the game is simple yet fun. The host sets up the world and shares the code. Then four players can play on the host world. Additionally, world settings can be adjusted to make the game easier or challenging. For me, coop is Palworld’s strongest feature. We’ve lost so much progress playing on dedicated servers because some updates reset the servers.

Single-player is fully doable. And I have friends who could only play solo. Single-player is fun too and it’s not a limiting factor in the game. You would only need to play the game at a certain way. For example, fidgeting with the world settings to increase the resources amount, the length of daylight, or even buffing player damage to Pals. And just because you’re playing solo, doesn’t mean you cannot turn on the multiplayer later.

Designed for Longevity

Palworld is also a sandbox game in addition to being a monster collector. The survival game aspect is complementary. Even if the hype tapers off, there will still be players chasing after the best game. For example, players building their most perfect base. Or players who will experiment on breeding the fastest mount. And there will be players who will crunch numbers to produce the Pal with the highest damage. Simply put, each playthrough can be different. And this is coming from a base game in Early Access with mod support and more official content to come.

Certain Pal species do a particular job faster, and certain traits make a Pal more productive or powerful. Thus players are encouraged to catch more pals in the game. But players lean more to breeding the best Pal. Catching (or breeding) more Pals will require more resources regardless.

Rare, Epic, or Legendary Pals respawn so the game can be played at one’s own pace. Though obtaining the needed Pal is enough for a specific job, there is always that itch of perhaps a better Pal out there. Or finding the legendary schematics from the bosses. When the fundamental needs are met, players will start focusing on the self-actualization on the game; being the best or having the best in the game.

Appealing gameplay

Movement is second nature in Palworld and exploration is a breeze. You can freely jump, swim and climb over obstacles. You’re not inhibited or restrained to explore. You can use land mounts or flying mounts. And you won’t believe how many games utterly fail on mounts these days. Palworld mounts have never been a problem from the get-go.

The gameplay routine is appealing. You catch Pals and build a base for yourself to survive. Sustaining yourself and your Pals need resources; and sometimes enemies raid your base. So you need to catch more powerful Pals and upgrade your weapons. Which needs more resources. Until you end up with functioning towns, farms, factories, or apartments for yourself, your friends (and your Pals).

Some things to consider in the future, Pocket Pair

Palworld is far from perfect, but it’s still a fun game. I have a list for Pocket Pair for future content or to improve QoL.

Add auto forward – It’s a huge map. There should be an auto-move button for exploring. I think they will implement this in the future. Especially when they’re adding a new island this summer 2024.

Add interact to furniture – At least we know they will add this in the future since they turned the Antique Dresser from a decor into a functional furniture to change your appearance.

Add weather – Rain would be absolutely gorgeous in Palworld. Taking shelter from a storm, or simply vibing while it’s raining will take immersion to a higher level.

Fix the targeting when assigning Pals to a facility – Still glitchy. You just need to know where to target on the facility to assign your Pal. Sometimes you need to throw your Pal directly next to the facility.

Needs fixing on the SAN checks – So Pals recover their SAN significantly first before resuming to work. I know that fully recovering SAN can bottleneck the job queues. But they’re spending about ten seconds in the hotspring and jetting away, instead of recovering a big chunk of SAN first.

Needs fixing on hunger checks – I’m all for Pals filling up the hunger bar first before heading back. Eating doesn’t take long, plus you will also become mindful to place higher tiered meals instead of stuffing the Feed Box with only (baked) berries.

Increase the base radius by default.

Increase the base limit by default.

Be able to get off a Pal when directly in front of a shrine.

Fix the animation placement when placing a Pal to a hotspring.

Need more potted plants! – More green clutter!

Conclusion

For me, I have fun the most with Palworld’s base creation. However, it’s also the limiting factor. I’m pretty sure the current base limits are in place to conserve spaces for future points of interests in the current map. Or to conserve the load in servers running numerous bases. But they need to increase the notch to the base radius and the number of bases that can be built by default, and optimize the workload at the same time.

Expect more Pals, content, and features in the future. Exploration is made simple despite that it’s a survival game. I love the real-time combat in the game as it feels like the needed break from turn-based text prompt RPG battles. It’s a replayable solo game and a seamless coop experience!

Get Palworld. Do it.