Palworld, everything we know about the interesting Pokémon clone
Palworld
Among the many, many legitimate and illegitimate clones of Pokémon that have flocked in the last twenty years, this Palworld could be the one that will cause the most discussion, but also the game that could attract the attention of all those who have seen in the recent Legends. Pokémon: Arceus a foundation on which to build the future of the hugely popular Nintendo franchise. It cannot be said that the guys of Pocket Pair, already authors of Craftopia and Overdungeon, have a lot of imagination, but at least you can recognize their chutzpah: the new trailer recently released seemed a bit softer than that of a few months ago, which had even unleashed the wrath of Rami Ismail on social media, but it is still not a little shocking if you are used to the pucciosity of Game Freak titles. In our preview of Palworld we explain why.Pokémon for cannibals and tormentors
Palworld, monsters can be used as cover during shootings Pocket Pair called it an "open-world multiplayer" survival crafting game ", practically GTA5 that meets Pokémon that meets Minecraft, a mixture of ideas and mechanics without a logical sense that, however, strangely, judging from the video it seems that it can work. Let's try to dissect what is shown, then. Graphically, Palworld is beautiful, and it doesn't rain on that. It is clean, colorful and defined, but above all the artistic direction maintains a visual coherence, especially in the lighting, which marries well the realistic settings with the more cartoonish models of monsters and characters. It is, in short, what Pokémon fans probably wanted to see in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.The comparison with the latest Game Freak work makes sense because, like it or not, from now on all titles based on the capture and fight of collectible monsters will have to deal with this new paradigm that has regenerated the ancient Pokémon formula. And Palworld already does it: it promises an open world full of monsters - called Pal, in fact - to be captured and collected, which however is subject to a series of rules and laws, some of which, among other things, prohibit the very capture of Monsters: Players will be able to catch them by throwing some kind of Poké Ball, but they will have to be careful not to be caught breaking the law. Pocket Pair did not explain what will happen to players caught in the act; however he pointed out that they can sell rarer creatures to some kind of black market for a lot of money.
What makes Palworld really special is the use - but perhaps we should say abuse - of monsters caught. The game promises a great variety of content, but most of it takes advantage of the cute little monsters in a cynical and ruthless way, who actually look like a lot, a lot - really a lot! - to the Nintendo ones. Among other things, we will be able to put them to work in factories and gardens, which do not ask for wages so much, but then we will also have to decide their rhythms, bearing in mind that they could die of fatigue, while producing more, or become sluggish, and then we could assign a real team leader to beat them to death to put them back in line.
The survival part is not just about the monsters, but also the players, who will actually have to survive in this world halfway between the fantasy and the realistic. The developer has not properly specified how and why, the fact is that we may be forced to devour our own Pal in order not to starve. As if to say: a pound and a half of Pikachu, lady. What do I do, I leave?
Violence against animals
Palworld, electric Pals can power Pocket Pair technology would seem to have given Pals significant importance in several respects. The players who decide to build a house will find that they also have to get heat and electricity, and this means that they will have to put their specific Pal to power the electronics as if they were real batteries. The game seems to take this real food chain seriously, but it does so by contrasting a raw realisticity with the whiteness of the visual sector: we can even throw an electric Pal into the water - and certain death - to fry the aquatic monsters that otherwise we would have had to fish normally. .The Pals can also be ridden to explore the game world at three hundred and sixty degrees, by land, by sea and even flying on the backs of winged ones. But above all they can be used in combat, except that the trailers released by Pocket Pair do not exactly focus on the battles between monsters.
Palworld, what will happen to these little sheep? In fact, our enemies will mostly be other human beings. We know that Palworld will be a multiplayer game, and therefore we can already hypothesize a form of PvP, but for the moment a cooperative mode has been confirmed that allows players to meet, face various challenges together or simply spend some time in company. . It is not clear if there is a narrative to support the gameplay, although some glimpses of the trailer would seem to suggest it; however, we know that there will be a plethora of firearms to learn and that the fighting will take place in the third person.
The player will be able to use his Pals during firefights - some will take up arms and they will join him in the fight, others will be simple tools and, in this sense, the trailer was not afraid to show the Pal used as real shelters or human shields behind which the player can hide.
Palworld, with the flying Pals we will be able to transport monsters and other materials Pocket Pair is working carefully on this part of the game, even implementing a gameplay on the vehicles in which one player drives and the other shoots, together with the Pal, against the enemies that pursue them. It is such an absurd gameplay and deviated from the formula to the Pokémon that it is difficult to imagine that it can really work, but it does not seem that the developer is focusing all the action component on firefights: we know that it will be possible to make Pal's team collide in the arenas, therefore there should also be a substantial management part that will allow, among other things, to combine the Pals genetically, producing hybrids that combine skills and statistics.
The real question is: how much sense can this approach make? The issue is a thorny one. Pokémon and its countless clones - from Digimon to Monster Rancher - have always touted respect for animals, yet a substantial portion of these titles featured players putting their pocket friends in grave danger in battles against other monsters or trainers. Palworld basically doesn't give a damn and uses the Pal for what they are: colorful virtual monsters that nobody gives a damn about once the computer or console is turned off. Did the Pocket Pairs really unmask the hypocrisy of Pokémon-like? We'll find out soon.
Palworld could be a sophisticated interpretation of the formula behind the recent Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but we must admit that the cynical violence that distinguishes the Pocket Pair title towards the so-called Pal leaves us a little perplexed. . Monsters become simple tools in the hands of the players, but beyond this inconvenient philosophy we must above all understand if the different identities of the gameplay can coexist in a single title without this being neither meat nor fish.
