What is the biggest slap to the face that one can receive in the creative arts? It it condemnation? The ridicule of your supposed target demographic? Perhaps it's just feeling that you've failed to live up to your own lofty expectations for yourself, in that kind of 'I'm not mad at myself- just disappointed.' Because after watching the absolute state of Palword in the face of Pokémon- I think it's having someone else try their hand at a monopoly you've held for decades and garner so much success in their very first go at it. According to their own numbers, Palword managed to sell 5 million copies in just three days; no doubt assisted by the fact the game was selling for half the retail of your typical Pokemon game, on top of the fact that it is a game available pretty much everywhere that Pokemon isn't! (Except Playstation. Xbox seems to have manoeuvred a little bit of limited exclusivity in that regard.) Which is still a ways off from the 23 million that Scarlet and Violet, the most successful games currently in the franchise, has scored- but it's a shot across the bough.
Could it be that Palword does so much better than Pokemon in a fashion that is waking people up to the fact that The Pokemon Company haven't been trying their best for years? The game seemed like such a simple and disposable premise when it was first announced- Pokemon using guns to fight against poachers- (or sorry, 'Pals') adding just that little sprinkle of juvenile mature content that Pokemon is deftly afraid to touch at. But for whatever reason it seems to have taken off in such a way that if this developer was even considering doing one of the industry-standard 'release a project only to dump it' grifts they would be straight forced to reconsider their efforts. This is a golden opportunity rarely afforded to anyone- to slide into an otherwise iron-clad game genre and put the screws to the one underserving master once and for all.
I think part of Palword's initial popularity (I'm in serious contention over whether or not this game will be able to maintain it's interest for longer than a month) comes from the fact it was released just a few weeks after the end of Pokemon's Scarlet and Violet's final event- which presented no significant endgame prospects in the way that Pokemon Sword and Shield did. In that generation, we were given a rougelite minigame where we could grind for significant shiny Legendary Pokémon potential, whereas all of Violet's end-of-generation Legendries were stubbornly Shiny locked. Pokemon fans are already reverting back to Gen 8 for something to do. They are thirsting for more Pokemon style action. So throw a whole new game their way? You bet Palword was going to have some biters right out of the box. We need anyone to keep our interest in these dire times!
Because when you really break it down to brass tacks- Palword is actually somewhat basic on when it comes to the actual world it sets out. Having played it myself for a bit, Palword appears to be your standard 'dropped into a largely characterless survival world' template which is all too common in indie games, only with a more stylised artstyle, a mercifully forgiving hunger system (which still doesn't need to exist) and a somewhat sensible integration with Pokemon like mechanics. There's no comprehensive world to explore here, with culture and personality and Palmon integrated into everyday aspects of life- in many ways it is a Minimum Viable Product to prove this idea even has a market. If Pokemon were in the market of providing robust open worlds, and not still just dipping their toes into that idea- I don't think Palworld would have much of anything worth bragging about.
I don't think Palworld is an exceptionally well made game. It's not a steaming mess, don't get me wrong, but the bar of quality is not what is bringing people through the door. It is the concept, plain and pure. The idea of capturing cute monsters, training them up and battling- that alone is a game seller- and it's for that concept that folks have put up with The Pokemon Company's endless crap for all these years. The dual games for every generation with the absolute bear minimum of effort put in to make those versions at all distinct, (This generation they couldn't even bother with different version trainers.) the quality of life accessories we have to fight tooth and nail for such as being able to access the Boxes anywhere. (That wasn't a thing until Gen 8!) The lacklustre approach to narrative design that makes each game still feel like they're being written entirely for a child audience in the 2000's- ignoring how widespread and multifaceted the franchise has become since then. Palworld solves none of these issues directly (Well, there isn't a 'version exclusive' Palworld yet) but just by existing the way is open for others to come and challenge the pain points of the Pokemon franchise in the future.
Of course, the game is not without controversies. There are those who think the game has been ripping off parts of Pokémon in order to make their pals, Frankenstein stitching together design elements from popular mons like 'Lucario' and 'Skitty' in order to make their 'OC don't steal's. Now, there are currently just over 1000 Pokemon in existence and Gamefreak are already repeating themselves in places. (That Bouffalant somehow isn't a regional variant or evolution of Tauros is insane!) That some design elements might be shared with Palword is no great shock. I wouldn't even call that a conceptual issue. They borrow the same basic design philosophies, similarities will happen. Then come the accusations of the game being made by AI which, as far as anyone can tell, have been pulled out of thin air. Okay, so the CEO mentioned being interested in AI on a few occasions and experimented with it. But if you think AI is capable of slapping together coherent 3D models- I'm sorry that you're so ill informed.
I suspect that the way the Palworld life cycle is going to is thusly. This initial surge of interest which we're currently in will plateau pretty quickly, then people will start to grow bored of the survival building aspects and start nagging the developers to add something else to do in the game. The developers will fumble about trying to stick to their vision (which I suspect will be further leading into the Pokemon design template. AI trainers, generated gyms/dungeons etc.) and meet player demand. The public will turn on the Palworld team for not being quick enough to implement everything within a 'reasonable' time frame, and come December the game will be another forgotten title of the year. I hope i'm very wrong with that prediction, but I'm decently confident judging from what I've played and how I know the industry to act.
Palworld is a craze, of that there is no doubt. But I have to say it's not quite the game I hoped it would be. To this day I am waiting for a game that takes the world we saw teased in the Detective Pikachu movie, a Flintstones-esque monster-harmonic society, to life. Building Palmon camps and watching them scramble about desperately trying to fulfil your work orders is fun an all, but there's a big chasm between the 'we've made a world' approach and the 'we've given you the tools, make it yourself' paradigm. Sure, the game is in early access and I'm sure the team expect to buff up the package in the months to come, but we're just going to have to see if the audience are willing to stick around for that long.
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