Palworld is an alternate take on Pokémon at a time when the colossal franchise feels stagnant and slow

  • Gordon_Freeman
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    -611 months ago

    I don’t thinks so. It popular because “pokemon with guns” became a viral meme which sucks.

    A a discontent pokemon fan myself I would love someone to make a pokemon clone since Game Freak is not really interested in doing good pokemon games anymore. But “Ark Survival Evolved with knockoff pokemon skins instead of dinosaurs” is not what I want

    • TwilightVulpine
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      1711 months ago

      Pokémon with guns wouldn’t have gotten millions of sales on its own. When the trailers came out people were laughing but they weren’t exactly eager to play.

      Given the persistent popularity of survival crafting games, I think “Ark with knockoff pokemon” is exactly what people wanted. After all, even before this, Pixelmon was one of the most popular Minecraft mods.

      • Gordon_Freeman
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        -111 months ago

        Pokémon with guns wouldn’t have gotten millions of sales on its own

        The day before sold millions (but this one was refunded by millions too) and everybody and their mom knew it was a scam since it was announced like 2 or 3 years ago. Internet is weird, if something becomes viral it will sell, the quality does not matter, people just wants to be in

        • TwilightVulpine
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          511 months ago

          The Day Before did not sell a single million units and Palworld is not getting widely refunded, even though everyone who starts it, dressed like a caveman, immediately realizes they aren’t getting to play with guns anytime soon. There were streamers showing this even before the game was out.

          It’s true that virality is unpredictable and popularity is not a measure of quality, but I think a lot of people are being overly dismissive of the fact that Palworld managed to hook people with something that appealed to them. Not to say it’s a bastion of quality and originality, obviously not, but it has something going for it.

        • snooggums
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          311 months ago

          As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing. Palworld did some advertising, but the mass adoption appears to be mostly word of mouth that the game is actually fun when it was made available in early access.

          That matches what I have seen from people commenting and my personal experience as I don’t remember hearing about it before and hopped on because of friends recommending it. Palworld is a word of mouth success like Valheim and for similar reasons of competent styling, smooth gameplay, and survival that isn’t punishing the player from the moment the game starts.

          • Gordon_Freeman
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            011 months ago

            As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing

            https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDayBefore/comments/lwaach/people_keep_saying_its_a_scam_whats_the_scam/

            That’s a 3 years old post. Everybody knew it was a scam back then. to the point the studio released “We are not a scam, trust me bro” statements (which made it more obvious it was a scam)

            I don’t remember hearing about it before

            Internet has been talking about “pokemon with guns” for 2 years or so since the developers were already famous because they launched a “Breath of the Wild” knock off (Craftopia) that also sold well (not at the same level of palworld, but for being the first title of a brand new indie studio it sold really well)

            • snooggums
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              311 months ago

              Apparently not everyone knew the day before was a scam or it wouldn’t have sold millions of units. Just because some people predicted it does not mean that the general population had any awareness of that expectation.

              • Gordon_Freeman
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                -111 months ago

                it wouldn’t have sold millions of units

                People started to sell their steam accounts that owned the game and keys for the game for hundreds of dollars when it was announced the game was some bad that it was going to be removed from steam

                If something is popular it will sell, the quality does not matter. You have the best example in Pokemon itself

    • @almar_quigley
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      811 months ago

      The hype around this game is really weird. I played it and thought it was really janky and unfun but what’s weirder is so many people loving the game but not complaining about the price tag for a game in preview.

      • @glimse
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        711 months ago

        It’s almost like people have different tastes in games…

        Elden Ring was insanely popular and I didn’t like it at all. Doesn’t mean the hype was invalid, it just wasn’t for me

        • Alto
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          211 months ago

          No! You’re not allowed to like games I don’t like!

      • @BleakBluets
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        611 months ago

        It is insane to me that people defend this game. Ten years ago this game would have been dismissed as survival-crafting shovelware (although GameFreak’s lastest entries haven’t been much more polished).

        Palworld is only superficially similar to Pokémon, but people treat it like it’s a logical evolution to Pokémon’s game design. I thought I was going insane, but I think I am now realizing that I am old and out of touch.

        P.S. There is nothing wrong with liking survival-crafting as a genre (I adore Minecraft myself), I just think this game overly relies on addictive design and isn’t particularly deep or unique mechanically.

      • ThunderingJerboa
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        211 months ago

        I mean 30 bucks seems pretty standard. Actually the same price as ARK which also was an early access title at that time which increased its price to 60 once it released. Especially after the kicker that ARK got a bloody dlc while it was still in early access.

        • @Zahille7
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          511 months ago

          To be fair, there were more like 2 or 3 DLCs for Ark before it officially released

    • ampersandrew
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      411 months ago

      Off the top of my head, there’s Temtem and Cassette Beasts that try to mimic the formula more closely, and then there are a bunch of “Pokemon but _____” takes on the formula that you can find with a quick Google. This is "Pokemon but ". Last I heard, Ark didn’t let you assign dinosaurs to a factory or have some of the more RPG systems like boss fights, but quite frankly, I found Ark so obtuse that I didn’t play for long.

      • Gordon_Freeman
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        211 months ago

        The problem with TemTem is that it’s an always online game, if the servers are turned off you won’t be able to play, not even the single player campaign so it’s a hard pass.

        And the art style of both games are not my cup of tea, the do a disservice selling me the game.

        • ampersandrew
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          511 months ago

          I’m a fairweather Pokemon fan at best, but I’m with you on Temtem for the same reason; many people don’t have the same reservations as you and I, so I thought I’d mention it. I think Cassette Beasts is that game and reviewed well, and to ignore it might be to ignore exactly the game you’re asking for, but I’d also point you toward the “creature collector” tag on Steam. I’ve never heard of Coromon before doing that search to leave this reply, but mousing over it for a second shows a video that proves they know what they’re making (87% positive Steam reviews). Same goes for Nexomon: Extinction (92% positive). No one will know what you’re looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

          • Gordon_Freeman
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            211 months ago

            No one will know what you’re looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

            A Pokemon clone with high production values made in Japan. Or if it’s not made in Japan one that uses it own art style, I simply can’t stand the “Fake anime” aesthetic that most indies use, like they learned to draw using this as refference

            Think of Shin Megami Tensei (but not SMT V, that one sucks, they removed the dungeon crawling and the puzzles)