How Indie Games can do what first-parties can't, and vice versa
"Palworld" dropped its 1.0 update about the same time as my birthday, and about when my youngest child discovered the joy of "Pokemon." While I completed the Pokedex on my Game Boy Color, getting all 151 original Pokemon, and was running around city streets catching cartoon animals back in 2016 when "Go" launched, like everyone else, my attempts to get into modern Pokemon titles have been underwhelming. So, curious to try what a game that alleges to go where Pokemon won't dare, I picked up "Palworld" on Steam.
The Agility of Indies
"Palworld" gave me a new appreciation for first-party games, like "Breath of the Wild" and "Pokemon," that this game takes inspiration from. I remember playing "BOTW" and wishing the Tarrey Town missions, where you recruit various Hyrulians to build up a small cul-de-sac town, and wishing there were more chances to have an impact on the landscape. In "Palworld," you can do something like building Tarrey Town all over the map, dropping down a Palbox and building out the infrastructure to create a base for yourself and your Pals. Your Pals also follow you around, fighting autonomously, and can even help out in your various bases you build, something I wished was in "Pokemon Legends: Arceus," and not the standard turn-based combat that's been a hallmark since the late 90's.
It's why I think a game like "Palworld" and indie development is essential. For a publisher/developer like Nintendo to make a new "Zelda" or "Pokemon" is a huge undertaking. It's the kind of thing that can make or break an entire system. Every new feature and evolution has to go through levels of play-testing and even approval from Shigeru Myamoto. That's why those games are polished and legendary. Whereas Pocketpair, developers of "Palworld," had their game in early release for a few years before that 1.0 update. They can make a game that looks kinda like Zelda, feels kinda like Pokemon, and iterate on it over the years to create something interesting.
The downside is you don't get those years of polish and content creation that working for Nintendo affords. Hyrule in "BOTW" felt alive, with long periods of isolation in windswept fields, punctuated by finding monsters who want to leave you for dead, until you make your way to a small town and some respite. It's something that Palpagos in "Palworld" lacks, as the majority of the map has largely been left open for you to drop down a base wherever you chose. Dungeons dot the sides of mountains and hills, but you're not going to find much more beyond Pals that either want to run away from you or kill you, or a handful of Syndicate goons (the game's baddies) that definitely want to kill you. Try not to look too close however, as most of the human characters have a painted-on "big anime eye" stare and upturned pointed nose. I want to add a caveat that it's all very impressive for a team of indie devs making something from whole cloth. But the differences are evident when I put down my Steam Deck and pick up my Switch.
It's still repetitive if you love it
I got about 60 hours into "Palworld" before I decided to call it quits. All that time had gotten me to the fourth boss fight of 8, which again, I was completely destroyed when I attempted three different times. Progress in the main story requires you to build your base, catch more Pals, and develop some resources. Which was fun for the first 40 hours, but after a while, became tedious. My avatar in the game became a micromanager, assigning pals to stations to mine for ore, create weapons and armor, plant and grow crops, with another to cook them into food for everyone. I began to hit a bottleneck with the different unlockable schematics you can earn, essential for surviving your adventures, or at least speeding up the various tasks your Pals perform. Those schematics require 'Technical Points,' which are largely earned by exploring new areas, but as noted earlier, you go too far off the beaten path, and something that looks like a Nickelodeon mascot will end you. I found myself wishing for the lapse in moral values it would take to utilize AI agents, so I could assign one to run my base for me while I was at work, taking advantage of a day's worth of production. Hashtag Capitalism!
I'm being a bit harsh, but overall I think "Palworld" is a worthy game and a fun time. But as I got closer to 70 hours of playtime, it started to hit me that I'd probably seen all the game had to offer. Games are by their nature repetitive, and it's not an issue if you enjoy the repetition, but despite the cuteness of Chikipi and Pupperai, I began to feel like "Palworld" was keeping me from the rest of my library. It's not an issue I have with "BOTW."
But "Palworld" has the advantage of "Zelda" in one big way; it's still being updated. It's alive in the way that "Breath" or any live-service game isn't, in that there's always the chance for more to be added. I'm looking forward to firing up Palpagos again sometime and seeing what's new. Later.