Finally, pokemon taken to its logical conclusion.
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Right? I see people saying "oh but the violence! the slavery!" as if it wasn't a collective act of childhood goodwill that prevented such associations being made to Pokémon. They talk a lot about friendship, but it's a friendship built on beating up creatures in the wild, which then obey and fight for you unquestioningly. Even some which are human-like and stated to be as intelligent as humans.
I consider myself a Pokémon fan and I defended them often, but it's a concept that gets a little iffy if you think about it for more than a minute.
Sounds like any RPG to me. Except that your party consists of the same creatures that you're fighting. In that sense it's maybe more egalitarian than RPGs featuring classical enemy races like orcs or goblins.
In Pokémon the concept of evil comes in the Form of Team Rocket and other shady exploitative organisations. Interestingly Palworld also has a counterpart organisation called Syndicates. But I still don't know what their crime really is since you're really doing the same thing of fighting and catching Pals. Nevertheless you have to treat the creatures in your party right, if you want to make progress in the game.
Like any RPG? Nah. C'mon, in most RPGs the characters are brought together by the story. Even the occasional antagonist who is fought and then allied with has a whole discussion where they are convinced of the merits of the protagonists. I could grant that in the Pokémon anime fairly often the creatures are convinced or decide to come along willingly, but in the games that hardly ever happens.
How do you reconcile the idea that the creatures want to come along with the active resistence of fighting them and having them break your pokéballs repeatedly?
Of course if you take the story by its word they'll say that trainers are good and friendly and only these criminal teams really are evil. And for fun I indulge that fantasy while I'm playing it, that these are martial artists pets that just love fighting so much and that pokéballs must be super comfy inside. But if you take a moment to compare what is happening you'll see that it isn't that different from what Palworld is doing.
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There's actually multiple different hostile organizations, but you won't run into the others until you're higher level.
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People must be bored, that game is less than mediocre
Or they've been dying for a different way to play Pokemon than what Nintendo's been selling them for decades.
Yup, it’s pretty fun 👍
Bought it last night, have been playing 15 hours straight and I regret the absence of sleep.
But not enough to quit, I haven't found a dungeon yet.
It's a blast and brings together the best parts of so many games I love.
Not to mention in a more impressive format. I thought Arceus looked graphically barren and I know there are still plenty of people annoyed at the pop-in in Scarlet and Violet. I know it isn't really Nintendo's thing to play into the performance competition but a lot of people just expect better these days and the much bigger scope of Breath of the Wild and impressive level of expansion in Tears of the Kingdom has made even Nintendo fans see that there's better out there.
Arceus: graphically barren but mechanically superior
Was my take.
I'd generally have to agree. When it came out, I definitely recall saying that I'd've grown up a pokemon fan (because Digimon was superior in anime 💪🏻😜) if Arceus had come out back then. That said, there's still plenty of places it could be better. The lack of many of my favourite pokemon was why I ended up quickly dropping it.
Idk, it's definitely not some sort of life changing experience or high art or whatever. It is however kinda cute, a little bit funny, has an enjoyable gameplay loop, adequate exploration, and satisfy combat. It's also pretty cheap.
The monster mechanics are surprisingly well integrated into the world. Just basic shit like pulling out a burny fox to see when in a cave is pretty immersive. Then discovering special mechanics like the boar that rapidly mines by charging rocks has you throw out your pick and start careening around like a loon.
It only really has legs during the discovery phase I think, but that's fine. Games aren't bad if they end.
Id hope they use the popularity to improve it further but I really don't wanna get invested in the same way I have with valheim, they have been mostly resting on their laurels so far and these developers will probably do the same. I hope I'm wrong tho, seems like a game I'd enjoy if it had more depth.
It would be nice, I wouldn't bet on it though and don't recommend buying something in the chance it gets better later. I'm enjoying myself atm and wont be mad if it never becomes more than it is.
Hopefully it's at least a signal to other devs that there is real market interest in base building + monster collection or just open world monster collecting
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Nah, it's actually pretty great. I've played hundred of hours of ARK, and this scratches the same "survival-crafting with monsters" itch that ARK does, but with a lot of big improvements (not being heavily PvP-focused, being able to safely store your 'dinos' when you're away, having a reason [loot, npcs, pokedex completion] to explore the worldspace beyond finding dinos or resources, etc).
It's a fun game with a nice mixture of looting & leveling, survival, base optimisation and progress, exploration and fighting.
I also like the humor of paldex entries hahaha.
It's just the "pokemon with guns" hype
"Pokemon with guns on PC."
That's a great sales pitch.
While that's part of it, it's definitely not "just" that.
Sadly, part of it is that the game has released in a fairly stable/polished state, which is considered a positive in the world of broken releases. The multiplayer also just works with little issue as opposed to some problems of yesteryear.
There's also a perhaps surprising pent up demand for good co-op PvE focused games. They blow-up hard but tend to fade out depending on gameplay quality. Part of this is the streamer effect, streamers like to play group games with other streamers because it helps cross-pollinate their audiences. Sales are also improved due to group/peer-pressure, if someone can pull in their friend group, that's a lot of sale multiplication.
I also think that the developers tried to make a game that's fun. A lot of decisions seem to have followed the rule of cool for this type of game e.g. pal mounts, firearms, catching people, automation of survival elements via slavery.
It also manages to have both a clear and guided progression system while maintaining the freedom for the player to just fuck off and do whatever they want while still at least partially progressing.
My only honest gripes with the game are how world saves are handled (they should use the Grounded system in addition to having dedicated servers) and that I for some reason can't find the exit button on the title screen so to quit I need to alt-f4, for the rare times I need it.
I played a bunch over the weekend, didn’t even get to use a gun yet… the game is so much more than that.
I'll play when it's out of early access
Thier last game (released over three years ago) is still in Early Access and they already got thier pay day. This is why I hate modern gaming. Gamers can't help but pre-maturely ejaculate over some new thing, so devs are able to keep shoveling eternal Early Access games. I vote with my wallet and don't buy EA games, but my game group still does. I miss out on a lot of gaming sessions because of it.
Personally I think gaming companies should not be allowed to charge for Early Access and basically just go back to free betas for testing. Or if they do have an Early Access, they should be forced to have a published release date or automatic refund if they miss. That will prevent devs from releasing half baked content and coasting on it for years.
They can still provide content and fixes via standard updates.
But you said yourself that you miss out on a lot of gaming sessions because you won't buy EA games. If the game is fun, then who cares what it's labeled? Presumably, your friends think the game is fun enough to play in its current state.
I don't really understand the problem with "Early Access"; just make a decision based on whether the game is currently worth what they're asking for it.
It's more that I would like a complete experience than have features and content trickled to me. I generally don't have time to play a game more than once, so I want the time I invest to get the best return. For me, that's not until a game is released.
This. Pay money for fun.
I don't care if it's in early access if I'm enjoying it. I do care if I'm paying money for an extremely frustrating experience, but this game does look fun if you have friends to play with.
People will really eat anything
It’s a legitimately good game. My brother was shitting on it too til he played it.
Doesn't it literally use stolen pokemon assets?
They are extremely similar to the point that I think they are edging very close to Nintendo caring if they don't already.
But I don't think the assets are directly stolen from looking at them.
There are artists who disagree. They're saying the proportions are identical to models used in Pokemon Violet/Scarlet.
I looked up a video showing some model proportion comparisons. Yeah they do look to be pretty similar, but I guess it just comes down to: Where do you draw the line between copyright infringement and fair use? Like obviously palette swapping a squirtle to be red and making him a fire type is probably illegal? But if you take the squirtle model, change him to be all fuzzy, with a spiky shell, different eyes, etc to the point where the model meshing is no longer the same… is that really infringement?
I don’t know myself, and will leave it up to TPC to figure it out, but it doesn’t really bother me one bit either way.
I mean, the problematic part here is that they take the model in the first place, or at least that all signs point to that being the case. Sure, you can coldsteel the hell out of an existing character, but if you're using an asset you didn't develop and didn't license to make a product that you then sell for money, no matter how different the end result looks from the original, that is absolutely infringement. It's infringement that might have gone unnoticed had the models been more sufficiently edited, but at the end of the day it's the theft of someone else's labor.
I don't know if that's what happened here, but when the industry professionals say it's hard to get model proportions that close even moving the same asset into a different engine, and the whole roster is uncannily similar? If it looks like a duck...
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I just wish the devs didn't make such blatant ripoffs, it seems their whole studio is taking existing Nintendo games and remaking them. Their previous game is literally a breath of the wild clone, down to the game starting in a cave, exiting and seeing the panorama of the world zooming in on where you need to go. ~~For comparison: https://twitter.com/Potatoe4Bored/status/1749271229025092052~~ I guess the link is dead, sorry.
The monsters in this game aren't much better in that regard, someone posted a thread comparing 111 of the monsters to Pokemon (and Digimon) and it was pretty ridiculous. It's hard to say they're even "inspiration" because so many of them are just changing the color palette and type of animal. Even some of the attacks are the same (like one of the monsters with a bow).
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Pokemon. I'm not upset that they ripped it off, it's more that I'm disappointed that it's not very original when the game seems like it's already a no brainer. It seems like there are very few strong Ark style games so it would have been nice to have a new IP mostly unrelated outside of mechanics. Instead we get a bunch of Pokemon that went through Digimon evolutions. It's just too bad since the game is clearly decent enough overall.
a breath of the wild clone, down to the game starting in a cave, exiting and seeing the panorama of the world zooming in on where you need to go
Wow, I didn't know BotW predated Fallout 3!
I also feel like Elden Ring did this... damn BotW clones everywhere! /s
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Why is this an issue for you? Taking stuff and remixing it is how new stuff gets made. Nintendo surely won't go into bankruptcy anytime soon.
I literally said I have no issue with it, just that I'm disappointed they couldn't make something more original.
Here's the comparison https://twitter.com/CeciliaFae/status/1749183059877085396
The link you posted looks like a post with little text and an image. Is there an article it’s supposed to link to? I don’t know how Twitter works.
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Maybe it's just a consequence of growing up poor but I just don't get all the drama going on about what a ripoff it is. It's not like off brand stuff is anything remotely new.
I'm not comfortable with this image
Excuse me while I buy and download this game to further add to the brainrot
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