Looks like a weird Pokémon knockoff game. I don’t get the hype.
Latest indie darling blow up videogame fad that you’ll hear less of in a month or so. I say that somewhat derisively but I think it’s pretty normal, Lethal Company was the last one and that was a neat little horror co-op game imo.
I think the reason word of mouth is spreading so much can be attributed to two things:
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It’s somewhat edgy, misanthropic and subversive take on Pokemon/Nintendo’s family friendly aesthetics. I can’t say much about this as I haven’t played the game myself to judge just exactly how much is being played straight and how much is satire (and I don’t plan to), but I’d guess people who grew up with Pokemon as a franchise have been looking for that edgy take and are reacting to that, and the resulting controversy is driving the engagement algorithms (I mean just look at hexbear lmao), and
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it’s fulfilling a niche that Nintendo hasn’t by being an online multiplayer Pokemon-esque game that’s not turn-based; just judging based on some of the clips I’ve seen but working together with your friends to catch a high level Pokemon-alike actually does look kinda fun. This one’s really on Game Freak for allowing Pokemon to go stale by playing it safe and not innovating the game design at all, so Palworld coming in to steal Nintendo’s lunch money here’s pretty deserved, I think. (Although yeah, I guess Ark did it first but the cartoony character designs are doing a lot of heavy lifting in making the on-screen action legible).
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Edgelord knock-off Pokemon game where you enslave, work to death and eat creatures that people are defending to make some kind of point about how the hundreds of millions of people playing Pokemon apparently think cockfighting is okay because they played a video game about cartoon monsters fighting each other.
make some kind of point how the hundreds of millions of people playing Pokemon apparently think cockfighting is okay because they played a video game about cartoon monsters fighting each other.
Goadstool, you’re the best, but nobody thinks this or is genuinely arguing it
My twitter feed says otherwise, sadly
oh
I don’t think they’re trying to make a point about anything lol. They’re just making a game about being a Pokémon warlord because they think it’s epic
I dunno if the dev team is making that point or not, but I’m seeing the point being made 'round the web regardless
I wanted Pokemon with guns. What I got was yet another unfinished “survival” game with a legally distinct coat of paint.
I wanted Pokemon with guns
I do not understand the appeal, even a little bit
The same way I felt about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom… and I beat them both!
I was being glib though. I wasn’t interested in the guns so much as I was factory automation with not-Pokemon.
I can dig that, I would kill for an actually good open-world survivalcraft game with Pokemon (type things).
Honestly, it’s very early. It’s one of the most feature complete early access games I have played in a long time.
It has similar survival aspects compared to Ark, valheim, and Conan. Building is not punishing with reasonable material requirements. You assign pals to your base, and they perform actions based on their available skills (mining, logging, handiwork, planting, watering, etc) and their passive traits (randomly assigned modifiers). You can keep a party of 6 with you, including one that can be out walking along as a companion. Some can be mounted, some can be used for extra oomf in combat, some will guide you to resources.
There are dungeons around the map that have bosses and loot, as well as some more elusive pals.
It’s a bit like Satisfactory in that you setup resource nodes and your outpost will generate those and allow you create things from it. There are a lot of pals to find apparently, as I continue to find new ones while exploring. There are boss battles, sometimes you’ll find a camp of syndicate guys (poachers) and free their captive pal from a cage to obtain it.
Idk man, I’m having a blast playing it. It’s very forgiving for a survival game, and reasonably easy to manage your base. Resources are plentiful, gameplay loop is pretty solid, and exploration is fun.
Where it will go from here, considering this is the first public build of an early access title, idk. But it has a really good foundation.
It’s less edgy pokemon and more just open world pokemon. The vast majority of the edgy stuff are just things that appeared in the pokemon games but you weren’t allowed to do yourself.
We had Pokémon that had fought in wars and a genetically altered Pokémon that killed the scientists trying to control it the very first game.
Because Hexbear has the weirdest struggle sessions sometimes.
(It’s a new monster-catching game that took a animal expolitation spin on Pokemon, and now everyones debating if Pokemon is unethical or not)
uhh it’s outside of hexbear too.
unlike cats, which should not be outside.
The internet argues about the stupidest things
unlike cats, which should not be outside.
if the people whinging about how wind turbines kill birds really cared about birds, they would advocate to ban all cats, which kill way more birds than wind turbines ever will
also buildings over (i forget) high
Ark survival evolved and factorio but its pokemon crafting survival game but a very rough unreal engine game that looks like an nft game.
I tried it on gamepass, its definitely a video game. No idea why its talked about so much.
It’s what gamefreak have refused to do and it’s good.
E: oh yeah, there’s a bunch of absolute freaks going nuts on twitter trying to prove that the developer used ai to make assets from nintendos ip. If you’ve got any experience with 3d modeling or llm/gpt it’s very funny to scroll through. Primo “fifth grader lawyer” time.
It gets compared with Pokemon a lot but honestly the gameplay (to my knowledge) isnt really thaaat much like Pokemon. Its Pokemon + guns + Valheim + Ark Survival.
Its on PC and Xbox. You can play it solo or in groups of 4 or on servers with up to 32 people (I think)
32 people on steam, 4-player co-op on xbox
Is it wrong to automate my rock stacking if I use water type
Pokémonpals?it’s a joke that got taken too far. it’s the free market functioning as it should. it’s Pokemon With Guns. it’s probably not actually a video game. buy it today!
It’s fun :)
I’m just happy it’s not related to frenworld
Kinda mid but theres potential there i guess
We must protect the copyright holders! How dare they use generative AI to make new pokemon!
Defending against generative ai is less about copyright holders and more about advocating for and protecting fellow workers in creative industries from being dropped for that lazy shit. The corporations are fine either way, as always it’s the workers who are left holding the bag
Did they use AI to make the game? The art looks lazy but not like AI.
The issue is their CEO previously posted about how AI could be used to skirt copyright, and that he couldn’t tell which were legit pokemon or AI generated ones anymore due to how far the technology has come.
They hired a concept designer for their monsters, though it’s not clear if the designer used AI to generate concept art to then redraw. At the moment it’s all speculation with no hard evidence of wrongdoing.
Outside of the CEO saying these things publicly, and the company’s previous title that was based on AI image generation, there is nothing to say that these monsters were designed with AI.
make new pokemon
Did they, though?
