I’d been excited for Palworld for a long time before its launch. While I’ve got a long-lasting and loving relationships with games centered around raising monsters, the early info about the game reminded more of an Azure Dreams than a Pokemon, since your human player joins in on the fighting and doesn’t require their little friends to do all the work (little friends here meaning monsters, not guns. I’m not doing a Scarface reference, no matter how applicable it may be here).

This side-by-side fighting wasn’t just a feature that I thought sounded neat and set Palworld apart from Pokemon and games of its ilk; it was my entire reason for wanting to play the game in the first place. And while I made comparisons between the two games — and it’s hard not to, given Pokemon’s overwhelming historical dominance of the genre — what I was really looking for was a unique adventure where the monsters (or in this case, Pals) that I picked up along the way would be a lot less like mindless weapons that I control and more like actual party members that I can bond with together as we face whatever dangers come our way.

But after more than 20 hours in Palworld, I find that the bond I’m sharing with my little beasts just isn’t forming in the way I expected it to. That’s probably because, most of the time, I’ve been forgetting to let them out of their spheres entirely.

Let Me Solo Them

To be fair, yes, catching Pals and adding them to your collection so you can level up, unlock new technology, and build bigger and better bases is the central mechanical theme surrounding Palworld. (I’m still not sure what the story-based theme is, besides fighting random human baddies who belong to organizations I know nothing about, but it’s still an Early Access title). And yes, like in Pokemon, you’ll want to weaken wild Pals before you throw your Pokeball… err… Pal Sphere at them to give you a better chance of success with the one-off, consumable items.

But if you’re like me, and you built your starting base in the general proximity of the game’s starting spawn point — and you probably should if you don’t want to freeze to death on your first night for lack of craftable clothes — then almost all the pals around you are going to be a very low level. That means even with the low-tech early weapons like the club and spear, all it takes is a few bonks or pokes, and you’re well on your way to earning a new friend, so long as you don’t bonk or poke too many times and run their HP bar down to zero.

The Problems With Palworld Pals

And therein lies the rub. Since you’re not issuing direct commands to your pals, if they’re out and about while you’re fighting, they’re going to join in, and they’re not real keen on restraint. Since their default state is to keep attacking until whatever you’re fighting is KO’d, and since they act of their own volition most of the time, this means you’re probably wasting precious time hunting new species and trying to catch them before your pink kitty or not-Wooloo flatten them into the dust.

And the game encouraging you to catch 10 of each type of Pal for XP bonuses only makes matters worse, since you’re going to be fighting early enemies ad-nauseum to not just catch them all, but catch two digits worth of them all. I suppose it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the game continued like that forever, since the solo combat is fun in its own right, but like most things, Palworld changes, and it forced me out of the comfort zone it created in brutal fashion and with no real warning.

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Things Start To Get Serious

Even though I was keeping up with my technology tree as I got new unlocks, always wanting the best weapons and armor that turned me into a Pal-capturing/slaying machine, as I started to venture to other islands, I was finding myself outclassed not just by stronger Pals, but by better-equipped human enemies, who came at me in groups, armed with guns and big HP bars against my paltry metal spear and triple-shot bow. The worst were the massive flying enemies, since my spear was my big damage dealer, and there’s only so far you can poke when your quarry can take to the sky and rain down destruction on you.

And with how quickly the difficulty ramps up when visiting these areas, I found it only took a few shots from some enemies before I went down. That would be fine if I were playing on Easy mode, but for all other difficulties, passing out means waking up far away, nearly naked and defenseless, and likely suffering cold damage again once night falls. Sure, my map let me backtrack to where I fell, so I could retrieve my stuff, but it was usually a long walk from the closest spawn point, and there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t have to pass through aggressive beast central all over again and have to spend most of my time running for my life while my no-equipment character just tried to get his clothes and pointy stick back.

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Only The Adaptable Survive

Over time, I grew out of my soloing ways, learning when to summon my Pals to dispatch enemies and when to pull them back in so I could make the capture, But I have to admit, it still feels a little unnatural after my early-game hours set me up to challenge the islands all on my lonesome.

Still, being able to unlock upgrades for specific Pal species has been a treat. From the beloved green monkey with an SMG to holding my fire fox like a flamethrower, combat has gotten a lot more interesting, and if I do keel over from damage, my big bird now has a saddle that can get me back to my dropped stuff a lot faster.

But you may have noticed, in my last paragraph there, that I didn’t use any of the Pals’ proper names, and that’s because I haven’t bothered to learn them. I think that’s where the problem is. By making combat Pals a hindrance at the beginning, and then shifting directly into making them a necessity, since they’re so much stronger than me, I missed the chance to bond with them as equal partners after all, and in the end, they did feel more like tools than companions, ones not even worth learning the real names of the species they come from. And I hope that changes the deeper into the game I go, because, after all, an adventure in which I can rely on my Pals and they on me is what I wanted all along.

Palworld

Palworld is a survival crafting game with colorful monster collecting elements. Build bases, catch dangerous creatures called Pals, explore dungeons, and group up with friends!

Released

January 19, 2024

Developer(s)

Pocketpair Inc.