Palworldhas been 2024’s first game of the month, the game that can’t escape anyone’s mind but is certainly escaping their lips. I’ve put over 30 hours into it myself, and I’m surprised how much I like it, yet a few opinions I had initially have started to change.
Palworld is highly controversial, and the controversies have only piled up. The original trailers made it look like all the designs were rip-offs of Pokemon, but when I first started playing, I felt it was mostly original creatures with a few homages. Now, after 30 hours, I found a few more designs where the homage is a bit too similar for my liking, and that’s not even getting into theconcerns that some animations look not just inspired by but copiedfrom Pokemon. ThePokemonCompany even made a statement recently thatthey are now investigating.
Which is what made seeing this tweet over the weekend so jarring to me.
It’s from January 21st, onlythree daysafter the early access launch. This official merch doesn’t quite exist yet (althoughEtsy has some unofficial stock), so the tweet is nothing more than a tease for the future, along with a reveal that prototypes already exist. Still, this little tease at merchandise paints its picture. Because in its own way, it’s completely tone-deaf to all the issues surrounding the hottest game of 2024 so far.
There’s No Stopping My Maxed-Out Chicken In Palworld
From laying eggs to laying the smack down.
Shuffling Into Palworld Mania
I can vividly remember Pokemania, the overwhelming frenzy for the Pokemon franchise over here in the States. Palworld is far from the first franchise to try its hand at a monster-catching game, but it’s been a good while since I’ve seen a company try its hand at spoofing Pokemoncards.
When I was young, there were alotof attempts at making Pokemon card clones. Classic rivalDigimonhad them, and they remain infamous to Digimon fans for how cheap they were. Harry Potter had collectible cards that referenced both the movies and the books.
Even as a kid, I knew these were all attempting to stand in the spotlight of Pokemon cards. Multiple films and shows that wanted extra franchise money copied what Pokemon was doing, some more blatantly than others, and some much lazier than others.
So is it all that wrong for Palworld to relight that old torch? Iwouldsay no, but with the controversial comparisons only boiling up just a few weeks into release, coming up with an idea that will only draw more Pokemon comparisons feels like a terrible decision. And this is still one of the newest tweets from CEO Mizube, so it would seem this is still part of the plan, even after the investigation announcement from TPC.
I Keep Forgetting To Use My Pals In Palworld
Palworld’s difficulty curve turns Pals from a hinderance to a necessity too quickly.
Pals, Crafts, Arts, And Early Access
Those unfamiliar with developer Pocketpair may not realise that Palworld is now the third game that the studio currently has in Early Access, the other two being Craftopia and AI: Art Impostor.
If you check Pocket Pair’s official site or Steam page, you’ll see they currently have four games with a fifth coming soon. Only one of those games, Overdungeon, is a full release. Even the demo for the upcoming Never Grave has the Early Access tag, so it’s about as finished as everything besides Overdungeon.
Merch isn’t horrible in itself, but to start merch while juggling development on four games at once and the litiginous eyes of The Pokemon Company on them? Even being charitable, it can paint a picture of a company doing too many things, a classic recipe for disaster.
I do enjoy Palworld, but I think it’s time to lean less into the Pokemon inspiration and focus on completing development.
Palworld Dev Not Caring About “Originality” Is Cool, Unless It’s Plagiarism
There’s a difference between inspiration and plagiarism, and we may discover that soon.
