Since its Jan. 19 release, PalWorld has been spreading its reach across Steam, Xbox and Microsoft Windows. Through the cloud of controversy surrounding Palworld in the past three weeks, the game is often described as the miraculous Frankenstein of some of the most-beloved games ever. PalWorld incorporates elements of creature catching and survival gameplay, like a spoof of Pokémon. But the integration of other gameplay mechanics makes the overall experience far more engaging and interesting than the usual Pokémon game, particularly compared to the most recent release Scarlet and Violet.
In fact, the survival element of PalWorld introduces an immersive experience. The game plays off ideas from PUBG: Battlegrounds and Minecraft, smoothly incorporating elements of looting and crafting to creature-catching. The main objective is not to simply capture Pals but to utilize Pals to create an in-game empire, allocating them to work, fight and even befriend the player.
The game’s most notable feature is that the Pals can use artillery equipment like guns and rocket launchers. Of course, the concept of a creature closely resembling a character like Pikachu holding a gun ensures hilarity, but even the humor of a Pal holding a heavy artillery cannon is a concept in game hinging on complex mechanics. Only certain Pals are able to hold weapons, while other Pals are only valuable in the organic products they make, like eggs, meat or wool. Such a miniscule mechanic that seems logical, but would never have further investigation in a recent Pokémon game. As Pokémon, both big and small, are treated as equals in most recent Game Freak games. Even as one of the most influential gaming studios in the entire world, Game Freak fails to introduce anything new to the Pokémon formula.
PalWorld – which was developed by a basement studio called Pocket Pair and supported by Unreal Engine, a relatively cheap, publicly available program – has seen immense success. PalWorld has become the number one game on Steam, making it a far greater success than Game Freak’s Legend of Arceus. Legends of Arceus, adjacent to PalWorld, takes place in an open-world style setting, but with an empty world, a limited selection of Pokémon to play with and an overall identical interface to every other Pokémon game, it is yet another failed attempt on Game Freak to develop any sort of remotely creative entertainment.
Despite Game Freak’s incessant success and die-hard fans, the studio is infamous for its talentless products and repetitive gameplay. The dark reality is Pokémon players are trapped in a cycle of perpetually passable and mediocre content. The recent release of PalWorld is a testament to such; this game, as ludicrous and ridiculous as it is, has far more sophisticated features and gameplay than anything Game Freak has released in over a decade. The game takes a further step from simply creature catching, incorporating sand box elements rather than following a linear narrative or even a coherent storyline that Pokémon games often have. Even though PalWorld is a Pokémon clone it also enhances and exudes the energy needed to make such an impactful franchise better. PalWorld presents a formulaic game like Pokémon as a completely different game.
Nintendo, most prominently, is well known for its strict copyright enforcement, particularly against prominent YouTubers and streamers. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furkuawa is well aware of PalWorld and its likeness to the beloved Pokemon characters. Addressing one of the main criticisms against PalWorld, that the Pals have similar designs to Pokémon, he stated, “We will take appropriate action against those that infringe our intellectual property rights.”
There are a lot of layers to the arguments against PalWorld. To remain a diehard Pokémon fan requires a necessary amount of copium to pay $60 for the same game over and over. As Furkuawa addressed, Pals present a similar design to Pokémon, and in defense of the design of the Pals, the characters in creature catching games are based on real-world animals, like snakes, cats, bears and sheep; animals which all have defining characteristics.
A widely critiqued Pal is Penking, who has been described to have only slightly altered features from the Pokémon Empoleon. Both the Pal and the Pokémon are based on the emperor penguin, a specific species of penguin with only so many defining characteristics distinguishing it from other penguins, like the king penguin or royal penguin. Emperor penguins in particular are known for their wide and heightened stance, with their heads tucked to their chins. Both Penking and Empoleon are based on emperor penguins, designed with a blue base color and accessories on the chest. Though both designs look rather similar, the inherent elements of a water-based animal like a penguin defines many characteristics. Circling back to Furkuawa’s comment, Nintendo must tread carefully when confronting the creators of PalWorld, as the Pals are not Pokémon, but simply creatures inspired by Pokémon designs.
Recent discussion surrounding PalWorld has articulated just how deprived Pokémon fans are of innovative and interesting entertainment. The incorporation of such layered elements to a game founded on creature-catching really alters the identity of a game so implicitly similar to Pokémon, making it a brand new product that has impacted the gaming world as a whole. There is a need for small companies to break free from the classic formula of mainstream games and media, creating a spoof that the original could never compare to – unless company-wide changes are made at Game Freak.
