• janNatan@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    It’s actually pretty good. there’s a little jank but a lot of heart. I was surprised to see that Every pal had battle, working, eating, and petting animations.

    • thantik@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      There’s a glitch where you can tame the bosses too - and even those have animations.

            • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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              5 months ago

              You have to get the police after you, go into the boss battle tower and get the police to shoot the boss, bugging it out and freezing it, then you can catch it with the basic ball immediately.

              It has like 90k health (which is extremely high for that level) and keeps Zoe riding on the back, if you let it out and return it to the ball, Zoe will remain floating in that spot indefinitely.

              It is most certainly a glitch.

              • DrRatso@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Fair enough, I havent finished that boss yet, I just kind of figured itd be capturable like the everything else.

        • Rolder@reddthat.com
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          6 months ago

          But at the same time, you do not need to butcher anything. I did find it amusing how the animation for butchering has heavy mosaic censoring though.

  • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    and this doesn’t even include any of the GamePass players, right?

    The game wouldn’t run for me on GamePass, crashes every 15 seconds… so I guess I’ll on Steam.

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      I think it’s only steam.
      It runs on steam, i host a server and sometimes got some big old frame drops. Otherwise it runs pretty well for me.

    • JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I have a minor conspiracy theory about the Game Pass launch: it almost seems like they made the game pass version intentionally worse/buggier. Still had fun gameplay but lacking features that a lot of people want, some odd oversights (e.g. no menu to quit the game in the PC game pass build, have to alt+F4) and more stability issues. That gives people a chance to try it, find out they like the game, learn it’s better on steam, and then buy it there.
      That’s exactly what happened with my entire friend group (we also wanted a Private server for more people and persistent world regardless of who is online, which GP version can’t do currently).
      Rationally, I recognize that it’s probably a matter of the build being different, limitations when running in the Microsoft ecosystem (though other games are about to connect to private servers, even if it’s less straightforward) and the GP version is primarily for console (runs on PC as well, but the menu screens feel like console ones). But it certainly didn’t hurt their sales that the Steam version was clearly better.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Why would they? It takes effort to make something innovative. They can make buckets of money by doing nothing. They might make more, but it’s going to cost a lot more too.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Pokemon Arceus had a little innovation. The thing is: a little innovation after decades of doing the same thing is like a textbook example of “too little, too late”.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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      6 months ago

      I don’t think that GameFreak will see this as a wake up call. And even if it does, it might not do the necessary changes to Pokémon main series.

      The stagnation runs deeper. It is partially caused by inertia (“we’re selling well, why bother innovating?”), but also by GF’s insistence on making the main series story-driven instead of gameplay-driven. Even if story-driven Pokémon goes a lot against the franchise’s biggest strength - a wide, unique, and immersive universe to explore.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        More importantly: The Pokemon Company is a separate entity from Game Freak and Nintendo, with a third company also participating, Creatures Inc.

        Pokemon games exist solely to drive people, especially the current younger generation, into the franchise. Licensed merchandise is THE money printer for them. In 2022, they reported 11.6 billion dollars in revenue just from that. They’re at a point where they can literally ask “Why even bother with games?”

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      People like cathing cool animals and do thing with them valling it a pokemon like game is just weird. No one called pokemon final fantasy with animals.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Yeah it’s obviously like Pokémon in several key regards but from what I’ve seen of it the actual game has a lot of originality and new concepts. We shouldn’t need to completely reinvent everything all the time, when something has a big cultural impact on people as children they should be allowed to play with and evolve those concepts - I know Pokémon doesn’t understand how evolution works but we as a society should take our cultural property seriously.

        If you shove your ideas into kids brains then the adults who grow from those kids should own those ideas, the only reason we don’t is because Disney wanted a monopoly on mouse picture.

        Set copyright to something reasonable like twenty years and focus on making a better society with free growth of ideas and expression rather than protecting the profits of the richest few

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          Honestly, I don’t think it has any original concepts, but it does merge a lot of concepts from other games into a fairly cohesive package. There’s nothing it does, from what I’ve seen, that isn’t done in another game, but the fact that all systems connect with each other and work together is fairly impressive.

  • AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    I’ve been playing it for a while now, quite fun. It reminded me of tech modpacks that incorporated Pixelmon in Minecraft, although this is much more refined. It has much less of a Pokemon vibe as people give it credit for. Other than mounts, you have no control of what abilities your pal uses, and it is much less focused on paper-rock-scissors and more on the terrain and damage delivery because of its real-time FPS nature,

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I honestly don’t understand how people saw this slop and all just threw their wallets at it. The only way I can cope with this beating fucking Counter Strike is that it’s “Adult Pokemon” premise was too interesting to pass up. I can’t imagine it’ll be like this in a month or several. As an outsider this is beyond bizarre to watch. Maybe PETA got to me but it turns my stomach watching people gleefully butcher and enslave Pokemon.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yep! Clearly I’m in the minority thinking it’s distasteful to take innocent, bright, goofy looking creatures that resemble the childhood characters most of us grew up with and literally fucking slaughtering them with a butcher knife for soup. I’d rather shoot unnamed terrorist #32 in his terrorizing face. Correct.

        If the game wasn’t also low effort slop that’s borderline an asset flip with how many designs they’ve stolen, I’d probably tolerate it more but I’m awestruck so many people are eating this trash up and celebrating it.

        • ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat
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          6 months ago

          I really hope you’ve taken a breather inbetween your internet raging to realize the “violent” aspects of this game are completely optional. It’s tastefully done, and absolutely no different than killing Minecraft cows for food. Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft?

          If the game wasn’t also low effort slop that’s borderline an asset flip with how many designs they’ve stolen, I’d probably tolerate it more but I’m awestruck so many people are eating this trash up and celebrating it.

          If you’re going to parrot stuff you heard off Twitter, the least you can do is verify it for yourself first. The designs aren’t stolen. Did they steal 3D models? No. Are they shamelessly similar? Yes. But that’s allowed, and it’s been a staple of the gaming industry for 30 years. We literally call other genres of shamelessly similar games by the games they copy. Soulslikes. Roguelikes. Metroidvanias.

          You clearly haven’t tried this game. It’s not “slop,” it’s high effort, there is a ton of attention to detail, and the success it has gotten is absolutely earned. I’ve never seen an indie game get so much right.

          It beat Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam. It has more players than the 2023 Game of the Year.

          Steam is filled with trash low effort games, yes. But are you really so full of yourself that you think Palworld would sell this well if it were just another shovelware title? If it were “slop?” Grow up, please.

          And let’s not forget the franchise you’re defending. THIS is slop:

          • inlandempire@jlai.lu
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            6 months ago

            Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft?

            Not taking position, but for example Dead Cells offers a diet option, where you can choose the type of “food” (healing collectibles) you find scattered across the levels. I find that it’s an interesting and fun option to offer players.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft

            Forget Minecraft, are they vegetarian? It would be peak hypocrisy to be so concerned about how people treat pixel animals and not care how real life animals are treated.

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
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            6 months ago

            “low effort” lol Not to mention they made an entire game to prepare for palworld…

            I’m 100% convinced craftopia was a testbed for the mechanics they wanted in palworld lol

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            This brings up a weird idea. Are there like regular animals in Pokémon, or is everything non human a Pokémon? Like I feel like they have eaten meat or things that would presumably have meat in it a number of times, are those all Pokémon?

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Oh the premise is the same but the difference is I can’t go stab my Pikachu, cut it up, then turn it into soup because I got bored. Pokemon still has kid gloves on it to where nobody dies, injuries are superficial, and everything gets better with a visit to a special building. Palworld shatters that and goes “Hey, fellow psychopaths, you can now enslave and butcher all those friendly creatures you grew up with!” like all of us were just fucking drooling at the chance to murder cute animals. Clearly I’m the weird one because I never grew up thinking the Pokemon should be killable.

    • Statick@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      The uniformed virtue signaling is strong with this one…

      All of the “butchering” is optional. Believe me, the game makes it much easier to set up a berry patch that auto-feeds everything in your base, rather than manually butchering everything.

      And… Normal Pokemon is enslaving as well. You’re literally catching them and forcing them to fight each other to the brink of death. Just to recycle the rhetoric of the crazies 20-25 years ago. It’s akin to dog fighting. You’re also a child in Pokemon…

      Come on, at least try to make a good argument.

    • wia@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Do people riding horses gross you out too, or really on dogs to find injured people in accidents? Animals have had jobs with people throughout history.

      Do you not fight wolves, attack dogs, dragons, and other animals on any other game you’ve played?

      You don’t have to butcher your pals. There is no in game need for it. You have pals, v you pretty them and feed them and provide them needs and they help you cut a tree down. Sometimes they don’t feel like it and they just don’t do it. What’s the problem?

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Yeah imagine still playing counterstrike on the same 3 maps and guns for 20 years and spend 1000 dollars on a cool knife.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Maybe PETA got to me but it turns my stomach watching people gleefully butcher and enslave Pokemon.

      So you gleefully play terrorism stimulator the game?

      I’m anti-war and anti-guns, I play a lot of war games and shooters. It’s a game.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You really don’t see how “killing bad guys doing bad things” is a lot easier to stomach than walking up to a Miltank eating grass and blowing it’s head off with a shotgun?

        There’s a way you do violence with cute characters and it’s fucking called Pokemon. It’s called Slime Rancher. I don’t know who the fuck asked for Happy Tree Friends: The Game but congrats, you got it.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          You really don’t see how “killing bad guys doing bad things” is a lot easier to stomach than walking up to a Miltank eating grass and blowing it’s head off with a shotgun?

          Unless you’re on the terrorist team, sneaking up on an agent doing his job and blowing his head off with a shotgun.

          You’ve drawn a weird line in the sand here: shooting semi-realistic looking people with a gun and seeing their blood splatter? That’s fine. Shooting a cartoon with a gun until it falls over? THE HORROR!

          Are you up in arms over Zelda? Mario? There’s no blood or dismemberment, they just fall to the ground. “Unconscious” if that helps you release the death grip from your pearls.

          You clearly have no idea how the game actually behaves and have invented something you can be upset about. There are lots of videos of gameplay, please find me an example of the violence you find unacceptable.

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Yeah you really can’t seem to gather the difference between shooting dudes in military gear and squishy, colorful, harmless creatures. The fact you can’t connect those two things with the last remaining brain cell you have left is enough for me to not want to continue this back and forth. Zelda doesn’t have a Meat Cleaver you can take to your companions. Mario doesn’t let you enslave the fucking Goombas.

            You are beyond dense and I’m happy for you that you can cognitively disassociate from casually murdering what is essentially cats and dogs. Companions. If you’re the kind of freak that gets off on killing their pets, do you, but I don’t remember the part in Ark or really any game that gives you benefits for killing your buddies.

            Maybe Nintendo will free you from the slop, little pig.

            • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              Are we talking about different games here? You’ve made it clear you have no idea what your talking about. If I’m wrong please show me a clip of what it is you have an issue with, because you’re just making shit up.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      I’ve never eaten meat in my life and still feel bad about accidentally sucking a little spider into the vacuum a few weeks ago but I much prefer it to Pokémon because it’s saying ‘oh this cute little sheep? You can kill it and it’s horrible and cruel but it’s ok because it’s a game’ where as Pokémon says ‘oh this adorable little guy? Yeah beat him up, capture him and force him to fight for you entertainment, it’s super cool and cute and fun just like in real life!’

      (Note the only Pokémon game I played was on a Gameboy emulator in the 90s, I’ve also not played this but it does look more fun than Pokémon)

        • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I typically associate a circlejerk as a bunch of people who really like something not being open to outside critique and I’ll keep it a buck that’s exactly what I’ve experienced from the Palworld crowd.

            • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Calling it slop is shorthand for the critique, friend. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term?

              The game is a basic, watered down, cheap, imitation of something better. In this case, Pokemon and Ark. The developers had a small budget, have a history of ripping off other games, and is succeeding only off the novelty of the concept “Pokemon with guns” and “Adult Pokemon with slavery!”. There is no depth, no substance, it’s a sandbox they cobbled together and all of you lined up for your yummy slop and now defend it because god forbid you take a step back from the group circlejerk to analyze what it is you’re beating it to.

              You’ll have post nut clarity in a couple months. Once you all get your fill a new game will take it’s place. Among Us, Valheim, Fall Guys, PUBG, H1Z1, Fuck even Lethal Company which I’d consider pretty damn good. They’re games that have massive surges but ultimately fall off. No staying power. They’re not a Fallout: New Vegas with memes almost everyone can relate with (some exceptions with Among Us). They’re not Counter Strike that keep people logging in and have a highly competitive community. They’re not Warframe that develop their game in cool new ways to bring old players back. They’re not Elden Ring with a story rich world hand crafted with quiet whispers of deeper lore scattered around. They’re definitely not Baldur’s Gate 3 with some of the most unique companions and interactions that have created memories which will last for years to come.

              It’s slop. A flash in the pan. Tasteless grool to tide you over until the next bowl, then the next, until someone makes another good game worth remembering. Worth talking about.