For the second year in a row, we are starting a new cycle, with a pleasant surprise. In 2023, Hi-Fi Rush has achieved this, and it is the game that has captured the attention of all gamers and the media. However, with a title with a lot of personality, history repeats itself.
Palworld is the bomb of 2024, there is so much talk about the game that it was inevitable that it would not succeed, even if it did so in a rather unusual way. Remember that the game takes elements from several successful franchises and that they constitute the main attraction for players.
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Beyond being a copy of Pokémon
Palworld arrived on Xbox Game Pass on January 19, being a proposal that takes up the characteristics of a saga that appeared on Nintendo. I grew up with Pokémon, even if I saw the birth of the IP, I accompanied it for several years, until the moment when I stopped being interested in it due to its decline and stagnation and not to evolve.
That said, the creation of Pocket Pair is a success and borrows mainly intellectual property owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Placing us in a huge world, filled with a good number of creatures that will be within our reach.
In this way, although the game has a clear influence of Pokémon, which we can call its most commercial face to the public, it also has characteristics of other games, for example: we would dedicate ourselves to surviving in a vast world , in addition to the collection of resources and the crafting that are present, without forgetting the multiplayer element, offering us the sum of several elements in a single experience.
Now we are faced with a mixture of things already known, but they come together very well to give us a lot of pleasure. Let’s not forget something important, We are facing a preview of the game, that is, it is a preliminary and unfinished version of the game. You may therefore surely encounter errors or unavailable features, although this does not take away from everything we have achieved.
First steps in our Palworld adventure
At the start of our adventure we will have the possibility of customizing our character, with some options available, the most typical of which consist of adjusting our color, hair type and characteristics. Although a little rare, but without being few in number.
The first thing we realize when we set foot in this world is that we find ourselves on a series of islands, where we go without any equipment and where we will have to fight our way literally with our fists, in order to get the first resources and get ready to start hard work.
If as a player you are familiar with games like Ark, Fortnite, this will not be something new, on the contrary, if you like this type of titles, it will be very addictive and rewarding. If, on the other hand, you are new, we recommend that you go to the options section and consult the guide, to be clear on what we can do.
As we mentioned before, we will have to travel our way, collecting resources, such as stone, wood, among others. Don’t think that as soon as you start the story you will capture the creatures, nothing to see. The first thing is to have what it takes to be able to advance, as we explained previously, Palworld in its most commercial side is the capture of monsters, however, to achieve this you must first have a base and the resources to do so.
It’s true that you will be able to see what we will call Free Buddies (Creatures/Monsters) Worldwide, fortunately, they will only be aggressive if you attack them (that is, only at the beginning). First of all, we will have to follow a kind of tutorial, in which we will achieve certain objectives.
Some of our early goals include collecting materials to create our first items, which will be used to progress. So, as we complete each task, we realize that we are moving forward and understand how the game works.
We will have a base, where we will have several work tables, either to build tools, improvements, or to drop off our friends. Also in our colony we will need a house with a bed and a fire. And this will not be aesthetic, but will be very useful to keep us alive.
Surviving is another key point of our journey, we will suffer from hunger, fatigue and that means we will need to sleep and eat. When night comes, the harsh cold can cost our character the life, so a campfire will be crucial, although we will also learn to have a torch or later we will have clothes to protect ourselves.
If you notice, until now, little has been said about Pals, it’s because you first have to learn how to survive, by collecting resources and knowing how not to die trying. These will be our first minutes once the match starts.
Your character and how to improve it
Our character can be improved in many ways. With weapons and tools, we can give our hero what he needs to attack and defend himself. Remember that this is an RPG in which we will level up and thus increase our statistics.
By completing the objectives we will add experience points that will help us increase our life, defense and attack, to name a few. Let’s also not forget that carrying resources with us will be a fundamental element and that this can affect the movement of the character.
Therefore, it is also necessary to increase the capacity to carry more objects, in this way and in a very summary way, gaining experience points will allow us to improve as we progress. The system seems simple and not bad, the idea is to have fun and not be filled with complex elements that easily make us lose interest.
It’s time to chase friends
Once we understand the basics of the game, we can opt for the Pals, which will be free and will have a visible bar that details their level and the lives they have. How to catch a friend?it’s simple, we will have to beat him with blows (with our fists, pickaxe, axe, weapons) until he is quite weakened then we will proceed to throw a Pal sphere at him.
We will do the above and wait until the capture percentage reaches 100%, thus ending the battle and capturing the creature. Since everything happens in real time, we will have to avoid attacks and try not to completely drain the monster’s life bar.
In addition, we must be careful that there is not a very large herd, otherwise many of Pal’s companions will join the battle, attacking you from different sides, seeking to prevent you from capturing their companion.
Also keep in mind that if you throw Pals spheres uncontrollably, you will lose them. This means that if it doesn’t hit the target it will be a lost sphere and remember you get them by crafting them with resources (at first it’s hard to get a decent number of them) or scattered occasionally throughout the world.
Workforce
Once the Pal is captured you can do several things, one of them is being able to add it to your available creatures to accompany you into battle, the second has to do with being a work force in your base. This means that as we grow as a character, these buddies will help us develop and speed up the construction of materials, in a way that reminds us of those large factories of some well-known companies.
We will be the patron of many creatures who will be subordinate to our orders and that they will be useful for our growth, it seems crude, but that is what we do and what the game allows us. However, this is one way to see it and enjoy it, because the game is completely fun with these types of options that border on a clear level of parody of the franchises represented.
Aside from all the previous ones, our friends will serve as mounts to travel more quickly, and this is just one of those things that we can learn from these words, which will practically be our slaves, will be exaggerated, but even with their words. in the game.
Battles and weapons in Palworld
One of the things that the game clearly sells is having heavy weapons and this is how it is seen in the promotional trailers and we tell you that this element will be with us at every moment. Guns will become part of our daily lives, not because we have to use them, but because we have to if we don’t want to die.
The heat of battle, whether against other enemies (humans) or against friends, will force us to use rifles, pistols and everything we have, because everything aims high and we pass monsters and survival of being surrounded by one of the sorts of confrontations on the scale of a mini-war.
Adrenaline and euphoria invade us in the middle of the battle, unleashing all our arsenal and bringing our buddies to the front, so that they are our first line of defense and attack, allowing us to move and alternate our weapons, it’s definitely something I loved about the game, apart from everything I’ve seen so far.
Closing our impressions
Palworld is a title that has a little bit of everything and although some details have been left out in these impressions, believe us, there is a lot to do and discover, the game is vast in every sense of the word. It contains some technical details and errors, but we already made that clear when we commented that we are in a preview of the game, these are things that do not noticeably affect the game, but they are present.
In the end, we have a game that is not perfect, it lacks a lot of finishing at the technical level, but the sum of everything it offers leaves us with very good impressions and the desire to continue exploring its big world , the one who is surrounded by a good number of friends.
This game feels like this is the path the Nintendo/Game Freak/Creatures IP should have taken, the comparisons are hateful I know, but they’re there and the fact that it stands out so much and is very well accepted by the players, having done so we understand that this is perhaps what fans of the beloved Pokémon saga were waiting for and never received.
Luck is on the side of Xbox and PC, as they are the only platforms you can play Palworld onit’s also available on Xbox Game Pass, so if you want to try it, you’re encouraged to do so from the Xbox service.
At the time of writing these impressions, Palworld has managed to sell more than 7 million copies, with only 5 days since its launch, not bad and that makes it the first big surprise of the start of 2024.
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