A player can make lots of nice or capable friends on a tour Palworldare the Palpagos Islands, but to fill their paldeck they have to engage in breeding. Breeding is a surprisingly profound part of it Palworldand it quickly became a rabbit hole – or a caprity hole, if you will – for my group on our shared server.
Once I got over the initial hook of “What if a survival game, but Pokemon?” In PalworldI was surprised that I was still engaged. I’m on a server with my friends and we all take on different roles. I pump up my transport weight and bring friends who could help with the transport, and I’m constantly loading up tons of ore to smelt into valuable ingots. My buddies Jake and Matt are also joining in; Jake is a forward scout while Matt runs what we politely call “Pal Resources.”
Pal Resources is the name of our breeding warehouse. Now that we have the opportunity to build ranches and bake delicious cakes, Matt heads to the races. It’s entirely possible to dabble in breeding on the side, but we’re now completely immersed in the process. There are three main reasons for breeding. The first is that by combining two seemingly unrelated Pals, a third Pal can be born. If you want to fill out your Paldeck and be a real collector, breeding is absolutely necessary.
While creating new friends was a fun trick, what really got us hooked was perfecting our existing roster. The Relaxaurus, for example, is an adorable dinosaur – but with the power of Pal Resources we were able to develop an electric variant that keeps our infrastructure running. Breeding can create new elemental types of existing friends.
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Image: Pocket Pair
Sometimes this provides a benefit. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a little variety in my life. Why roll around like an absolute idiot with a bouncy, cuddly Kingpaca when I can have it? two Kingpacas, one of them is an ice type?
Matt also discovered that two identical Pals can be bred together and their traits will be passed on to their offspring. This is the third and probably most important reason to look into breeding. Sometimes the process doesn’t work – no one needs a pyromaniac buddy running around endangering the entire base. But if you have a diet-loving, burly workaholic buddy – boy howdy, don’t even do that need to climb onto the platform and cruelly order your mates to get to work.
Our bases are now staffed with a group of mates, all several generations deep in breeding, looking after our every need. Do you have a large work assignment to complete? Don’t even bother; Anubis will run to you and do it for you in seconds. Hungry? Why don’t you go into the fridge, chilled by a little hedgehog, and get 500 omelets? Such a bonus means nothing to us.
The buddy breeding reminds me of the Chao Gardens of Sonic Adventure 2, which served as a place to bring and hatch eggs and then raise the resulting Chao. What was meant to be a sideshow has now become a game in its own right, in which we dutifully bake cakes and lug giant eggs back and forth, all in the service of building our empire in the Palpagos Islands. As for the Pals who don’t make it, don’t worry. We found a large, open field where they can run and play definitely Don’t let yourself be put in the farewell tube to turn it into a meat lock to strengthen our A-Team. That just doesn’t happen! That’s good.
