Palworld Early Access Review - Steam Version

a quick note this review is only for the PC version of pow world that's available through Steam later this week we'll have a separate review of the version available on Xbox and through the Microsoft store on PC which is the version you get access to with Game Pass as that one is currently on an older build with significantly more issues that make it a genuinely different experience but for now on with the steam review nothing about what power world does seems like it should work a thinly veiled Pokémon clone where you do this to its adorable monsters a base building Survival game where you use your kidnapped creatures as laborers and may even resort to eating them when times get tough an open world Co-op Adventure where you and your friends do this to harvest leather defying the odds this wholly irreverent gun toing take on the creature collection genre has been unrelentingly fun across the 100 plus hours I've spent shooting cartoon kittens in the face as an early access game it's got plenty of bugs and performance issues and sure it shamelessly cribs the design for many of its collectible creatures but its survival mechanics are intuitive and deep its action-packed combat is silly and satisfying and exploring its World in search of new Pals to kick the snot out of hasn't come close to getting old despite the clear eyebrow raising inspiration it takes from a certain creature collecting Powerhouse palor more closely resembles a formulaic survival game like grounded with a roster of lovable monsters to capture as a clever Twist on that formula you find yourself inexplicably dropped into the Wilder Wilderness of a Strange Land filled with oversized dangerous beasts called Pals from there you'll need to build a base hilariously Force the local fauna into your servitude and upgrade your gear you won't find yourself hanging out in idilic towns or challenging Gym Leaders to Friendly contests this isn't that kind of Adventure instead your goal is to survive the harsh land and face off against psychotic pal trainers who raise Villages attack your base and command for boating towers and dungeons filled with goons who shoot to kill and yeah tonally that's an utterly unhinged combination one moment I was taking in pastoral views as I explored for new Pals the next I was firing guns at armed Thugs and considering the possibility of butchering a pal who had been mentally broken by the poor working conditions of my sweat shop in order to avoid starvation rather than not addressing the questionable aspects of the creature collecting genre palor amusingly leans into them and lets you do absurd things like pick up your fiery Fox pal and use it as a flamethrower to burn your enemies to a crisp or equip your monkey pal with a machine gun I mean it sure beats tail whip once you get over how incredibly weird that all feels it's a complete blast catching Pals out in the open world is a ton of fun though it's definitely a bit weird to hack a small penguin unconscious with an axe before you can stuff it into a pal sphere or even more alarmingly do this oh no that penguin got ice capped it feels extremely wrong at first to be sure but I found myself disturbingly used to the ritual after just a few hours I mean as doing the dirty work myself really all that different from battling them with another captured creature instead the pals themselves on the other hand aren't quite as original as the process of catching them as I describ the majority of them as almost copyright infringement seriously just look at them oh someone's going to get sued someone's going to get sued that said uninspired and derivative as they are the designs are still mostly pretty neat and have a lot of Personality which makes each one a ton of fun to hunt and do B against I'm especially fond of this completely helpless blob a the poor guy's trying his best though capturing leveling up and fighting alongside Pals is a major and awesome part of the adventure you'll likely spend much more time hanging out at the various bases you'll build just like most other Survival Games you'll need to keep a steady stream of crafting materials flowing in like wood Stone and food and the key to automating that process so you don't spend endless hours mind-numbingly chopping down trees and swatting rocks with a pickaxe is by making clever use of the pals themselves for example farming could soak up lots of your time as you plant seeds water your plots and then harvest the crops but once you've captured some Pals and put them to work at your base you can have them do it all for you this po- based cooperation is not only ridiculously adorable to watch but gives you even more reasons to catch every creature you find you might not have much use for the foxlike pal Fox Sparks in battle but if you keep one at your base whenever you fire up the grill to cook or use the furnace to smelt some ingots your Charming fir friend will come running to make the task go by faster even the weakest creatures give you a whole new reason to catch not just one of them but a whole bunch to put to work as you level up your character and capture Pals with different abilities you'll be able to transform your bases from shabby camps to industrialized fortresses complete with conveyor belts for your pals to go to work assembling weapons and ammo for you to use against enemies a hilarious transformation that made me question how much better I was than the villainous rival trainers I faced out in the [Music] Wilds getting away from the base to explore the absolutely enormous map and look for hidden chests and eggs battle dangerous boss Pals raid dungeons stuffed with loot or chat with a handful of NPCs and vendors scattered throughout the Wilderness is consistently fun in one area I got chased by these guys in another I found a creepy Black Market Trader Who Sold rare probably illicitly obtained Pals and in another I watched a squad of suicidal toucan Pals rush into a camp of poachers and self- detonate ouch once you unlock the ability to to ride Pals especially flying ones the world really opens up there's miles and miles to explore from bamboo forests filled with Goofy Panda Pals to murky swamps overrun with Goblin Pals there's even an active volcano to be scaled where all the pals are predictably made of fire crafting gear and leveling your pal Squad to survive increasingly unwelcoming parts of the world is rewarding not just because of all the interesting new Pals to find in capture but because certain biomes will give you access to materials you'll need to bring your base and equipment to the next level even cooler there are always at least a few massive spires rising in the distance serving as a reference for your ultimate goal to reach them all and challenge the lethal bosses luring within like most Survival Games everything power world offers immediately becomes more fun when joined by friends in multiplayer up to 32 people can be in a single server on the steam version though that number is currently capped to a poultry 4 on Xbox and through the Microsoft store running wild throughout the open world taking down powerful bosses together and managing a collective base all work without Hassle and Co-op also alleviates some of the stress of having to grind for resources all the time if those friends are willing to chip in and not steal all your stuff that is it probably goes without saying for an early access game but be warned that you are bound to to encounter technical issues and bugs on occasion these issues I've seen are fortunately mostly minor so far but I have been hit with rough frame rates and stuttering hard crashes and multiplayer disconnects though none of that was so commonplace or gamebreaking that it ever significantly got in the way of Good Times there's a lot more that pal world could benefit from like a fleshed out story more NPCs or adding evolutions for the pals to avoid so many of them becoming irrelevant at higher levels but I'm surprised by how polished the whole package already feels at this early stage even in its Early Access State poor is amusingly irreverent has a surprising amount of content and Deep Survival mechanics and is absurdly difficult to put down it's impossible to overlook just how shamelessly it takes ideas and designs from Pokémon and it's got some unsurprising bugs and performance issues but when you're riding on the back of a flying dragon while shooting a blue duck with an assault rifle most of those blemishes wash away [Music] entirely this is already one of my favorite survival games and I'm incredibly excited to see how it evolves for more check out our reviews of Prince of Persia the Lost crown and turnup boy Robs a Bank and for everything else stick with IGN

Channel: IGN

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Keywords: Crafting, Open-World, PC, Palworld, Pocket Pair Inc., RPG, Survival, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, palworld, pokemon, knock-off, rip off, survival, guns, eat, gameplay, impressions, steam, game pass, palworld review, palworld reaction, palworld impressions, palworld pc, palworld steam

Id: 4fNWYXgGJ6E

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2024