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Palworld dev’s take on Hollow Knight finally has a Steam demo
(www.pcgamesn.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Palworld really didn’t do anything revolutionary. It’s a pick’n’pack of 4 separate games. All that they did well was get the game as fun and addictive as possible. How they’d incorporate more “fun” elements into a platformer, I’m not sure. Gonna check the demo later.
What they did was, whether intentionally or accidentally, capitalize on dissatisfaction with the stagnation of a genre. If Pokemon Legends: Arceus had been the Pokemon + Breath of the Wild game a lot of folks hoped it would be, Game Freak could have capitalized on that instead, but it wasn't, they didn't, and here we are. Palworld also had the force of an internet meme marketing the game for them, which IMO was a huge factor in its success.
You're entirely correct, but also capitalizing on people's dissatisfaction with another franchise still doesn't make it revolutionary. The gameplay is very much just Ark but with pokemon and wall climbing
at no point did anyone in this chain say it was revolutionary. you’re shadowboxing against an argument nobody is making lol
Genre, or franchise?
I'm not a Pokemon player myself, so I'm on the outside looking in here, but it seems to have been a phenomenon on its own. What else is in Pokemon's genre? Maybe Digimon? Is that also a Nintendo property?
Or are we looking at the birth of a genre because the sole franchise that occupied it is descendant?
Monster capturing RPGs are a "genre" but Palworld isn't in that genre at all. Palworld is a survival game with mons instead of robotic automation.
There's a lot of monster collecting RPG games out there, and I will say that recently there've been a few more original ideas, but by and large they've mostly just followed the Pokemon formula, because it was "safe".
Just a few that come to mind immediately, but there are lots. Not that they're all Pokemon clones, but go watch a few trailers and you'll see very Pokemon-style battle systems, monster capturing systems, and general presentation present in some degree each of them.
Palworld isn't really part of that genre, but it takes the key parts of it and does something which is original, even if the component parts are not, and that's really what the we've been asking for and not getting for quite some time.
There are lots of other games in that genre.
The Megami Tensei series, along with a lot of its spin-offs, is very far from Pokémon's style and themes, came before it, and clearly a (very dark) monster collection RPG.
One game that I only tried recently and that I wasn't even aware was in this genre is Ni no kuni. Its monster collecting aspect only really begins a few hours in, but when it comes into play it becomes a major element of the game. Very cute and charming RPG.
There's a Dragon Quest Monsters series, Yo-Kai Watch, and a lot of other ones I am aware of but didn't try. Pokémon doesn't really exist in a vacuum, it's just by far the most successful.