• Eggyhead
    25•5 months ago

    I don’t know anything about this game, but none of the videos look even remotely appealing to me. It just looks like an AI fever dream mishmash of frequency fadding genres. What am I missing with this?

    • Dalek Thal
      24•5 months ago

      Quite a lot honestly, but the trailers are really awful in terms of advertising what the game actually is. It’s a survival game with management sim elements, using creature collection as its core gameplay loop. It feels weirdly cohesive in terms of mashing together these styles - kinda like Dave the Diver in that regard.

      Far as I’ve been able to tell, it was first announced in 2021, so it’s been in development since then, at latest.

      There’s no evidence whatsoever of AI use (lot of accusations, but actual devs have spoken out and challenged them). Really strikes me that there’s a non-zero number of people who feel somewhat threatened by this game’s existence, considering the death threats the dev team has reportedly been receiving.

      • Eggyhead
        10•5 months ago

        I have no qualm against the game itself or the developers. And I hope my AI claim didn’t sound like an accusation, just more of an observation, as some of those genre blends seem so awkwardly juxtaposed.

        I am legit curious about the game due to the popularity. I might actually get it on deck if it’s a game my buddy and I can have a good laugh with online.

        • Dalek Thal
          5•5 months ago

          That’s fair, I apologise for being as defensive as I was.

          Honestly that’s 100% the right way to play it - it is such a laugh, the writing is really tongue in cheek, and the gameplay is really, simply fun, so I really think you and your mate will love it!

        • mephiska
          4•5 months ago

          If you play it you’ll see. I just tried it out yesterday and it’s basically combined elements from Pokemon (creature collection & design style), Minecraft (crafting, resource collection), Slime Rancher (base building, using the “Pals” as workers), Zelda (hot/cold mechanics, climbing, combat, weapon durability), and a bunch of other elements from other games like a tech tree, recipes,

          It’s somehow been able to do that in a really cohesive end product. It’s definitely a mish-mash, and the cutesy pals definitely do look like pokemon characters, but it somehow just works.

        • @moody@lemmings.world
          2•5 months ago

          The game has been fun for me, since I’ve been an Ark player for some time, and it feels like Ark with Pokemon instead of dinos.

          So far, it does lack some of the depth, but it’s also much less grindy and feels less “serious,” and also more straightforward. It seems like the game has a path that you’re expected to follow, unlike Ark which just throws you into the world and expects you to die a thousand times while you’re learning.

    • @saigot@lemmy.ca
      12•5 months ago

      People have been looking for Pokémon replacement for years, anything even slightly innovating on the concept is going to do very well. It doesn’t have any microtransactions (yet?), it’s actively improving, has fully animated real time battles, a difficulty/complexity level appropiate for adults, decent coop and a pretty good sense of antiestablishment humour that I think works really well with the type of millennial that is sick of what Pokémon offers.

      It is definitely rough, but I haven’t hit a show stopping bug in 13hrs (plenty of stuff like pals clipping through stuff of pathing fucking up though). If it’s kept regularly updated I could see myself putting a lot of hours into it. It’s definitely still an early access title but it’s eating Pokémons stale lunch.

    • @verdigris@lemmy.ml
      2•5 months ago

      Yeah it’s clearly shovelware, the devs made Craftopia and this is very obviously that game with Pokemon stuff shoved in in place of more traditional Minecraft gameplay. It cribs unabashedly from every popular game of the last decade, and it looks like there really isn’t anything to do other than grind, like every other generic wilderness survival crafting game. ARK seems like one of the prime inspirations, which blows my mind because I can’t imagine anyone looking at ARK and thinking “oh yeah let’s do more of that”.

      I would be shocked if the game still has momentum 6 months from now.

  • Metal Zealot
    23•5 months ago

    Your original demographic has grown up now, GameFreak. It’s clear what they want now. It’s time for you to grow up too and stop being scared of embracing change.

    Plus, you’ve got fucking Nintendo money, so budget is NO excuse

    • Eggyhead
      14•5 months ago

      Original demographic? I don’t know man, I’m almost 40 and the Palworld trailer just looks like a bunch of zoomer shit to me. (Which is fine, of course.)

    • JokeDeity
      4•5 months ago

      Legends Arceus or whatever it was called could have been my favorite Pokemon game but they took so many weird decisions and made it a chore instead of fun and as always made it super baby mode and didn’t go for any kind of online options. A good 3D Pokemon MMO is possible, but Gamefreak and Nintendo don’t seem to have any interest in one ever existing. Also, I’ll be honest, I see no reason whatsoever that they limit the Pokemon available and cut old ones, with all the money they have and employees, there’s no reason they can’t incorporate every single pokemon into newer games and in an MMO setting they could even do certain ones active at certain times or some other way to make them feel exciting to get.

  • @navigatron@beehaw.org
    23•5 months ago

    The other six are (copied from the article):

    1. PUBG (3.2 mil)
    2. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1.8 mil)
    3. Counter-Strike 2 (1.4 mil)
    4. Lost Ark (1.3 mil)
    5. DOTA 2 (1.2 mil)
    6. Cyberpunk 2077 (1 mil)