MeinMMO editor Dariusz loves Pokémon, shooters and the survival game ARK. Now he has tested Palworld, the “Pokémon with a gun,” and is having a lot of fun.
I’ll be honest: I’ve waited a long time for Palworld to be released. When I first saw a trailer for “Pokémon with a Gun” in 2022, I knew that I would like it.
Now I’ve spent the first few hours in the game and I can say with certainty that my suspicions about the game have been confirmed. Palworld is absolutely stupid and a lot of fun.
From ARK to Pokémon: A successful mix of my favorite games
If a game developer wants to make a game that immediately piques my interest, they must meet at least one of three criteria.
Palworld actually manages to combine all three aspects in an entertaining way for me.
I’ve been a huge Pokémon fan for about 20 years. I played every game in the main series, collected the cards as a child and even watched the entire anime. However, I’m not adamant that something has to be an original Pokémon game and just like the principle of catching, traveling with, or battling cute little monsters. For example, I also enjoyed Temtem.
In addition, ARK: Survival Evolved is one of my favorite games. I’m not a dinosaur fan at all. I just like the gameplay. It is a very challenging survival game in which I can tame and breed a wide variety of creatures in order to farm resources with them, take part in boss or PvP fights or explore the map. I’m also a big fan of the building system.
I enjoy Palworld so much because it combines ARK with Pokémon. I can catch different monsters, train them and use them to fight or work. I really like the designs of the individual Pals. Some are cool, some are cute and others are just designed so strangely that I wonder what I’m actually looking at.
Like ARK, Palworld also has a few shooter mechanics. Of course, this isn’t comparable to real shooters or survival games like Rust or DayZ, but it’s still not badly implemented. For example, I like shooting with a bow and arrow much better in Palworld than in ARK.
Palworld shows the little monsters in massive action in the early access trailer
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Palworld borrows strong mechanics from Nintendo
Palworld has some really good mechanics that have worked well in other games. One of them is the hang glider from Zelda: BotW. More and more new and upcoming games have such a glider, including LEGO Fortnite and Palworld. This is a popular feature, especially in survival games, because you can sail through the air with one and avoid falling damage.
You can also climb up stone walls in Palworld. That doesn’t sound like anything special at first, but in ARK I often wished I could climb properly – not least to avoid attacks from an aggressive dinosaur.
One of the highlights of Palworld, however, is catching the Pals. In Palworld this doesn’t take place in turn-based battles as we know it from the main series Pokémon games, but rather like in Pokémon Legends Arceus.
This means that we move freely around the map and throw balls at the monster ourselves. We have to dodge the monster’s attacks with a roll and weaken it at the same time to increase our chance of catching it. To weaken it we can use, for example, our own pals, firearms or a baseball bat. Yes, the game is really crazy.
Pals are Kelvin in sweet
Palworld has also copied something from the survival game Else of the Forest, which was released in Early Access in 2023. In Sons of the Forest you have an NPC named Kelvin who helps you survive and can, for example, farm wood. The Pals can also support you and collect stones, operate the workbench and simply complete any tasks you assign them.
This is not only practical because you have to farm a little less if you don’t feel like it. It complements the gameplay because it gives you time to catch new Pals or fight battles.
In addition, when completing tasks, the Pals receive experience points and increase in level. So you don’t have to spend hours fighting wild monsters and training your companions if you’re about to fight an opponent that’s too strong.
Extensive options to adjust the difficulty
The developers at Palworld were obviously aware that their game would not only attract survival fans or shooter players. There are different difficulty levels that can provide a fun experience even for casual players.
The “normal” difficulty level is already easier and more beginner-friendly than, for example, the classic experience of ARK: Survival Evolved. But if you’ve never played a survival game like this before, you can reduce the difficulty level further. There is a level that makes the game very easy for you and allows for uncomplicated progress.
If you are used to games like ARK and are looking for a challenge, you can also increase the difficulty level.
However, the custom settings are particularly interesting. Here you can adjust a number of different parameters. This also includes, for example, how quickly a resource respawns.
The performance is okay – it could be worse
In my playtime so far, the game hasn’t crashed and I’ve had acceptable FPS on the highest settings. I could certainly get more out of this, but I’m satisfied and enjoy the graphics. Visually, Palworld isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s not ugly either. I like the style.
I rarely had FPS drops. After I set an appropriate FPS cap, they were completely gone.
I think the optimization could still be tweaked a bit based on the graphics and the performance could be further improved. But in general, Palworld is in a playable condition and is far away from the lousy performance that ARK: Survival Ascended, for example, had when it was released.
Conclusion: If you like ARK and Pokémon, it is a purchase recommendation
The idea of shooting little monsters with guns and enslaving them to make items is absolutely stupid – but I really enjoy Palworld.
It’s an Early Access game, so not everything is perfect and there’s still some desirable content missing, but that hasn’t made my experience with the title worse so far.
Above all, I think the price of 26 euros on Steam is really okay – I probably wouldn’t have paid 50 to 60 euros. But that’s primarily due to my enormous stinginess and lack of trust in survival games in early access – greetings to The Day Before – and not to the quality of Palworld.
So if you, like me, love Pokémon and enjoy playing games like ARK, then you probably can’t go wrong with Palworld. If you’re not sure whether Palworld is interesting for you, you can also watch a stream on Twitch. This is where the game is going through the roof:
“We had an emergency meeting” – Palworld reaches more than 700,000 simultaneous players, overloading the servers