I remember writing a quick piece when this one was presented back in 2021, laughing it off as i thing that would be shot down by Nintendo’ lawyers.

Obviously that didn’t happen (and never will, i would assume), and since it has sold 5 million copies in the span of DAYS after releasing in Early Access this 19th of January, the company behind it being shady con merchants and the fact people are actually defending a game with “bootleg Electabuzz Totoro with gatling gun” is amazing… look, we need to talk about this.

(this is not a review, FIY, just putting this out there early)

Leaving aside the fact most likely this game doesn’t use generative AI for the “‘mons”, they look just rip-offs – sometimes literally as you can some really obvious bits of both official Pokemon designs and even fandesigns – done the ye old fashion way, and the sociopathic premise of “you can kill, cook and enslave your non-Pokemon pals” (even more sociopathical how you can catch human NPCs,) to what seems like a very basic survival and crafting game that defines the “early” in Early Access title.

One that also looks very “asset flippy” as it literal looks they recycled assets from their earlier title, Craftopia, which itself tries to ape BOTW and even “borrows” enemy designs, which already tells you these people don’t give a fuck. Just don’t, and knew exactly how to use the “we pokedo what Nintendon’t” controversial energy to get every publication to talk about it.

That much they did and played it right, because i talked about it back then, and in the time between i wrote this thing it and posted, it sold 3 more million copies for a total of 8 millions, but oddly this isn’t so much about money, per se.

Continua a leggere “We gotta talk about Palworld”