Pokemon has been a legendary series since its release and even made its genre of “Pokemon-like” games where you can catch monsters and use them to fight battles and other tasks. Pokemon has held onto its genre’s top spot with an iron fist for 28 years, yet a new game titled “Palworld” might dethrone even Pokemon. Over the short period the game has been out it has garnered quite the following. The game made around 164 million dollars in profit, with over 19 million copies sold in less than a month. The game is a combination of many others but most notably the Pokemon franchise, and a lesser-known game called Ark Survival Evolved. Palworld takes the best elements of both and adds even more depth to the already fun mechanics. 

Palworld is an open-world game, meaning that you can visit anywhere you can see, and this adds a lot to its gameplay. One of my favorite parts of Palworld is the few boundaries the game puts on you, you can fly on any bird you see, you can build a giant base, or you can explore faraway islands. Though before you can do any of that, you must progress, because you start out the game with nothing. You must gather materials to craft, “Pal Spheres” an obvious reference to Pokeballs from Pokemon, and you can use these to capture Pals. These creatures can range from small to humongous and can do many things like battling other pals or people, helping around your base with menial tasks, and using them as mounts to travel faster. 

Of course, another part of the fun is going to new areas after being in one for so long and being surprised by the weirdest Pals you could think of simply walking around. The game encourages you to explore and be creative. Though on the more stationary side of the game, you can slowly build an empire around what the game calls a Palbox. The Palbox stores your pals and tells you what to build to make your base better, helping you to upgrade your base. You can make a house and multiple job sites that pals can work on like mining, tiling berries, and chopping down trees. 

None of these features are especially new, as I said previously, the game is a combination of Ark Survival Evolved and Pokemon. Less people know of Ark Survival Evolved, but I would say the game is much more similar to Ark than it is to Pokemon, pretty much the only similarity Pal World and Pokemon hold is the monsters that they capture and use to battle which is a big feature. But the similarities that it holds with Ark are endless. Luckily it adapted and used Ark’s best features because Ark is a toxic, very hard game where you tame or are eaten by dinosaurs, and are tortured by more skilled players online. Palworld uses Pokemon’s natural innocence and fun ideas in tandem with Ark’s unique gameplay to craft an extremely fun experience. 

I played the game with some friends, and we enjoyed the game a lot. I interviewed one of my friends on his opinion of the game. He said “Palworld is a game trying to monopolize off the decline in quality of Pokemon games and has blown the expectations of everyone that has seen it. I have played and enjoyed it but I think in the end this is a wake-up call for Pokemon and hopefully will allow them to make better games in the future”. Exactly as he says the game is enjoyable, but more importantly should always be a reminder to Pokemon that their future isn’t cemented forever. Games will adapt, and combine, just as Palworld did, and they did it wonderfully.