At least palworld is Pokemon with base building mechanics.
Loved Pokemon back when it first came out, but as time went on and "gotta catch em all" became "you gotta catch… all of the ones we actually bothered to include this game, which may or may not include your favorites" and absolutely nothing was added to the gameplay of "catch all Pokemon and have turn based combat with 8 gym leaders and the elite four, also there are criminals you beat" I just lost interest quick.
Arceus was neat, added depth to the gameplay that palworld later iterated on and, Pokemon, inexplicably, abandoned? Which is crazy considering how popular Arceus was for changing up the same old formula. Then we're right back to the old ways with a game that didn't even take advantage of its improvements with S/V. I mean, at the very least they should have had the gym leaders with 8 different teams, based on how many badges you have, so you could plan your own route through the world and improve replayability value. God it's frustrating how much Nintendo refuses to improve.
Palworld is just better Pokemon, full stop. It's definitely not a game for everyone, but god damn so I wish Pokemon would take a fucking hint
See I actually just said Palworld on this list because my friend described it as "like Pokemon"
In reality it just has quirky creatures bit is a very different game, Ark Survival really. It's really a survival game. I'm someone who loves monster taming games but hates survival. So when people said it was like Pokemon I thought it was like gyms, competitions, etc. But is a different experience.
Just had to say the "like pokemon" really just gets me more frustrated with palworld due to the expectation not matching the reality.
I might see better where you're coming from pre-1.0, and maybe if Pokemon had a lot more to offer?
I mean, for sure I agree, Palworld is a survival game through and through, and Ark is absolutely a better point of comparison despite Palworld specifically resembling Pokemon. You're definitely right that introducing someone to Palworld by starting and stopping with "it's like Pokemon" is going to set up the wrong expectations.
Post 1.0 there's a slightly bigger emphasis on the boss fights, with the "gym leaders" even more offering the equivalent to "gym badges" when beaten, and arena mode for group composition competition, etc (some of that was introduced pre-1.0, depending on when you played).
Comparing it to Pokemon gameplay, I feel like you can summarize 90% of Pokemon content with:
You explore different regional biospheres to catch different Pokemon, trying to collect one of each/as many as possible;
You battle other Pokemon with your Pokemon, making them stronger in the process;
You have boss competitions in the form of Gym leaders, culminating in an "elite four" with a champion, with each foe sporting a team typically centered around one or two Pokemon types (leading to roughly 13 boss fights in this category);
You have secondary boss fights/quest content, usually in the form of a criminal organization you take down and box-art legendaries to chase after (sometimes these are even combined).
Each game usually has 1 piece of non-RPG side content that doesn't quite interact with the battle-focused structure of the rest of the game, such as a fashion show or similar competition.
The problem is that this is fairly shallow. There's just not a lot there. Sure, there's a lot of Pokemon in each game, so it takes time to collect them all if you're a completionist, but the rest of the "rpg" content is fairly straight forward. As RPGs go, Pokemon is very light on content from game to game and the quest to collect all the generation's Pokemon tends to occupy most of the play time.
So, when people say "Palworld is like Pokemon"… it is, technically. But a lot of that is because there's really only ~5 pillars of gameplay in a Pokemon game, and it's not hard to encompass that. Palworld has gym bosses, pals fighting with moves and growing stronger alongside you, a roughly equivalent number of pals to collect (arguably more, when you consider that evolution means a single pokemon catch can result in 3 Pokedex entries, but also fewer when you consider palworld has fewer types to work with which slightly reduces variety), legendaries to chase, etc. Palworld's side stories tend to be more limited in scope and much more shallow, so there's a fair argument that there's much less story to Palworld. The competition section is also absent from Palworld, but then again it also has the survival craft system.
This is basically the heart of why I think comparing to Pokemon alone doesn't set up expectations well. The survival craft elements are really front and center to the experience. However, it is extremely comparable to Pokemon in the sense that it basically completely covers Pokemon's entire gameplay loop in addition to bring a survival craft game.
As a side note:
Since you already own it, you might consider trying Paperworld again and just "turning off" the survival-craft elements via the settings. You can actually completely "turn them off", but you can adjust the server settings to essentially trivialize all the elements until it plays more like Minecraft on exploration mode than a survival game.
That might not completely solve your gripe with it, but it might allow you to enjoy it as something closer to a Pokemon game while waiting between releases from one Pokemon game to the next.
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u/[deleted] Aug 19 '26
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