#don't talk to me unless it is about palworld

[flameunquenched]

if anyone needs me i will be playing palworld for the next 4 consecutive years kaythanksbye

[axolotlsauce]

You know what, let's talk about palworld. I dont have anything else going on until 9:40.

One of the biggest talking points I see brought up with this game is the unoriginality. And uh... yeah. I'm yet to see a pal that doesn't have a DIRECT analogue to one or two pokemon. That said that is without playing the game, but still.

Now, I don't actually give a fuck about the integrity of pokemon's copyright. And you know what, I don't think most people who are bringing this up do either. People aren't "white-knighting" for the billion-dollar company, I think they're mostly just pointing out that it's pretty lame for a pokemon clone to have such unoriginal designs. (I think. I haven't personally seen every individual tweet about palworld.)

I mean, even ROBOPON had original designs. (Even if that meant that one of them had to be a toilet.)

Same goes for heavy-hitting pokemon-likes like Yo-Kai Watch, and the ones that are borderline fan-games like Coromon. A lot of the fun comes from the original creature designs. Everything I see of Palworld looks like they wanted to have the real pokemon, but had to do some legally distinct homework-copying. It reminds me of Watchmen, where Alan Moore wanted to use DC comics characters, but had to use "analogues" of them instead.

There's also a lot of unoriginality from what I've seen of the gameplay. The world looks very "generic open world," and a lot of the Juice of this game seems to be a bunch of other popular games kinda... conflated. That said, it's a little ironic to be complaining about unoriginality when everyone else has already pointed out that it's unoriginal... or is it fitting? who knows.

Also one of them is yellow totoro. How Wacky.

A lot of people also seem to take issue with the, uh... edge, of this game. Now while "Pokemon with GUNS" absolutely sounds like something an insecure teenager would come up with after being told by their schoolfriends that pokemon is for babies, I welcome it honestly. First-Person-Shooter gameplay is a pretty cool addition to make to this genre. That said, some other elements kinda seem like they were implimented by someone trying to look cool in front of a 14-year-old. But uh, I can't really comment on that, since the internet can't be trusted, and I haven't played the game. Can you actually sell peoples' body parts in this game? I don't know if I trust that random article I saw.

Part 29: THE POKEMON KILLER??????

no.

Do you guys remember Yo-Kai Watch? remember when that was a big deal? How many of you even knew that the series had a 3rd and 4th game? Probably a statistically unlikely number of you, because this is a website full of cool nerds. That said, it's pretty clear to see that most people do NOT remember the LAST big pokemon killer.

Also, nintendo isn't gonna sue. The developers aren't formally marketing it as "pokemon with guns," no aspect of the gameplay was patented by gamefreak, and while derivative, the pals are juuuust barely distinct enough to not infringe any copyrights. I think. I'm no copyright lawyer, this is just how I see it. The pokemon company hasn't ever, to my knowledge, gone after anything that was derivative of pokemon unless it was something like a fangame that was directly using their IP. (Ironically, the type of game that impacts their profits the LEAST.... sigh...)

And you know what, while Palworld isn't gonna kill pokemon... I think nothing but good can come from letting the pokemon company think that it WILL. Because let's be real here, if ANY series needs some competition, it's pokemon. SOMEBODY has to force them to get their shit together.

And yeah, as dubious as I am about palworld... I can't lie. It looks SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than pokemon violet. (Both graphically, and just, uh, in general.) And you know what, I would still say that even WITHOUT gen 9's crazy technical issues.

"Nintendo will NEVERRR ALLOW THIS ON SWITCH LOL!!!!"

Have you seen the shit they WILL allow on switch? Go on the eshop right now. Scroll past enough hentai games, and you'll probably also see at least one legally-distinct pokemon fangame like nexomon, coromon or temtem. Why would nintendo not allow such a hotly-selling game on their platform. If the game is going to make bank either way, why would they NOT choose the option that means THEY GET A CUT OF THE PROFITS? Something that, by this logic, they would think that they're owed to begin with? I get that nintendo and the pokemon company tend to be counter-intuitive and stubborn, but I think we can trust them to do the thing that makes them More Money.

Overall: Palworld is... interesting. A lot of aspects of it are VERY uninspired, but I can't see it doing anything but good. Even if you hate it on principle (the old "Digimon Sucks!" Syndrome), at the very least it can serve as a lesson to actual pokemon.

Okay so pokemon probably won't implement GUNS, but hopefully a wildly successful clone like this might give them the idea that they might actually have to TRY to make money in future. Or maybe they'll get it into their heads that they could make even MORE money if their pokemon games were also fresh, interesting, and... good.

Well all-in-all, while I probably won't be playing palworld anytime soon (and who knows if my curiosity will still be itching by the time it comes to a platform I actually own) I think its presence is more likely than not a net positive.

It's worth mentioning that I don't have, like, credibility... this is just my take on things. Why was it necessary to give my take? Because I'm so much cooler and more important than everyone else, obviously. But that doesn't mean that I know shit.

[ideahat-universe]

TimTams

So I've been playing emulated games for a few years now. Loving it honestly. My pattern is playing a Pokemon Romhack and then a RPG that is not Pokemon.

Sometimes it's another monster tamer/collector but not always.

What it is, is constantly exciting and fun and there's no shortage of games to play. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in adding more to the queue. One of these days I'll be able to afford the Steamdeck and when that happens I'll be playing some Monster Tamer games that Steam has on offer.

So I went shopping. I found the ones people mentioned during the Palworld toss up, Nexomon, Coromon, Monster Sanctuary.

I get to Temtem, and I see this.

What the heck happened???

I thought this game was good? A better alternative to play than Palworld which was a cheap knockoff that didn't deserve our time and attention?

Did any of that sound familiar?

Those seem familiar too.

It almost seems like people make Monster Catcher games and if it's mildly popular it gets compared to Pokemon and is called a "Pokemon Clone" and after the hype dies down everyone goes back to playing the latest Pokemon game, they don't even bother playing any other Monster Catcher game unless some Youtuber asshole makes a video about it with the label "it's Pokemon but better!"

I made that article where I said Palworld was mask off Pokemon and I stand by it and I can stand by it because Palworld is basically everything Pokemon doesn't really want to be, but secretly was for the years the devs couldn't figure out just what should and shouldn't be canonical in the Pokemon world.

But I just want to make the PSA that you shouldn't call things the X killer. Because that basically never happens. Franchises kill themselves. They don't typically get killed by a competitor.

A competing brand does something that the standard is lacking but the leading brand is also delivering a low quality product that people are discontent with and willing to move on.

Not to get political but the Bud Light effect that conservatives wear on themselves as a badge of honor is really more about how beer sales in general have been on the decline

Don't believe me? Here's an article from 2019 that more or less says that Domestic Beer sales were starting to slip.

People still drink beer though. In doing this research I noticed a rise in Craft beers so what's really happening is that leading beer brands that were the face of cheap, shitty beer that everyone drank because it was ubiquitous were now being reconsidered and the end result was that Bud Light was already a beer that people didn't like, they just used the boycott as an excuse to stop drinking beer, drink different leading beers (and liking it more than Bud Light!), or indulging in craft or different types of alcohol altogether.

So if we circle back to the beginning where we talked about "Pokemon Killers" the reality is that Pokemon can only kill itself and it will kill itself once there are poor sales resulting from being the face of mediocrity that everyone is willing to jump ship from.

The problem being is that even with Pokemon being mediocre it's not bad enough for people to rebel from the brand.

Look at the people in the comment section of that video. Does that look like an audience of people who are ready to stop drinking Bud Light?

I don't think so!

Really think about that trailer, no game play so it's worthless beyond telling us what the setting will be, Mega evolution will probably return but Mega Evolution is a controversial power up given that depending on the Pokemon, you could be subjecting them to an immense amount of pain just to win a fight (and competitively only a couple of Mega Evolutions really matter and you never need Mega Evolutions to win a fight in the campaign).

And lets be honest. If its just the same turn based system with very little else added on the side for flavor, you won't be getting out of this new game that you wouldn't get from a Pokemon Romhack (That includes Mega Evolutions).

Except, ya know. The Romhack is free. If you're a poke-maniac you own physical copies of gen 1-5 so you have the legal right to dump your game and patch it however you like.

You can do that or maybe even buy Palworld, or Nexomon, or Digimon, or TemT- Wait. Maybe not TemTem.

I mean that Magnakamen video does a decent job at explaining why a poke-maniac will never abandon Bud Light, but how about me?

What do I think?

Well, I don't play MMOs and given that this game came out as an MMO at around 2020 is ridiculous, because by 2020 it was already evident that MMO is a reaper genre. Most games in that genre die, forever.

Hey, you came up with a really cool idea for a Four Swords style game. You made it an MMO? DEAD FOREVER.

Hey, you came up with a really cool idea for a snowboarding game. You made it an MMO? DEAD FOREVER.

Hey, you came up with a really cool RPG that is like WoW but with a bunch of quality of life stuff in it. Wait, it's a WoW killer? DEAD FOREVER.

When you make an always online game that needs to have other people playing it for it to be fun you are asking for the game to die forever someday.

Ross Scott is going to court over this but that's a subject for another time, but the fact that the Temtem devs made a Monster Tamer MMO is actually quite dumb.

I get why they wanted to do that though they wanted to make a balanced competitive scene. Competitive Pokemon but not rife with cheaters and overburdened with hundreds of Pokemon that are unplayable in anything above RU, but making a game that is designed with competitive players primarily in mind is like making healthy cereal.

Just eat an apple forehead.

If you make a game with competent AI or possibly AI that can be modified by the player to suit their tastes, you don't need strong competition from some stranger who hacked their team together. You would play competitive for fun. You'd get your favorite creatures and then you'd pit them against your friend and his favorite creatures. Not a stranger, someone you know. When you play a competitive game with friends that's when those games are fun.

When you play competitive games with strangers. You become Tyler1.

That looks like fun right? Just sweating profusely over every little thing someone is doing in a competitive match and just ranting about the game balance and how the game is being ruined by the players, the devs, or both? And then if we aren't having this eternal struggle about how the game is being balanced the game is just dead?

Yeah, that's what really did TemTem in. Not the semantic bullshit that Mangakamen was complaining about that only someone who isn't ready to give up drinking Bud Light would come up.

What really killed TemTem was that making an MMO is a bad idea and making a game based around fostering a competitive environment is also bad.

It's okay though! TemTem is also becoming Vampire Survivors with TemTem Swarm. Not making a good single player TemTem, just making a spinoff TemTem.

Hm, we won't be adding TemTem to the queue.

[seahdalune]

ahh, i got swept up in internet drama again. i promised myself not to get worked up against something unless i looked into things and know what i'm talking about.

the whole, Palworld thing is really weird to me... ok, Pokemon is an AAA company at this point so they do need a push from somewhere to maybe start doing better. ok, the main anti-Palworld argument of "Palworld steals assets and uses ai" is said to have no evidence to back it up. ok, the game... seems to actually have thought put into it, even if the game feels very.... um, call it uninspired, to me?

but like, man, it kinda sucks that that's the thing that gets attention?

i 'unno. i mean, the reputation of Palworld, and it still getting attention in spite - no, because of, actually - the controversy... well, is this what people want? do people want a game that challenges the monster-collecting formula that Pokemon took spotlight in for several years? or do people want Pokemon "clones"? is it worth it to build up a game from the ground up if that's what gets people's attention?

will it be worth it to make something with passion when all that seems to "work" these days are things that are made from.... i don't know, irony?

i saw a post, that said something like, "here are monster-collecting games that you can play instead of Palworld!", and i just think, "man, if people wanted to challenge Pokemon, why didn't they just go and play these instead of whining about Pokemon for the nth time?"

maybe the reason is, playing Yo-Kai Watch isn't funny as playing Pokemon with guns

i don't know how to word this man. i just feel sad right now, sorry.