Anyway, Palworld is one of those combined with the punch line of every joke anyone has ever told about the stuff that should logically be possible in a Pokémon game, except you're not allowed to because it's a Nintendo IP. The Mostly Uninhabited Land you're dropped into at the beginning with nothing but the mysterious ability to get lumber from trees with your bare fists is crawling with strange, colorful, Legally Distinct creatures called Pals. Which you can catch in strange, colorful, Legally Distinct spherical tech objects* and compel to do your bidding.

Unlike in a Pokémon setting, that bidding is not confined to fighting other people's Pals. You can have them just murder the other people directly if you want! It saves so much time and effort. Mostly, though, when they're not helping you fight bosses, they just hang around your base being automation tools.

Or, if Pal-assisted NPC murder is not your speed, you can always throw a pokéball Pal sphere at the NPC and make him your newest Pal. That is a thing that happens.

This game is dumb and janky in all the best ways. Snark aside, it's really surprisingly polished for the state of completion it's at, but the stuff it's still doing wrong is mostly hilarious (except for its occasional habit of losing saves; certain holomems haven't thought that one was very funny). I've also heard second-hand (someone quoting a developer interview I haven't seen myself) that the Early Access release was a blind hail-Mary pass--that they dropped it in EA on the day they ran out of money, figuring that either they'd sell enough licenses that they could keep going, or it wouldn't and they'd call it a day.

What happened instead was that someone thought to send codes to a few streamers and vtubers a couple-three days before the drop and it blew up, selling a gajillion copies on the first day.

It's safe to say that the game was not ready to succeed on that scale. The multiplayer server performance I've seen on stream, in particular, suggests this in a pretty loud voice. :)

Most of my favorite holos are massively into this game right now, (although Calli is about to abandon it for a month or so while Persona 3 Reload, which came out today in Japan, consumes her soul). In particular, Koseki Bijou and Kaela Kovalskia seem to be in an unofficial race to see who can get to the level cap faster, which Kaela is almost certainly going to win simply because Biboo has to eat and sleep and Kaela, evidently, does not. :)

--G.
* "The Pals are stored in the balls." - Gawr Gura
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.