Basically, PalWorld is an Open World Crafting game with Creature Collecting aspects that reminds people of Pokemon.

To me, it looks fun, but it's in a significantly janky Early Access game that still has some rough spots; but I totally get why people want to play it.

The major problem that people are drumming up about it is that the developers may have used AI generated assets; and that is (nowadays) a culture war issue that has emerged; with the political left feeling very directly threatened by it (since most of their Patreon porn-art & erotica side hustles will suffer).

And while I'm all for respecting property rights, I simply don't see the arguments they are making as legitimate. The similarity to The Pokemon Company's characters simply isn't enough to warrant claims of copyright infringement. It's not just different color schemes, but different anatomy, different elemental effects, different shapes. These characters, if made by humans, would be more than transformative enough to warrant being treated separate creations. The game itself, frankly, appeals to a different audience than even Pokemon: Arceus would appeal to. I see not infringement here. Just angry Leftists grasping at straws as an appropriate use of AI makes progress.

If you want me to get very dated, I'd say that PalWorld is closer to Paleo Pines than it is Pokemon. Although, PalWorld's real direct competition is probably Rust.

That, and there's probably some Pokemon consoomers that are flailing at the fact that some shit-heel developers managed to make a servicable pokemon like game that is going to force The Pokemon Company to fucking innovate.