It has very little story to speak of. It's not a pure sandbox, there's some journals here and there. There's tidbits of some ancient lost society in the archipelago that you stumble across but it's nothing conclusive.
It's also still an alpha despite how good the core gameplay is. The hostile human factions are all just basically just different flavors of bandits for now, and the friendly townspeople don't do anything besides the merchants.
However. Despite that it's still one of the best games of the last decade.
Oh. So its not even finished? Hmm might want to wait till the game is out of early access
Still the fact it has factions and all that jazz does sound mildly alluring, hope the devs actually give a fuck and finish their product despite breaking the sales numbers...
It's a complete, playable, and fun game as it is, if you can enjoy open world survival crafting games, but they're also clearly not done with the game yet.
Be careful of falling into that mindset. Hogwarts Legacy was mired in controversy, and that game wound up pandering to subversive leftist ideology. Being contrarian for its own sake can be used against you. That being said, I don't see any glaring issues with Palworld in that regard. Being asked to choose body type, rather than sex/gender, was the only sociopolitical red flag it threw.
Palworld is quite similar to a JRPG in terms of its minimalistic environments. Its NPCs and story are equally minimalistic. Don't expect a compelling narrative. A very general context will be given to you through scattered notes, and s select few NPCs around the the islands, but you're not going to see much exposition otherwise. It's all about catching animals to exploit labor. Players also have the ability to catch NPCs, but I haven't seen any practicality behind that aside from capturing merchants.
You can sell the humans at merchants, just like you can the Pals. So now I know how I'll be making money (if I can get past the "can't throw balls you know you have" glitch, that is)
There's no profit versus the time and materials required. Humans have a drastically lower chance of being caught than Pals do, meaning you'll be wasting at least half a dozen spheres on each person. Market value for an NPC is low. You'll get a little more for one with a halfway decent trait, which is rare, but still not enough to justify the time and effort you put in. You'd be better off crafting spheres to sell to merchants. If you're after money, tearing through everything on the island, opening chests as you find them, seems to yield enough gold and valuables. It's also not a bad idea to have a Mau working a ranch.
There are so many journos bitching about this shitty game i feel like actually trying it
Does it have a story or is it like a pure sandbox?
It has very little story to speak of. It's not a pure sandbox, there's some journals here and there. There's tidbits of some ancient lost society in the archipelago that you stumble across but it's nothing conclusive.
It's also still an alpha despite how good the core gameplay is. The hostile human factions are all just basically just different flavors of bandits for now, and the friendly townspeople don't do anything besides the merchants.
However. Despite that it's still one of the best games of the last decade.
Oh. So its not even finished? Hmm might want to wait till the game is out of early access
Still the fact it has factions and all that jazz does sound mildly alluring, hope the devs actually give a fuck and finish their product despite breaking the sales numbers...
It's not even close to done no. There's lots of things you can find around the game that are clearly placeholders.
Alternatively: no one appears to give a fuck about grass. The Palworld devs really don’t need your help lol
I couldn't give a shit if the rocks in Palworld look like the rocks in some other game.
Palworld is fun, and that's what games are supposed to be.
Which says a lot about the past decade.
Honestly, the thing is still very much in alpha state. There's a core gameplay loop, but it's not even close to finished yet.
It's a complete, playable, and fun game as it is, if you can enjoy open world survival crafting games, but they're also clearly not done with the game yet.
Be careful of falling into that mindset. Hogwarts Legacy was mired in controversy, and that game wound up pandering to subversive leftist ideology. Being contrarian for its own sake can be used against you. That being said, I don't see any glaring issues with Palworld in that regard. Being asked to choose body type, rather than sex/gender, was the only sociopolitical red flag it threw.
Palworld is quite similar to a JRPG in terms of its minimalistic environments. Its NPCs and story are equally minimalistic. Don't expect a compelling narrative. A very general context will be given to you through scattered notes, and s select few NPCs around the the islands, but you're not going to see much exposition otherwise. It's all about catching animals to exploit labor. Players also have the ability to catch NPCs, but I haven't seen any practicality behind that aside from capturing merchants.
You can sell the humans at merchants, just like you can the Pals. So now I know how I'll be making money (if I can get past the "can't throw balls you know you have" glitch, that is)
There's no profit versus the time and materials required. Humans have a drastically lower chance of being caught than Pals do, meaning you'll be wasting at least half a dozen spheres on each person. Market value for an NPC is low. You'll get a little more for one with a halfway decent trait, which is rare, but still not enough to justify the time and effort you put in. You'd be better off crafting spheres to sell to merchants. If you're after money, tearing through everything on the island, opening chests as you find them, seems to yield enough gold and valuables. It's also not a bad idea to have a Mau working a ranch.