first impressions of palworld

Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@xeiaso.net>

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+title: My first impressions of Palworld
+date: 2024-01-21
+---
+
+I have no idea how to describe
+[Palworld](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623730/?curator_clanid=4777282&utm_source=SteamDB)
+adequately other than it is a miracle of game design that it works as
+well as it does. On paper, this game should be bad. It shouldn't work
+at all. It should have a bunch of attempts at game design that don't
+work together and the game should fizzle out into irrelevance like all
+the others in the same category. This game should just be too damn
+ambitious to work.
+
+Somehow, everything works. It doesn't just work, it works VERY WELL.
+Everything flows together and all the mechanics feed into eachother.
+It's all the addictive qualities of Factorio, Ark, Fortnite, and more
+all in one. On the weekends I normally catch up on anime, but I am now
+very behind because of how much time this game has been sucking up.
+
+If you want to see how incredibly unlikely the success of Palworld
+was, check out [this post by my friend
+Mystes](https://cohost.org/mystes/post/4226698-i-m-in-love-with-pal)
+where it describes the series of fortunate events that lead to this
+game landing the way it did. It's nuts. This game is the best kind of
+anomaly.
+
+There's some controversy about the fact that you can catch Palapagos
+residents in Pal Spheres, with all of the normal effects in the
+process, but I think that this is really the game taking its lore
+seriously and presenting it to the player as it would be in the world.
+In the Pokémon games, most of the gorier Pokédex entries point to the
+realities that this game portrays.
+
+If you lived in a world where cows were moe blobs that make cute
+noises, you'd probably be fine with butchering them for dinner. Either
+that or you'd live in a system such that it would be very okay and
+easy to do so.
+
+It's really easy to compare this to Pokemon, but I think that it's a
+lot more fair to compare it to RimWorld and Ark: Survival. This makes
+the Pokemon games look like Monster Hunter. Looking back at Pokémon
+Legends Arceus, I think that the Pokémon games are probably going to
+become more like Monster Hunter in the long run. Monster Hunter is
+incredibly fun to play with friends and overall it's got really
+detailed mechanics. The main difference with this and Pokémon is that
+you can theoretically go for a very long time without engaging with
+the monster taming mechanic. You'll have challenges getting past Zoe,
+sure, but you'll be able to do it.
+
+For an "early access" title, this is a remarkably polished and stable
+experience. This is the best UE5 game I've ever seen run on handhelds
+like the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally. The only complaints I have are
+things that probably can be fixed with time and polish. The fact that
+they've sold so many units already means that this studio will have
+the resources to bring this to completion. I'm confident that the core
+of this game is good enough that all they need to do is fix lots of
+little issues with the implementation.
+
+When can you say that a new game this decade shipped with dedicated
+server software? That you could host yourself, and type in the direct
+IP of a server to connect to it, without having to do matchmaking or
+suffering through abortions of lobby systems? This game is amazing.
+
+It's seriously good. I don't know what else to say other than with
+friends it's an amazing way to manufacture brand new sentences that
+become memes.
+
+If this keeps getting better, I could easily see it being game of the
+year. I'd be amazed if it doesn't win something in The Game Awards
+this year. It sets the bar very high and I think they'll see it to
+fruition.