Sorry if this is redundant, I didn’t see another thread focused on reactions to the game itself (just the Pokemon-ripoff news cycle).
I tried it on GamePass thinking, why not - might as well see how overhyped it is. And unexpectedly, I put in about 8 hours this weekend.
Despite some rough edges and some very clear inspiration, I am actually enjoying it. It has a very satisfying gameplay feedback loop and is an overdue (if involuntary) “modernization” of the basic monster-collector format.
It’s still in my wishlist, I have not palyed it yet. Good to know you liked it!
I read it was Pokémon like and wrote it off. I’ve tried to but never enjoyed Pokémon. I grew up on jrpg’s so you’d think that was right up my alley. But I disgress…
The comments here paint a more complex story. It honestly still doesn’t seem like my type of game, but my curiosity is piqued. I’ll check it out.
I’ve got a feeling that the legal issues, even if they’re in the clear, are going to pose a lot of problems for the longevity of the game. But, I’m really hopeful that this sparks inspiration for other devs to take on the monster collecting genre. Pokemon has dominated that space for so long that they practically define the genre at this point, so it’ll be nice to see new monster collectors come out with their own unique styles.
So far Pocketpair has been VERY careful about actually infringing on copyright or trademarks. People smarter than I am are pretty certain that if Nintendo or the Pokemon Company could take legal action against the game as it is, they would have already. The important things to note are that you cannot copyright an art style and you cannot copyright or patent game mechanics. And even if things were touch and go, the gameplay loop of adding survival elements and an emphasis on cooperative guild base management is pretty transformative compared to Pokemon games. So as long as they avoid adding pals that are so close to their Pokemon counterparts that they don’t pass the squint test they will be alright.
While all of that appears to be true, that doesn’t mean Nintendo/TPC aren’t able to make this small studio’s lives a nightmare if they wanted. I have a feeling that the level of scrutiny the studio will be under from now on is going to inhibit any real innovation, as they’re already walking a very fine line as it is.
It’s also worth noting that they’re both Japanese companies, and Japan has different views on IP than the rest of the world. I don’t really know enough to go into detail, but it’s entirely possible something a company from the US could laugh off is enough to get action taken in Japan.
Agreed, all of the ‘drama’ surrounding this possible copyright case is largely created by youtubers and tiktokers for views.
That said, Nintendo WILL probably sue but as a formality to protect their brand, and will gracefully pay Pocket Pair’s legal fees as a cost of business once the court rules in Pocket Pair’s favor to keep their copyrights from lapsing to generic use. It’s not uncommon.
Not doing that is how Bayer lost the copyright for ‘Asprin’ in the U.S.
Now if a ton of people refer to Pals as Pokemon the same way people refer to all tissues as Kleenex, THEN they might legitimately run the risk of losing their copyright and will pursue aggressively but I don’t see that happening.
There is no legal issue, Nintendo is suing as a formality to protect their existing copyrights. They’ll be ruled against and shrug their shoulders and pay Pocket Pair’s legal fees because that is a much better business decision than risking losing their copyright to their existing creatures.
If they don’t aggressively protect their copyright, the JCO might just rule that they have become generic and common use like how Bayer lost the trademarked name ‘Asprin’ in the U.S. when it was considered common use and Bayer did not pursue it aggressively.
But that doesn’t make good youtube poop or memes so you probably think this is some kind of hotly contested hullabaloo because of where you are getting your info from.
There is no legal issue
Nintendo is suing
I mean, it’s right there.
Also, you’re thinking of trademark. Might be a good idea to know the difference before calling somebody else’s opinion “hullabaloo”.
The gameplay is very good up until level 40 and is definitely one of the more complete early access games.
So far I have not encountered any game breaking bugs, but the game itself does have tons of jank.
Now I am currently level 47, and can say that leveling from 40 to 50 is a hella grind and takes a lot of time and resources. Mainly time, as getting end game pokeballs takes a massive amount of resources that only pals can harvest, process, and then craft.
Also, the end game bosses are quite beefy and hit like a truck.
For what it’s worth, if you customize the difficulty of your game (which you can do at any point, including after reaching the 40s), you can change most things, including resource drop rates and how much effort it takes to mine them, xp rates, Pal encounter rates, capture rates, etc.
I had a similar experience as you; by the time I hit 42 or so, I had the capture power maxed out, and most eggs were not giving me anything interesting, and I had the whole map revealed, so exploring had lost its luster and I was not enjoying the thought of grinding out another 6-8 levels to start being able to tackle some of the harder challenges in the game; I set the XP rate to x4, and doubled the resource rates, and it pretty much solved the problem for me.
Obviously if you’re playing on a server this isn’t an option, but if it’s just your own single player game, consider trying it; you might find some settings that smooth it out for you.
yes id recommend turning on double resources or you will go mad mining thousands of ore and coal
If you build a base on/near a bunch of ore nodes and dedicate it entirely to mining your pals will mine it for you and it respawns daily (passive ore generation ftw!!!)
For end game, how do you think the spheres feel? Cause I swear to god the ultra and legend spheres have bugged capture rates; no way I am getting the percentages those things advertise.
Not really. There’s a ton of other survival games I’d rather play, and the game’s progression feels like it’s deliberately just fast enough to keep me from closing it. After 8 hours or so I closed and uninstalled because it feels engaging enough to play, but not enough to be anything but chores.
The boss battles suck, the crafting has arbitrary timers to it. I just really don’t find it fun at all.
I love monster collection games, and I enjoy survival, but this definitely isn’t for me.
I’m still not sure if I’m just enjoying exploring a new world and gameplay style.
I actually agree that the game progression is just fast enough to not close it - but it’s really interesting way of putting it, because to me, that would be a great sign that the devs had properly calibrated how to keep the player interested and keep you feeling like “just ten more minutes” for hours.
That’s fair.
To me, it feels kinda cynical of the developers, like how a lot of GaaS trickle thins out just fast enough to not destroy their userbase. I prefer a little bit more reward as I play through, while obviously maintaining a slow enough pace that it feels like there’s reason enough to continue playing.
Different strokes though.
Someone said above you can customise the game. Including exp and resource drops.
So it seems you can modify the game to your liking. Which is a really cool feature that most games lack.
It’s good but as a fan of survival games like Minecraft, Rust, Valheim and Grounded it leaves a lot to be desired in that aspect of the game. It feels really early access (which yeah I guess it is so I’ll concede on that) and feature non-complete. With that being said, I’m still coming back to it and enjoying it.
P.S. I’m also on gamepass and have sunk a few hours into cloud gaming as well and it’s pretty good. As soon as Microsoft start adding something like native upscaling to xbox cloud gaming they’re gonna be on a whole other level of playability.
