Palworld is a Adventure game that mix elements of survival and monster capture games like Ark and Pokemon and a pitch of automation, that itself is not bad, mixing stuff that works and make them work together is tough. The concept itself alongside the big world and creatures is what it hook me
Visuals, it goes to a cartoonic 3d style, not realistic, and that is ok, they wanted to sell live creatures with their animations, expressions and designs, it worked because the pals feel alive and can do something more than just fight, thought some shadows can look weird in some pals and if you do a closeup, the texture on them can be weird sometimes
Music, On this, I am honest, it needs background music when no fights are happening, I know they wanted ambience but a area song could had been good too while working on your base. The ones it has are good but you may ignore them a bit since you are busy with the fight
Gameplay, Well, the important part, it plays well for me, already know how to play Ark and pokemon, so this was not different for me, even on early access, I was comfortable on the game, no issues on it, and not boring either thanks to the survival and building alongside the pals, it makes it less of a time waste and allowing more exploration of the world while your base works in resources. A adaptive difficulty that can modify when ever you want and make it as easy or hard you want.
Pals, ok, about them, I think they are a great idea for working and fighting, giving each one affinities and improve them makes it that you don´t have to focus in a meta or tier list or anything to win the game, you can keep a early game pal and make it work tilt the end(I did that with my little Vixy). There is metas but for different tasks and needs, but in the end, you can use your favorites on the adventure.
Now, to compare to the obvious... yeah, they are not pokemons, they can use a similar art style but they are not pokemons, all the drama on the early access was so dumb and the people only wanted attention and trying to be a vigilante on social media, the big difference is that, on pokemon, there is a strict meta and you can only use and raise the good ones for competitive(Incineroar or Gholdengo) and the rest are not viable(lack of flexibility).
Unless you play the story and thats it, where you can use your favorite ones of the region/generation and win. Aside of that, what more can you do with pokemon aside of fighting, nothing really, just watch them and play minigames.
In palworld, yes there is meta and builds to do some works and gather resources, but nothing is stopping you to ignore it and play with what you want and raise the strongest chicken or lamb you can make and kill a legendary with it.
In the end, I recommend Palword if you want to play something different to Pokemon or that you are bored on it but still want a monster capture game and maybe it can be a start to find other oscure monster capture games.
