TL;DR:
Pros:
- Gameplay loop that very effectively incentivizes you to use a lot of different Pals while also rewarding you for investing a lot of time into your favorites
- Complex teambuilding with a low floor and high ceiling-- a ton of Pals have their own unique niche and there are many loadouts for combat and base building depending on your needs and which ones you think are the most handsome
- If you like playing Stardew Valley with the wiki open, you will have fun with this gameplay loop
- Huge amount of bespoke little details in animations and environmental design that are endear you to the world
- Easy multiplayer for you and the gang
- You can make Fat Albert in the character creator
Cons:
- Hard mode boss difficulty curve is a vertical wall and so comically harder than the final boss that you have to completely change how you play unless you hyper optimize
- There are bugs and visual glitches, especially in multiplayer
- PC character creator is janky and please for the love of god let me change individual facial features
- Some repetition in the Pal designs
Take it or leave it:
- Story is just a series of quests and is designed to be skippable without losing too much of the experience
- Flavor text has some ~edgy jokes~ that might put you off if you really hate that, same with sexual jokes
This game is very good at being the thing it wants to be. It wants to be ARK with Pokemon, and it is a very good survival game where the main way you interact with the survival mechanics are your various little creatures. If you come into it expecting an intricate turnbased rpg combat system or deep story you're going to be disappointed because it's not a traditional JRPG, but I could also say that about Subnautica and I think that game is pretty good.
With regards to the Pal designs, let me first say that as an artist if you try to genuinely argue that anyone should be allowed to copyright art styles, you are a ghoul and deeply anti-art. There is nothing that Palworld does that it would not be horrifically damaging to the ecosystem of art PERIOD for Pokemon to be able to sue them for. Creature concepts? Art style? COLOR PALETTES???? I don't think nintendo should be allowed to copyright making a whale blue!
That said, you can tell that this is Pocketpair's first game. I understand the need for some NPC type Pals just to kind of fill out the world, but there are a LOT of repeats. There are a lot of bunnies and a lot of flower girls and a lot of birds. There are very few designs that I actively dislike, but if there was a bit more variety you wouldn't see me complaining.
As for the furry thing, I am going to be so for real, I don't really see the issue. It's 2026, I don't think a game appealing to furries is the end of the world or makes the game "gooner slop", a frankly insane thing to say about a game with zero actual sexual content. Is the supermarket gooner slop because there are cute girls there sometimes? It's a game aimed at an adult audience and there are some implied sexual jokes or design choices, I don't know how to more politely say that if this is that shocking it may be because you mainly play games aimed at 6 year olds. Also okay with regards to breeding, I cannot express how funny it is to me that their solution to prevent you from breeding humans is to make all humans genderless and Pals do have genders but also you can change them at will. Zoe is canonically agender, but Knocklem is female(after the operation).
The game is definitely not for everyone. I like games where you need a spreadsheet open and where a lot of the gameplay is grinding, but if you prefer a highly streamlined experience where every single event is bespoke to create an engaging challenge, Palworld is gonna bore you to tears. The dungeons are procedurally generated and the gameplay is designed for players for whom the repetition and incremental progress are satisfying. The combat IS challenging, but the challenge is in teambuilding to create a super-nuke that blows up the boss at incredible high speeds. The game does allow for a wide spectrum between hyper-optimization with pals pushed to the limits of their abilities(although being a slave driver was wildly unoptimal until recently and hard labor settings are only workable now because you have ways to keep your pals happy and healthy passively) and The Sims But Your Pals Are There where the object of the game is to make the cutest house and watch your pals float in the hot springs.
Speaking of those, watching the hundreds of bespoke adorable animations that give every single pal their own personality. The custom animations for Cryolinx sleeping with its arms around you or just how goofy all of Skutlass' movements are, in my opinion, is what makes Palworld a great game despite its flaws. The game just has STYLE. It has personality! It has fun! If the designers carnally desiring flower girls is why there was so much effort sunk into making those flower girls each have distinct personalities while they're planting and harvesting and chilling in the hot tub and sleeping in the bed with you and being pet and blasting Swee into a fine mist, then godspeed. But I also don't really want to concede that point because I simply do not believe that Smokie Cryst sleeping cutely next to the cooler is because the designers WERE overcome with lust. There are so many stupid or goofy or cute pals and so many of them have unique designs and fun animations that, again, I think calling this game "just" gooner slop is pure cope.
I think my favorite little detail is actually the enemy bases though. The enemies themselves might be endlessly spawning goons, but I loooove the detail put into their bases and posing. I love how creatively emotes and furniture are used to create little scenes for you to walk in on and using the base elements and emotes gives you so many cool ideas for your own base. One of the things that first made me think this game was really good was seeing how an enemy base had arranged the furniture and going oh my god, that looks so cute, I'm gonna put it in my base!
Despite its reputation, the game is actually incredibly welcoming to aesthetic players. There is a specific setting that allows you to set what armor and headgear your character appears with regardless of what you actually have equipped, so you can run around with whatever armor set you think is the cutest and any of the impressive array of silly little hats without sacrificing any power whatsoever. Also, the game lets you have Zoe's hair! If you think Zoe's hair is cute, you can unlock it! I do wish the hats didn't also change your hairstyle. But Palworld is very much game if you want to beautify your base, it gives you a lot of cosmetic options including furniture, custom colors for certain foundations, and even landscaping. You can also dress your pals up in funny costumes. My only feedback on those is that I wish more Pals had them!
In my opinion, Palworld is a cocktail. It's a bunch of wildly different elements, and some of them are strong enough to put people off, but they mix together well and it results in something that I enjoy more than drinking cranberry juice or chugging straight vodka. I like it, and I think it's worth its price.
