Honestly the main reason the discourse around this game is annoying is that the whole idea of an edgy version of pokemon is juvenile as hell, but people are instead moralizing about stealing from fucking nintendo
It's sad too because I don't want edginess, I want Nintendo to just explore Pokemon like they're living creatures.
The worldbuilding is so shallow and the Pokedex entries don't make sense. And the new Pokemon roll out to replace the old ones (hate that it's called dexit).
It's frustrating to think about the proposed ideology of Pokemon about stewardship, compassion, and working together when the franchise itself is just that, a franchise.
It's frustrating to think about the proposed ideology of Pokemon about stewardship, compassion, and working together when the franchise itself is just that, a franchise.
Tangential to that, it always annoyed me growing up with the media and the games that key to all the stories is the idea of individual pokemon actually being important and growing meaningfully as part of a largely static team, but in the games they're just disposable type, stat, and move pools that get switched out or binned indefinitely and your static team at the end is a bunch of stuff you caught in the last fifth of the game or less. The one, singular exception to that in my experience was when I caught a shiny vulpix in one of the gym challenges in Sword (of all places), and that became my sweeper for the entire rest of the game and both DLCs, but that's the most edge case of all edge cases being something that was insanely rare and special in its own right, that was also a very strong and viable pokemon, with nearly perfect stats on top of that.
Like there's a huge disconnect between the sort of collecting gameplay and the story about growth and whatnot, since you're basically playing a looter shooter and the pokemon are just new weapon rolls to be evaluated and kept or tossed, and none of the franchise's mechanical attempts at fixing this have worked because they're always just limited gimmicks that can't get in the way of that core looter-shooter progression loop.
Consequently, I've always wanted to see something where a given pokemon's progression is more fluid and has higher peaks than just "this is a one stage low-stat trash mon and that's all it will ever be, bin" or "this has one mid-tier evolution that comes super early, good early game bruiser and then trash as soon as something better comes along," as long as you actually invest in it and keep it around. But I don't think Pokemon could ever do something like that, because that turns it into an RPG where pokemon are mechanically characters instead of weapons and the evolutions or whatever are like classes they prestige into instead of fixed forms.
people are instead moralizing about stealing from fucking nintendo
I've noticed this a lot. people who defend intellectual property (already cringe) often go above and beyond what it's supposed to entail (mega cringe). They think that not just the actual creative content is protected by copyright law, but that anything conceivably closely resembling it is as well. Imagine if, for example, the guy who made Stardew Valley was sued into oblivion for "stealing Harvest Moon." Like. What? Corporations would love to establish such a Draconian understanding of creativity as a legal precedent.
If we didn’t exist under capitalism and I didn’t make my livelihood off of selling art I would say “yeah whatever let’s free-for-all this shit and see how weird we can get with it” but we’re converging on a situation of using ai and shit like this that is a threat to workers in creative industries. Eventually all corporations will just adopt the new playbook and cut workers out too, but I think there’s some legitimacy to being a little concerned about how this stuff shakes out over the next 5 years or so.
a situation of using ai and shit like this that is a threat to workers in creative industries.
Isn't the case here just traditional asset ripping and plagiarism against a notoriously litigious huge corporation? There's no way AI was involved given the models are all literally just official pokemon meshes with some changes here and there.
Lol I don't like bullying people for critically analysing their media however silly it is but I can't stop this exact thought from crossing my mind whenever I hear someone saying "you know Disney movies are actually really dark and--"
Totally get what you're saying. Analyzing your media is good. Even finding or making an arguement for darker themes or making up a "darker" version of non dark media is fine, even sometimes great or funny in a good and intentional way.
And i don't have a problem with someone doing a dark analysis of pokemon, whether i agree with it or not. What i think deserves derision is how it comes off as "unlike you, I a smart and serious person was always aware of intended darkness and adult themes within this massive commercial children's media. You may not like it, but this is what peak analysis of Pokémon is."
This is giving 14 year old boys too much credit. They’ve matured exactly zero over the course of that year, they just got better and being little shits.
I like Pokemon because wooper is cute and I like seeing the funny animals. Yes the world has a massive cognitive dissonance where the story is about becoming friends with Pokemon and the gameplay is about kidnapping and using them to fight. I don't care. Every 10 year old has realised that about Pokemon.
I'm glad Pokemons monopoly is being challenged because they might have to actually try more than they did with SV but I want people to shut up about Palworld. It's just ARK with Pokemon instead of dinosaurs. I should play ARK now I think about it
God this conversation again. Ever since 1996, kids and adults have done the age old, "WOULDN'T YOU WANT A REALISTIC POKEMON WITH BLOOD AND SEX AND VIOLENCE?" Because that's something the series was severely needing.
For real though, if Nintendo sues Palworld and wins then you can say goodbye to any spiritual successor to any game ever getting made ever again. I don't think they will, but they fukken might.
Given that both companies are Japanese, and Palworld's development has been very public over the past 3 years prior to the recent early access release... if there was something to sue for, Nintendo would have been on it years ago IMO
I like palworld a lot, but this mf is cringe. I love Nintendo games, but fuck Nintendo for putting the same raggedy game out over and over. Let me force my Arbok to build me a house at gunpoint goddammit.
I actually like that Nintendo is getting some competition in some of its long entrenched genres. I recently started playing an early access game called Dinkum that's an Animal Crossing competitor, and it's refreshing to see it go places where Nintendo won't (there's some light combat, a more robust terraforming system, a way bigger island, and more importantly doing mundane shit like going in and out of buildings or catching fish/insects doesn't lock you into 5+ seconds sequences). It's still a little janky at times and rough around the edges but it's a very entertaining game if you liked (or tried to like) the most recent Animal Crossing.
Palworld is genuinely good. More like ark+pokemon. Nothing stoppin you from making a pal commune with fancy beds and spas. Also you can capture the cops in the pal spheres and have them work on assembly lines for re-education.
I support anyone who fucks with Nintendo. I hope they lose their lawsuit as well. Copyright law is bullshit anyway. No corporation should be able to claim ownership of fictional animals in a video game.
The joke about "let the fans make the game!" Is sometimes true. I'm sure if a small group of devs were legally allowed to, they would make a pretty good classic pokemon game. But because Nintendo wants every penny that could be warned from the franchise, they can't help themselves but to go after the competition in courts.
I don't really care either way, but looking at the "paldeck" from this game it's ridiculous just how shameless they were in copying pokemon designs wholesale.
Most Pokemon aren't all that inspired to begin with. At some point you run into kind of limited options to display "cat + fire" or "mouse + electricity" unless you wanna let go of design conventions wholesale