At the time around its early access release, Palworld is a heated main topic in the circles gathered around gaming news. The game has sold at least 8 million copies already in its first week, exceeding all expectations. This has sparked a lot of discussion about why this game is finding its success. In my brief participation in some discussions in various parts of the internet, I consistently found that others would try to slot me into one of two camps: A freak for Game Freak who believes Nintendo can do no harm, or some techbro weirdo defending modern generative AI and plagiarism. This is based on whether I'm expressing positivity or negativity about the game, with no regard for what is praised or criticized. Conversations have turned into vitriolic flamewars under these dogmatic perspectives.

Palword isn't doing much new while being responsible for all of this heated debate. All of this hubbub is happening around a game that would be, in a vacuum detached from the present's perspective, ordinary and uninspiring. This game lifts a bunch of ideas from other games, and makes them all shallow enough to unobtrusively stick together. It's a baffling blurred mess of familiar popular ideas. You'll see Pokémon, Ark, Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, and Fortnite all jarringly mishmashed into a clumsy excuse for a game.

In the game's evoked confusion, there's something fascinating about it all. The game, for me, ended up being a mildly fun experience and a mildly funny joke. These lifted elements of gameplay, as jarring as they are, make an interesting base for the gameplay to work from. The loop keeps me more hooked in your standard open world survival crafting experience than anything else I've tried in the past decade's deluge of these games. The mimicry of Palworld's inspirations leads to some hilarious exaggerations in Palworld's interpretations. There's always some goofy goal or weird new Pal to keep me engaged. The game, whether by accident or intention, serves as a parody of the modern gaming landscape.

As of writing this, Palworld has only just entered "Early Access"/"Game Preview" but in its current state, it might effectively be seen as a condensed reflection of current common interests. Palworld is everything that makes a game popular in January 2024.

Are we so gullible? Do we as an audience not demand anything from our art? There's no story, no new mechanics, no real characters, no interesting or enjoyable visuals, no compelling gameplay, no original ideas at all in fact. Is a faceless strawman to antagonise really enough to get millions of people to play an Unreal Engine asset flip made as artlessly as possible? Is no one else actively disturbed by how blatantly and gracelessly this rips mechanics from every popular game of the last 2 decades, without integrating any of them together whatsoever? Has art ever felt this cynical before?

Feel free to discount my opinion. I am a 'salty Pokemon fanboy' after all, and I only gave this game an hour or so of my not particularly highly valued time. I personally just prefer the art I engage with to care for the art form it sits within, even a little bit. Palworld hates video games. It sees nothing more within them than a collection of things to do and hopes that by shovelling a flaccid farcical version of as many of them as possible into your mouth it will somehow constitute a 'video game' when all is said and done. It doesn't. I'm deeply saddened that so many gamers think so lowly of our art form that they genuinely think this is acceptable.

⭐️ Review: B - Tier ”Good”

Not nearly as bad as some make it out to be.

The art direction is a bit odd so a lot of the monsters look slimy or super realistic and off putting, but aside from that, everything else looks great. Towns and cities are vibrant and interesting as well.

Gameplay is great throughout, played on hard mode and the difficulty curve felt pretty nice. Some side quests are a bit tedious if you’re going for 100%.

Music isn’t as good as previous titles but still slaps here and there.

The 4 main characters are superb in this one! Gloria is my fave but Elvis and Adelle are a close second. Plot has some really great twists and the lore is interesting too.

Could have been better with a larger story and more interesting villains / monsters. Dungeons are okay at best and the art style takes away from the series 3DS charm.

8/10

100% = ✅ | Sountrack: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑/5

(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

The one that there's no internet is fine, but I like to play the website where it's like hacked so you can play online? And uh so

It's like

Uh

It's so you can only jump, and there's cactus... cactodes... cacti? And uh you have to jump over them with Space, but you can crouch with the down arrow and jump with the up arrow. And if you win you get a secret being. No, bean. Like, "these are some yummy beans." And sh- And- You get hit by a meteor and go bleh, and there's a pituh- ter- pterathing that if you get hit you die. (Dad: Are you just making this stuff up?) No! There is! So, have to crouch, uhh (gets distracted by TV) why are they dancing

Bravely Second is great.

It feels like a complete upgrade from Default in most things such as combat/jobs and other QoL mechanics while also removing all annoying parts of Default. You can also be even more broken in this game with the addition of new jobs. However enemies are also somewhat buffed to not just be fodders.

The story is... different, to say the least. Unlike the innovation on the WoL/4 Crystal tale of Default. This one follows on a more original storyline. I don't really consider one better than the other narratively. They're both really good. Though I'll say Default has a deeper story but Second has a really fun story and bigger as well, with double the amount of locations.

BUT what I am sure of is that Second handles their story MUCH better than Default did. Though Default has a really unique/deep storyline, it is overshadowed by how horrid the 4 worlds repetitions are, even though the payoff is rewarding. There is also something similar here in Second, however it is handled PERFECTLY, not only was it really epic but also doesn't keep repeating itself. It has an epic conclusion sequence as well, though not as huge a scale as Default did.

What I find lacking in the story is the fact that, though Chapter 5 was epic all the way through, it does feel like it ties itself too neatly in the end. Like the "Kaiser" plot somewhat feels too convenient in the way it ended. But it's nothing really bothersome, it's just something tugging in the back of my head reaching that part.

Spoilers
My second complaint is that the build-up to the "True" Final Boss of the game feels too short, though it is hinted at in the previous chapters through a sub-plot, it's not exactly done enough with only Chapter 6 hinting at it repeatedly. This is probably somewhat the opposite of my complaint for Default's story. The true main villain is hinted a lot of the times and the hints are shoved to your face, but there is little acknowledgement from the party members. But here, it's not done enough where the build up to the True Evil feels sufficient. It does however managed to turn a not-so subtle sub plot of a certain "5th" party member to hint at or connect to the existence and purpose of the True Villain in the end which do feel pretty cool.

Another thing I love about this game is the characters. Villains and heroes alike. All antagonists here are not just some random weirdos the big bad found on the streets (except maybe 2 people), they are all prominent figures of a huge event which happened predating the events of the first game that changes the course of the world, an event which was even mentioned back at default and what jumpstarted the events of the series. So they're all huge deals and have a valid reason for their purpose as a villain.

As for the main party, as much as I love Ringabel, I honestly prefer this game's cast than Default's. Mostly because they act more like friends here and they don't take things too seriously.

First of all, there's 2 returning cast, Edea and Tiz. Edea is more mature in this game, instead of confusing things as just black and white, she feels more certain of herself but also kept her usual Edea personality as always. This is pretty much her character in the best possible version.
Tiz, which was a blank slate in the first game turned to an absolute Chad.
Yew, the new "main" character is really fun. I think he embodies the tone of the game really well. Quirky, fun, doesn't take things too seriously, has a lot of weaknesses and fears like a normal person but also embodies a sense of heroism like Tiz and Duty like Edea. The character development he got was also done really well. Because unlike Tiz in the first game who was pretty much just a blank canvas and feels really shallow and empty. Yew really feels like a junior hero with weaknesses and doubts.
Lastly, Magnolia. She is a very unique character, and probably the most interesting one. She's like the final piece of the puzzle that fits perfectly to the board. Without her, I feel like the party would feel "stiff". She gives off a similar tone as Yew. Quirky, charming and also being really likeable.
There's not a single dull person in the party anymore, if anything the opposite is true.
All in all, they don't feel as duty-bound as the Normandy Crew or bound by being misfits like Berseria. They feel more like genuine friendship above all. With optional camp conversations, you can watch and see that in their down time and on the field they really are just best friends who jokes with or picks on one another. The romance between Magnolia and Yew do feel a bit forced at the very beginning but do get natural development after a certain part.

As for the music, I'll just say that the lack of Revo is noticeable.

All in all, what started as me pondering for hours whether I should start the series or not due to the infamous part of the first game turned to a gem of a series for me. With one of the most endearing casts and the sweetest ending I've ever seen in a JRPG. I'm glad I decided to try the series out and see for myself. I will miss this game and I really do hope that there will be a Bravely third, after all this time. This series is a must play for JRPG fans. I do plan on playing BD2 sooner or later, even though I heard it's pretty divisive.

The first 2-3 hours of inscryption are wonderful. A creepy, thoroughly atmospheric dive in this weird, creepy card game, played in a small little cabin against some weird guy who pantomines the parts of the bosses and kills you with a camera at the end. There's so many little touches in this part, and coming off the table and solving all the little puzzles of the cabin with an aim to escape/win, its awesome. There's a great occult, macabre vibe to it all, and then it all comes together for a neat resolution as you and your talking cards hatch a plan.

Its sad for me to say that whilst it would have been dissapointing in it's own right, the game would have been better stopping right there. It would have left me wanting way, way more and the game would come out at about an hour and a half long, but that's a better world than the one we live in.

Because Inscryption really just could not help itself from going down the creepypasta meta rabbit hole for the latter two thirds of it's runtime. It's not as bad as the dev's previous game Pony Island and is presented pretty well, but is ultimately just way less endearing and interesting than the first act.

Sadly the game also gets less mechanically interesting. Part of this is definetly a psychological element - i'm less interested in getting into the minutae of the mechanics when its obvious the game's now committed to throwing the baby out with the bathwater every 20 minutes, but I also think there's an elegance to the creature sacrifice emphasis of the first act that nothing that comes after comes close to matching.

I understand there is meant to be a point to this, at least somewhat, as the soulful roleplay-driven gameplay gives way to more mechanically deep or whatever gameplay, but I do think it just falls flat and the non-card gameplay of the latter sections are particularly weak in comparison.

And the story? It's thankfully told with fantastic production values and editing and is pretty well paced, and pulls those good old 4th wall meta game tricks which honestly im a bit tired of by now even if they're very cute in this one. But it's just really not interesting and there's not really much more to it than Sonic.exe at the end of the day. It's well told and the presentation is outright incredible throughout, but on a personal level it's really just where I wish the story didn't go after such an incredible opening.

It also really drags near the end. The final section prior to the ending is way too fucking long and not much even happens in the story. If it didn't so blatantly feel like a "final act" I probably would have dropped it about halfway through.

So yeah, if I stopped playing the game after 2 hours the score here would probably be a 4.5/5, maybe even a 5 if i was feeling particularly generous. And it's not like the rest of the game is offensively bad or anything, it's just profoundly dissapointing, especially in the light of what's clearly a mountain of effort and attention to detail that's gone into it that feels in service of completely the wrong way for the game to go.

Inscryption truly took me down the rabbit hole. I wish it didn't bother.

The opening few hours of Inscryption are legitimately fantastic. I always liked a lot of what was going on in Slay the Spire but that game is dragged down so much by its incredibly bland aesthetic that just makes me think back to playing Flash games on Newgrounds as a teenager. Inscryption takes that deckbuilder core, adds a really cool, evocative spin on it with the sacrifice mechanic, but most importantly nestles this within a deeply unsettling, intense aesthetic that really sells the whole experience on its own. There are a couple moments that didn't land perfectly for me in these opening few hours, but overall I was very excited to see where the game would head.

I'm not going to spoil any actual story content from this point, but I will be talking about mid and late-game gameplay mechanics changes. I think there are people who will be suitably put off from the whole experience once they know the direction these mechanical changes head in and may value getting to read about these ahead of time, but if knowing anything about the direction the game's mechanics head in is going to upset you then stop reading now.

At the end of these first few hours of the game Inscryption's gameplay becomes markedly worse. It turns into a trading card game, as opposed to the first section's deck-builder nature, a genre that is just a lot harder to make actually work. A part of the problem is that the sheer elegance of the game's original mechanics is hurled to the wayside as it becomes bogged down under the weight of a bunch of new mechanics, whilst constantly tuning and retuning your deck from a vast pool of cards makes for an unbelievably worse gameplay loop than what came beforehand. Arguably an even bigger part of the problem is that the aesthetic is just so much less compelling in this second part too, and the aesthetic was so much of what sold the first part of the game. Taken outside of the context of existing inside a larger whole this second part of the game is something I would consider at absolute best mediocre, and would be upset to have spent money on had something like this been expanded into a full game.

Another major mechanical shift comes later on, and this third part of the game returns to something closer to where the game was originally at. It lacks much of the earlier tension and magic, and the aesthetic is much worse too, but it acts as a fine enough diversion and has a few genuinely very enjoyable moments.

So there's one outright great section, one just barely passable section, and one third that is decent enough. So why am I not higher on the game, does this first act being so impressive not justify the latter mediocrity? A part of the problem is how disappointing the whole affair ends up being, never fully living up to the promise it shows early on. A bigger part of the problem though is what I gather is very much Daniel Mullins' schtick.

Inscryption has a lot of meta content that takes an increasingly larger presence on the game's stage. I knew this going in, as I'm sure anyone familiar with Mullins' name would be, and was curious to see it all in action. Whilst there are certainly some cute, enjoyable moments to it, especially early on in the game, so much of the meta content in this game is just shocking and weird for the sake of being shocking and weird, rather than having any actual substance to it. The whole experience just felt very hollow to me, and at its very worst the game can feel anywhere from scattered and unfocused to actually just downright childish.

It's just so frustrating because there's something wonderful in that early part of the game, and then it goes and turns into this.