Beginning of a Legend

Palworld is one of those titles that has a good story, but is little shown. It's something you feel more than you read or hear. For example, at the beginning of the gameplay, we start in a place with a characteristic ruined atmosphere, as if it had been abandoned for a long time.

In this, we need to explore the surroundings while carrying out missions that belong to the tutorial. The first missions are very simple, just to let us know the purpose of the game and to familiarize ourselves with its style, without showing anything about its story.

In this way, it can be seen that it is not a work that will focus on the narrative, but rather on the game mode and, later on, difficulty, action, mission systems and rewards and so on.

That doesn't mean it's a bad thing, if you're a player who likes context and, therefore, narrative, you can read guides within the game (in the “Survival Guide” menu) that will keep you up to date with everything and which will help you start your adventure more easily.



The tamer

At first, you can already understand that the Pals are the companions that we will capture and take with us on adventures. In the first seconds of the game we are shown a cutscene in which three of the animals notice our presence and look at us confused, until they get scared and run away when we get up.

This shows that most of them are fearful and will try to run away from us as long as we are around. But, in short, our objective here is to destroy the towers on the map (which contain trainers and battle bosses), but to do so, we have a lot of ground to cover: capturing, combining powers and types of creatures, leveling up and battling to become the greatest Pals tamer in all regions.

And we will only achieve this with a lot of exploration, which is the focus of the game. The best part (in my opinion) is the presence of the open world, which allows for varied exploration, without pause and anything monotonous, without having to wait on loading screens.



In this way, the Pals' capture is a little different. It’s necessary to damage (by hitting them with your hand or a weapon) so that they have little health and have an increased chance (measured in percentage) of capture. To do this, you also need to have - or find around - a Pal capsule, which is the most important utility at the beginning of the game.

So, with Pal's capsule in hand, just go to the desired creature and damage it until it has little health, to throw the capsule and capture it. Afterwards, you will have it in your “backpack”, being a member of your team and able to help you in numerous functions.

With a certain amount of captures and utilities, you can start building your base and creating a Pal box, which allows you to store the animals inside and not take up space in your backpack. In the box, they heal, feed and are ready to help you!



Pals (which means companions) can cooperate with your works by helping to build them, since when you create something it is like a sketch, taking a certain amount of time to finish its construction, but only if you place them on your base and let them work. Each Pal, as it has a different typing (status that determines powers and weaknesses), can be useful in different tasks and you just need to choose the best type for each activity.

They can also accompany you in battles, helping you fight or even serving as a weapon (can be carried by your character and actually used as one), in addition to being possible to ride on top of them and use them as a means of transport. It's crazy.

It may be possible that in the middle of your adventure you will encounter special Pals, that makes a very loud noise that can even be annoying. If you see it, you will notice that it is much larger than the others compared to its species, and it is really cool to collect several of these.

As it is an adventure game focused on survival and exploration, we have many places to visit and look for resources. The existing mission system really helps the player not to get lost, since even though they have to do more of the same, there are still tasks that require more time and skill. At the beginning, you are given missions to complete a tutorial that makes the objective of the game a little clearer, and as the game progresses, they tend to get more difficult.



Basically, there are several mechanisms that you can take advantage of: capturing Pals, missions, PVE fights, buildings (base and house), clothing customization, technologies, manual labor and much more. As a result, there is a wide variety of tasks, but they are repeated many times in the same day so that everything evolves together.

For example, in order for me to improve my player level and increase my stats, I need to explore and hunt creatures, to improve the technology at my base, to learn new recipes, to improve my weapons and fight against stronger characters. Ufa!

So, in a way, there are many activities to do, but you end up creating a routine depending on what you focus on. Explore, hunt, level, improve and fight, and so on.

Regarding the fights, it was something that I really enjoyed, even though it was a time when there was a lot of visual pollution. The fact that there are many skills appearing on the screen at the same time is something that can scare players who are not used to the adrenaline of battle, but which is common in games of this genre.

It's even cool because of the variety of powers and typing of the Pals, which make each fight unique. And also for the sake of balance, since for the most part the game is very calm, as if each activity was done at its own time and calmly, and having bigger fights every now and then is really cool.

And, because of this, I can say that Palworld is a game that caters to different gameplay styles. Whether you are a person who likes action, or a person who likes calm, which is more about farming and unlocking achievements, this game will be very beneficial, regardless. Because it has an open world, different types of weapons, character customization, different biomes, missions and many activities, Palworld is a complete game about adventure, action and exploration.

Classic and beautiful

The work has classic graphics, which give a perfect antique atmosphere. What caught my attention at the beginning (and even hours after gameplay) were the ruins, which give the impression that there was life there, with buildings, communities and activities all the time. As time went by, we found more “advanced” places with large facilities that you can also see from afar, in the game setting.

This only made me curious to continue exploring and evolving to be able to reach these distant places. They were more evolved, but they had the same theme, which made me think that the past in that place was totally different from what I was imagining.

And the fact that the world loads little by little, as we move forward, leaves this air of mystery even more. I really liked the art of the game in general, the design of the creatures, the characters, the graphics, the animations and the biomes.



As a result, the sound graphics (mainly ambient sounds) also really captivated me. During battles, we can enjoy different music, and of course different sounds of the powers of the animals around. The game has characteristic noises such as water, footsteps, running, surrounding sounds, weapons (axe, pickaxe, bat, bow and arrow, etc.) that add a lot to this part.

The choice of soundtrack was simply perfect, I loved it when a fight against a Pal started and a song played, until I managed to capture it and a happy sound passed, as if I had achieved an achievement on the platform. I think it's cool because it's a detail that becomes a very important feature, it's a sound that will be remembered regardless of where you listen to it, like those of older and more important games in our lives.

Palworld asks for minimum requirements of 16 GB of RAM, Intel Core i5-3570 processor and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. I played it on a PC with 16 GB of RAM, Intel Core i5-9400F processor and GTX 1050 Ti graphics card and I didn't suffer any bugs or glitch, but because the game is in early access, there were a few moments where it crashed and froze for a few seconds (but it wasn't so significant as to disrupt gameplay).

Reviewed and translated  by Luisa Rodrigues