Palworld Early Access Review
Palworld is a open-world, action adventure survival game focused around monster taming and combat. The game is created and published by Pocket Pair, a Japanese development team who has stated they are new to this type of game design. It is important to point out Palworld is in the early access stage of development and still a work in progress. Everything in this review will be from an ‘early access’ point of view. This means we will be less critical of bugs and design and focus more on release and current content compared to other early access games.
Palworld’s launch was a huge success and broke many video game records. We at Guides 4 Gaming are excited for the potential of this game and look forward to its future development. Here is our Palworld Review of the early access release:
Gameplay Mechanics and Core Features
As a early access game that just released Palworld came out with a lot of mechanics and features. On release there was already a robust leveling system and multiple dungeons and bosses to fight. There is combat progressions, crafting progressions, housing and decorating, and afk grinding. All these systems are working with minor bugs and are well thought out.
Dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’ the gameplay and mechanics of capturing your Pal’s and utilizing them for combat, crafting, and traveling is a great system. Pals having unique abilities or strengths allows the player to strive for best in slot options and optimizations. We are huge fans of player progressions and the ability to alter your character and Pals for specific situations.
After all is said and done we give Palworld’s gameplay, mechanics, and core features a 8 out of 10 for an early access release. Less bugs and more features being introduced at launch, such as PvP, would have improved this score.
Graphics Art and Sounds
The next category is grouped with Graphics, Art, and Sounds. Palworld offers a large open world map with beautiful scenery and diverse terrain. There is lakes, rivers, mountains with snow, deserts with rocks and sand. All of these are used nicely to separate different biomes across the world. Is the world beautiful? Yes, however, it did have a very generic open world feel with the art matching many similar games. There were also some issues with the world layers colliding causing visual bugs. These are minor issues with a brand new early access game but we felt it was relevant to bring up in this review.
There is also the art design of the Pal’s and Characters. The Pal creatures out in the world are frankly just plain cute. They are all made uniquely and their design and colors match the type of Pal they are. For example, fire Pal’s being red and orange, water Pal’s being blue and white. We give the artwork on the Pals and characters in this game strong praise and look forward to the development and improvement upon these in future releases.
The sounds and music of Palworld are good but not great. They do their job in providing context cues on what is happening. Examples of this are a change in music when combat is starting, sound alerts when crafting is over, sound effects for different weather. These are all used well and provide an immersive feel while playing the game. Everything combined in the graphics, art, and sounds category give a rating of 7 out of 10 for this early access review. Beautiful map but feels generic and visual bugs could have improved this score.
Early Access Experience
Palworld just launched but already has a lot to do in the game. There are tons of places to explore, bosses to fight, crafting and level progression, and much more, all on release. This game is in early access and feels like its in early access, but at the same time is incredible and a joy to play. The systems feel mostly complete and, with the exception of a few hiccups and bugs, perform their tasks as expected. Another great factor in the early access experience is the low cost of entry. At the launch of the game it was only $27-30.
With that being said there were some issues that came at launch with some still ongoing. Bugs aside there have been connection issues, log in issues, private servers not showing up, and hackers on public servers. However, these have all been addressed by the developers and most have been fixed or being worked on. Another feature that is currently not in the game is the option to PvP. The developers have stated its in the works and upcoming but it would have been great to experience PvP at launch. We believe the game offers a lot for very little and its early access experience is very good. We give the early access experience in palworld a 8 out of 10. This score would have been higher if the servers were more stable at launch and if features such as PvP were enables at launch. Overall a great experience.
Community Engagement and Future Roadmap
The developers of Palworld have been great so far with community engagement and their future roadmap. There is a very active fanbase and interaction on x/twitter. The developers are constantly sharing achievements of other players as well as player art. This is the kind of stuff we like to see with community engagement from developers. There has also been a lot of updates to the game since launch showing the team is committed to the development and improvement of the game. Lastly, the team at Pocket Pair have release a detailed roadmap for the future of the game. The roadmap indicates a focus on bug fixes first with more content and features to come soon after. We gave Palworld’s community engagement and future roadmap a 10 out of 10 score. You can read more about the future roadmap for the game in our article here.
Final Thoughts: Palworld Review
We loved Palworld and enjoy playing it a lot. There is so much offered in this early access game already making it feel mostly complete-ish and a joy to play. The open world map offers a lot of content from the start, such as bosses and dungeons, as well as a nice landscape and different weather biomes. The Pals you tame and level up feel engaging and rewarding as you do so and offer a unique combat system. The game is pretty solid for an early access title and there is already a strong following and community. Along with that there is a fleshed out future roadmap that seems to address most of the issued pointed out by the community. This game is great and we are very much looking forward to the future development and its eventual full release. Overall we give Palworld an early access review of 8.3 out of 10. This review is an average from all the other categories talked about above and is a great score on the Guides 4 Gaming scale. Great job Pocket Pair and happy gaming!
