Mitchell A Werner

Beast of Reincarnation combat gameplay from Pokémon developers Game Freak!

Nintendo is out here charging $80 for Pokemon games, that don't even have voice acting in them. Meanwhile, Pockepair is literally selling Palworld, at under $30, 2 years after launch, even after Early Access is over. This says everything, about how anti-consumer Nintendo is.

Palworld 1.0 Is Doing Incredible!! Over 40 Million sales worldwide, surpassing the best selling Pokemon games of all time (Red, Blue, Green) Likewise between February 2025 and now, PalWorld gained an additional 8 million sales (32 million at the start of 2025) Meaning PalWorld last year alone had more sales than Pokemon Platinum, Emerald and Crystal did in their lifetimes. I sure hope this news doesn’t generate Nintendo salt 😇

🚨 Nintendo has 30 years, $150 billion in franchise revenue and the most recognizable IP in entertainment history Pocketpair had 4 people, a bucket of USB drives This weekend Palworld hit 855,000 concurrent players on Steam 👇 CEO Takuro Mizobe left JPMorgan, made money in crypto and founded Pocketpair in 2015 with $10,000 Their first game was never released The main 3D artist was a high schooler working at the convenience store the team frequented, hired after DMing them gun reload animations he made for fun No version control, files saved on USB drives, switched to Unreal Engine late with zero experience Then the internet accused them of copying Pokémon designs Nintendo filed a patent lawsuit in September 2024 Today Palworld is the second most played game on Steam Most unlikely success story in gaming this generation

Here’s the element chart for damage effectiveness in PalWorld. Note: Fire is effective against Grass AND Ice.

Far, far too many people don't really understand why people are saying that Palworld does something that Pokemon isn't or why Palworld does some things better, despite being a game in a completely different genre. They stupidly think that Palworld players are just saying "Pokemon should add guns!", which couldn't be further from the truth. So I feel I could possibly explain it a bit better! Not that I feel any Pokemon fan has the capacity or desire to understand this side of the argument but I might as well explain it at least to those who aren't as invested. The thing that really stands out to me about Palworld that I feel they really do better than Pokemon? It's the Pal utility. All the Pals have a utility, either in combat or in the base which allows so many different play styles. Each Pal has their own unique ability that makes them feel more than just a number in the dex. So many different abilities that make Pals feel wholy unique as either a base Pal or a combat Pal. Obviously, Pokemon doesn't need base building, although it would a fun spin off game to see how they pull it off, but the whole unique ability is certainly something that I feel Pokemon could definitely benefit from, making each Pokemon feel somewhat more unique and memorable beyond their typing and power. For example, there are Pals that buff a certain element when they're in the team, or get buffed by specific types in the team, or have their movement speed increase depending on the team members and so on. The fact that you can teach your Pals attack of any element really lets you play around with it! This opens up the player to have so many different team builds beyond just base stats. The other thing they do so well is the mounts. Pokemon feels like they did the bare minimum with it while in Palworld there's like... hundreds of options and so many of them are different in more ways that just base speed. Some can double or triple jump, some jump really high, some run faster or sand or grass, some can fly, some are more combat oriented, some are about gathering resources... it really makes a lot of the Pals feel really unique and worthwhile to actually use. When I say that Palworld does some things better than Pokemon ever did, it's these kinds of things that I mean. Pokemon doesn't need to become a survival game with guns, nor does anyone even want that. Pokemon is Pokemon and it should stay that... but we also would very much love for them to put more thought and effort into their games beyond just tacking a gimmick and making it look a bit graphically fancier. I feel it's safe to say that nobody would be against being able to interact more with your Pokemon in a bunch of unique ways and having them FEEL more unique. I don't think it's a bad thing that Palworld had shown a glimpse of what it could look like and I genuinely don't understand why Pokemon fans are so salty about Palworld being popular and actually well-liked. It's not really a competitor for Pokemon either way, considering it's a whole different genre of a game.

What is happening??? 🤯