First and foremost I have 100% all the achievements in the game, on Hard mode solo, and beat the game blind without guides. That said, here's my review. Old review from early access will be in the comments (character limit).


For a game priced at this range it offers hundreds of hours of good old fashioned RPG. You catch, you level, you build you grind. Your pals are your workforce, your damage, your flair and travel. How you raise them has many different levels to it and not just pure levels. You have hidden potential, elements, skills, passives and party effects that all weave together to make an interesting RPG.

Many compare Palworld to Pokemon but I think it's more like Ark than anything. It's basically very similar to it that you catch Pals instead of dinos, breed them into new ones and constantly make them stronger and put them to work.


The Pals are automatic but you control what abilities they have. Only mounted Pals can be fully controlled and some Pals have party abilities that you can activate. Other than that you only control yourself and your gun. The player controls are a little floaty at times and there are mechanics that aren't really fine tuned, like melee combat, sliding or climbing. Sliding is very situational when it could be an amazing part of combat itself. Dodging loses momentum and you can't dodge into a slide for example. The animations can look clunky and climbing feels like you're spiderman with sticky hands. However the Pals compensate for most of this and this is why finding good movement ones are important.

Gun combat is what you'd expect. Most guns feel fine but lack a good punch. The only difference you'll feel is fire rate and damage. Most of the guns in the game you might completely brush over because unlocking their default versions with tech points is a bit of a waste since you can find better versions in the world. The guns and melee weapons end up being really weak unless you get lucky as a result, which ties well with RPG mechanics but feels odd for assault rifles and pistols. Still with certain Pals even in end game your guns can matter a lot but just know that in Hard your damage is greatly reduced. You're usually just delegated to being a buff bot for your Pals to do millions of damage, but there are also Pals who reverse that and make you into a powerhouse so there's always that option too!

To clarify: What I meant earlier by floaty controls are that your character instantly moves in the direction you press with no turning animations or acceleration. It's 1 speed only, so it looks and feels like the character is floating on the surface. Swimming is the same, just slower. Gliding seems to be the only mode where momentum carries well and feels rewarding to do. Pal movement carries momentum but they also lack in-between animations like for example going from slow pace movement into walking into running and into full sprint. The animation is always just one animation and that is it and it makes it feel floaty. Hope that makes sense for you reading this.


The Islands and finally the World Tree make for a huge map to explore combined with the procedural dungeons. The ocean has secrets and smaller islands to explore, and there are many things to discover from rare schematics to bosses. There's always something somewhere so exploration is fun and rewarding. The bigger your mount and the more you put into them the faster you travel albeit there are a few ace ones later that really make the world exploration a breeze but at the start it's all about maximising gliding or a mount.


Music since early access has seen vast improvements, however you only hear them during boss fights or combat. The world is filled with great ambience but a lack of music really can make it feel like the game has no music at all. That is until you meet some of the bosses later on you realize there's an amazing soundtrack attached to the game and it's a shame you only hear it so rarely.


The game is called Palworld for a reason. Your own character gains levels and some attributes but overall you are weak for most of the game especially on Hard difficulty. You need to find hidden effigies to truly increase your speed and movement in the game which are hidden all around the world. I wish those attributes could've been leveld with pure levels but perhaps not as much. You will level very fast in this game, so I suggest world editing it to be 0.5 or 50% slower than normal. Otherwise you hit very high levels too fast and you aren't even at that stage yet to build anything. As far as getting enough points to unlock everything the game has many ways to do that so you always have a reason to do just about everything the game has.


In the beginning you automate resources. Then the next phase comes and you automate those and then the next and the next. You start to seek Pals purely for maintaining the base but essentially it's always the same progression: secure food > optimize workers > funnel to guild box. By default you can only build 3 bases 15 Pals per base but I recommend increasing it to 30 Pals so base upgrades stay meaningful. 3 bases is enough for everything but sometimes a 4th one for fun is good. Location matters but not as much as you'd think. The resources on the ground spawn fast but usually caused me more issues than anything. If you play solo what you make your base out of doesn't really matter as enemy raids usually scale by location and if you can reach that location, you can always counter them easily.


Some call this a really boring grind, but I call it a staple in any RPG. JRPGs especially are known throughout history to be about character building and leveling. You're not supposed to reach the end from one game session alone. Palworld is something that sticks with you even after you stop playing because you're thinking about how to grow your Pal or what Pals would better fit your bases and these are all great staples of RPG games that seemingly have been lost to the wind. Newer generation gamers are used to 10 point perk systems that have no impact on anything, while in Palworld every passive and level has meaning and takes time. Experiment and grow those Pals as it's one of the best systems in the game.


Hell if I know. There is a story now and it has a conclusion. I feel like the story is like every other Monster Hunter story arch so expect it not to be important. Littered across the world are notes but most you'll miss anyway. Other than that it's clear it was never the main focus of the game but know that the story has a full conclusion and reasons for everything and I believe that was what they aimed to do for 1.0 and succeeded well.


For a studios first game this is an amazing product. You get a lot of value for your money and you have many ways to play the game. The collaboration with Terrarium added interesting content and there's plenty here to do and explore. It's not perfect and it has it's ups and downs with floaty controls and progression requiring actual base management skills, the story not being a focus and graphically it can look bare in the beginning but gets better (with updates) and more amazing, especially world and Pal design.

This is without a doubt an easy recommendation though. Go have fun if RPGs, base building and humor in all of it sounds fun or if you just hate Nintendo for being a greedy megalomaniacal company trying to ruin the fun for others too!