I am lost in words just about how to describe this game, it's overwhelmingly fun because it took core concepts from BOTW, Ark Survival, and most notably Pokémon, and meshed them together. And the funniest bit, it is from a Japanese developer.
How are they supposed to get away from doing this? There's enough controversy even brewing about Nintendo planning to pit lawsuits against them. The controversy even drew in people talking about using AI to make the game. But a lot of those demerits didn't stop me playing, either. I just couldn't help myself somehow.
And it's for good reasons, the gameplay is enjoyable with improved variation of mechanics and design based around aforementioned games. Intriguing exploration, sense of discovery, and good progression. And overall, it just flows better and easy to learn too.
There's a basic character creator that just uses a preset of doll faces and add-ons to create the character. It's straight out of a mobile game, but I digress, it does have good options. I madee mine thinner and muscular. Though, not a fan of her rugged clothes.
And that's where I started, being tossed at the center of the map, and interacting with the first altar which granted me a tech point. But, I wanted to test the waters a bit, and picked my first fight with a level 38 Mammorest. Suffice it to say, I lost easily.
The game showed me the entire map and let me pick the first respawn place, what's clear is that every one of the terrain is different and so are the pals. Talked to an NPC from the firecamp, who filled me in on the basics of surviving. I don't have clothes, I'll freeze to death, which I did. I needed stones and woods to build things. And to hunt pals, I needed both weapons and pal sphere.
It didn't take long when I got the hang of things, but the nighttime was still an issue. Picking my first pal and summoning them was an interesting sight, not only do they assist in attacking, but some can do a lot more, even assisting me in building.
To be clear, I am not much into Pokémon games, I never played Ark Survival before, and I did finish BOTW years ago. Exploration felt restrictive at first, because I wasn't strong enough, but that can change in a lot of ways. To progress as both a trainer and combatant.
To build a base, resources are required. And they were hard to obtain with just my hands. So my first build in base was a weapons table, that allowed me to craft two different axes, one for cutting wood, and other for stones. I have to eat as well, so berries were the only easy food choice.
I've also realized doing all of this, passively increased my pals levels, and that increased their stats as well as unlocking abilities to be used on my command. Certain pal types can only do specific tasks, some can help me cook food, water and farm plantations, mine for stones, help me craft weapons and items at the table, and so on.
Not all of this sounds easy, there's a lot of work to do. Whenever I level up, I can increase my attributes for health, stamina, damage, carry capacity, and more. As well as tech points for unlocking new structures. It's simple and seamless to get.
It's all about doing what I can actively, then earn points before unlocking things. This means exploring the map more, capturing different pals, and completing objectives of various sorts. And the last bit is my guiding compass to what I should be doing.
And the bigger my base gets, more objectives I finish, more things get interesting. I am still stuck with a bow and arrow, with a club. Yet I've encountered some shady individuals that look like they came from a spy organization. This wasn't Team Rocket, they had guns. 5hrs in, I got clothes, I managed to craft a spear, and started capturing rarer, more powerful pals. But I didn't have the nutrition to feed and help them grow.
Nor, was I strong enough to explore the other 80% of the map. I've unlocked two altars for fast travel, and the other one I used to attack the Mammorest again. But he knocked me up good, and took down my pals too. Obviously, I was a little frustrated. I worked hard.
Defeat didn't discourage me, not when I started exploring around and found new kind of wonders to hold sight at. The environment changes and often represents the pals that reside too. The beauty of it all is how exploration is encouraged. Plus, the newer pals are helpful workers at base as well. More for the Paldeck. Though, I am limited to equipping 3 total for now.
Unique resources are found as well, and the kind of buildings I need to require some of these resources. I also have to hunt other pals for meat, it's not discouraged, it's just a little disheartening. I have to hurt the poor guys. But nutritional and provides bonuses as well.
I forgot to mention this, but capturing the pals require me to weaken them first, and easily I've gotten them killed before I got to the specific pal I got to capture. Though, later on, they get tougher and require more finesse to take in. There's over 100 of them.
Sadly for me, I never got to the actual fun part, the one where we get guns and do stuff. And I've been playing solo so far, there's online co-op available as well, and might explain why the game takes a lot long to unlock most of the good stuff. That includes various abilities, as well as one that could fly me anywhere. Do note, I played 7hrs so far.
Game has this charm that doesn't rub off easily, and it's not only because of the pals either, also looks very visually appealing, luster of detail and such. Though it does require a beefy setup to see, you can tone it down to run it even on lower specs.
The survival and base management part just works well. Also, it's cute when the workers all go to sleep at night at their beds, so peaceful. Capture pals thankfully don't die, but ah, there seems to be logical fallacy which should and shouldn't.
But, what happens when I die? Well, I lose all my loot. But I can retrieve it back from my corpse if I can get it back alive. A lot of challenging aspects kind of hold me back to making my base bigger, and coming back stronger. But all the other stuff like increasing character stats, training pals, and crafting stronger weaponsm, do sound overwhelming.
I do hope all of that also works out later game. I am also planning to do a co-op play soon and maybe post it here. This game's been a lot of fun, it's crazy how much is jam-packed in here. Sure, it borrows quite a lot, but the fun aspect is shot up so high.
It's still an early access game, and has plenty of time to update itself, and majority of the gameplay fundamentals. I think it can still do more for itself, and I will be anticipating the released product. This is also another game that is on Game Pass. So try it out if you want.
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