this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Finally, pokemon taken to its logical conclusion.
Right? I see people saying "oh but the violence! the slavery!" as if it wasn't a collective act of childhood goodwill that prevented such associations being made to Pokémon. They talk a lot about friendship, but it's a friendship built on beating up creatures in the wild, which then obey and fight for you unquestioningly. Even some which are human-like and stated to be as intelligent as humans.
I consider myself a Pokémon fan and I defended them often, but it's a concept that gets a little iffy if you think about it for more than a minute.
Sounds like any RPG to me. Except that your party consists of the same creatures that you're fighting. In that sense it's maybe more egalitarian than RPGs featuring classical enemy races like orcs or goblins.
In Pokémon the concept of evil comes in the Form of Team Rocket and other shady exploitative organisations. Interestingly Palworld also has a counterpart organisation called Syndicates. But I still don't know what their crime really is since you're really doing the same thing of fighting and catching Pals. Nevertheless you have to treat the creatures in your party right, if you want to make progress in the game.
Like any RPG? Nah. C'mon, in most RPGs the characters are brought together by the story. Even the occasional antagonist who is fought and then allied with has a whole discussion where they are convinced of the merits of the protagonists. I could grant that in the Pokémon anime fairly often the creatures are convinced or decide to come along willingly, but in the games that hardly ever happens.
How do you reconcile the idea that the creatures want to come along with the active resistence of fighting them and having them break your pokéballs repeatedly?
Of course if you take the story by its word they'll say that trainers are good and friendly and only these criminal teams really are evil. And for fun I indulge that fantasy while I'm playing it, that these are martial artists pets that just love fighting so much and that pokéballs must be super comfy inside. But if you take a moment to compare what is happening you'll see that it isn't that different from what Palworld is doing.
Okay not like any RPG. It's a special kind of RPG. And as a game it has many elements that make video game RPGs so addictive.
I agree with you on the ethics. Maybe Palworld in that sense is more honest than Pokémon. In the Pokémon anime however I always had the impression that they try to depict Pokémon as having humanlike character tendencies, e.g. some liking to get into fights and others just working as nurses in the Pokémon center...
There's actually multiple different hostile organizations, but you won't run into the others until you're higher level.