#Palworld Customization

[fogaminghub]

🎮✨ Get ready to explore Palworld like never before! Our latest blog post covers everything you need for Palworld Character Creation. From customizing your appearance to choosing exciting skills, we’ve got you covered! 

Hit the link and start your adventure! 🌟

[me-ajude]

now that palworld is coming to light again (fuck patents by the way) i can finally make fun of people on twitter who were unironically like "this is a much better pokemon inspired game thats ACTUALLY INDIE and made WITH HEART by real artists and not DISGUSTING PLAGIARISTS" and then they would start posting screenshots of some random phone game that looks exactly like this

and when you go and see how it plays it's either the exact same kind of crap that was in every flash game site + facebook 2014 or literally just a pokemon fangame made the type of person that goes "dragon type? bug type? so fucking stupid lmao" (both have ads, paywalling and a ton of mixels and tweening)

[palworld-cremis]

Fuck with me

[thesanitisedinkling]

Heeyyooo it's that time once again, time for a new instalment of TDP: GTP! As always, my cowriter @eddeyrie and I would greatly appreciate having read episodes 1 through 14 first, if you haven't done so already. Not only that, your support keeps this going for us and we have loved working on this since we began writing it.

[gauntletqueen]

So to reiterate: Palworld devs:

support AI replacing artists

steal designs from people

have a history of scamming customers with abandoned early access games

[ender-girl-13]

Thoughts on Palworld

Leave it to the internet to miss the entire point of people disliking Palworld. It's not because they are taking money from Pokémon. It not because they think Pokémon but with guns is stupid. IT'S ABOUT ARTISTIC INTEGRITY AND ORIGINALITY! Some of the Pals are just blatant rip-off's/fusions of existing Pokémon. If people try to steal Pokémon's designs and actually sell that as a commercial product that may give the impression that it's ok to steal others art and encourage it! If all of the Pals they made were original I would love to play it!

P.S

Apparently the accusations of them ripping Pokémon models was false. (Sorry about that) But they did basically do the 3D modeling version of tracing which is still bad. Also I've watched more videos on this game and it is very POSSIBLE they have stolen fan Fakemon designs and changed them up a little which is still shitty of them.

Again I will reiterate I would love this game and it's success if it wasn't so creatively bankrupt and plagiarized.

Here are some alternative Pokémon-esce games to play!

Cassette Beasts - Try to find you way out of this land and transform into and fuse Beasts!

TemTem - Very cute art style and can play online with other people! Also has a Nuzlocke/Randomlocke Mode.

Ooblets - Have card dance battles with other Ooblets and have them help you on your farm. You can also run your own shop!

Coromon - You're a newly minted Battle Researcher and your job gets attacked on your first day of work! Track down the invaders and discover the rising threat around Velua! Has different difficultly modes and customization.

Monster Sanctuary - A Monster Taming Metroidvania Sidescroller

Here are some Pokémon fan games to try!

Reborn - Has decent difficulty/One of the most difficult fan games I've come across. Has new Pokémon Forms

Uranium - Original Region and Pokémon

Insurgence - Has an option for a slightly darker twist on the traditional Pokémon story. Has new Pokémon/Forms

Xenoverse - Haven't play or watched it but looks very promising. Originally in Spanish but has a English translation as well.

Phoenix Rising - Still in development and only has one episode. Has new Pokémon Forms and amazing art and visuals

Red Adventures - From what I've seen it seems to be a game version of The Pokémon Adventures Manga

Castaway - Your plane crashes and you are left to discover the secrets of a mysterious island.

Mewyou - A game where you play as Mew!

Axis - You are teleported from our world to the Pokémon world/You're still human

Ethereal Gates - Still only a Demo at the moment/Unsure if they are still making it

I will add more to this list if asked!

[doubleddenden]

The topic of Palworld is pretty charged, but often times I see people be shamed for liking it because the CEO tweeted stuff about NFTs and the company using AI art in a separate game. Acting as if that's the most damning thing ever for a gaming company in an industry filled with similar people.

Make no mistake, I dislike both AI art and nfts, but do you realize how many gaming companies have involvement with that?

To begin with, Pokémon used AI art in a promotional piece for Pokémon Go in September, and nobody gave a shit because uwu Pikachu. The Pokémon Company also put a job listing some months back seeking an expert in NFTs. That's not quite damning evidence, but if I were a betting man, no "NFT expert" will willingly say "yeah nfts suck are bad for the environment, man, I'll take my paycheck and fuck off now." There's also a strong argument to be made that Pokémon has stolen ideas from fakemon artists (Finizen and Palafin, Scovillain, Dipplin, etc) and other franchises (kaiju movies, Dragon Quest, Megaman, final fantasy, western cartoons and food mascots, etc), a dubious legal statement that claims they own all fan art from the remixes and fakemon made on youtube to the pikachu your kid drew at breakfast; they have yet to apologize for the state of Scarlet and Violet while charging full price to millions of paying customers for a clearly unfinished and barely functioning game (which i did enjoy, but you can't tell me it was finished baking when it struggles not to shit itself just to run), and a bunch of other things people shit on Palworld for, but A. It's Pokémon so people don't care and think it's fine, and B. That's not the point of this post.

You know who else does NFTs and AI art? (Yes I heard Muscle Man from Regular Show in my head just now, too, moving along)

Square Enix sold several of their IPs for NFTs and claims to have used AI art "a minimum amount" in Foam Stars, yet I see nobody yelling for boycotts of Final Fantasy 14, 16, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Life is Strange, etc etc etc.

Sony has invested in both, they want to implement AI into gaming, and has a patent for nfts to be used in games and consoles, yet there's no movement to throw out your playstations.

Bandai Namco- you know, that company with a hand in pretty much most anime games on the market and popular games such as the Dark Souls games? They have a game called RYU that's essentially a virtual pet game that uses the blockchain, and its AI driven, among other projects. Yet there's no outcry to stop playing the many, MANY games they brand with. This also includes quite a few Nintendo games (btw they just partnered together to form a special studio quite recently) like Smash Wii U/3ds and New Pokémon Snap. Nobody gives a shit though.

Android, Microsoft, Google, Apple- I don't even need to explain those, they have whole teams dedicated to both. Even popular VPN companies accept crypto.

I'm just saying an awful lot of you guys that scream and shit bloody murder about Palworld's company being involved with that shit are either the biggest "It's okay when my favs do it" type of hypocrites, or you're sorely ignorant to just how evil and greedy most corporations are. You'll be hard pressed to find a game company with popular AND fun games that DOESN'T have some interest in either, let alone movie and show studios. That's the awful reality we live in.

You have 2 options

1. You basically stop doing anything involving most modern tech, including throwing out your pc and smart phone. You could probably live a comfortable life with tech circa 2010, but you have to be aware that any thing you buy may go towards a cause you don't like.

2. You accept that people can enjoy a product while not necessarily agreeing with the CEO of said product. Most CEOs tend to be jackasses anyway, that's kind of the shared trait they all have. You can also discourage companies from using them while understanding it is everywhere.

Palworld at the end of the day is just a toy, that's it. From the looks of it, it's not even actually hurting anyone, and it seems like the company at least treats their employees pretty decently- at least according to a few things I've seen here and there that seems rather progressive for a Japanese studio (with room for doubt obviously, it's a company after all and as we've established, they're all evil). At the least its not like when people supported Hogwarts Legacy and directly put money into JKR's wallet so she can openly hurt more Trans women. In fact, the only people seemingly hurt in all of this Palworld drama are obsessed Pokémon stans that can't accept a parody, or the Pokémon Company themselves, who rightly deserve some punching up tbh.

You can just say you dislike the game, that's fine, I totally get that. Even though I personally think The Pokémon Company deserves a few nut shots after the way they've treated fans these last few years with the state of their games (and you know, stealing ideas from fans without credit), I can see why someone would be turned away from a parody that's literally meant to be Pokémon with guns. I can totally understand all of that, personally I'd prefer if the game was MORE like Pokémon with turn based combat.

But if you're going to defend Pokémon because you think its perfectly innocent because of Wooloo or something like that, just be sure you're aware you're defending the World's Richest Franchise and their own attempts at AI and NFTs while calling out an indie company (a real one thats learning as they go, not the fake "We're totally indie" franchise that hasn't been indie since gen 3) for having a ceo that also seems interested in the same stuff. And remember, you don't become number 1 without hurting people somehow (we could dig up receipts about certain partners Pokémon has teamed up with, such as Tencent with Unite, but I'd rather not right now.)

Just saying. I don't think you're an irredeemable person for still liking Pikachu, cuz I do too believe it or not. I've been a life long fan and still have fun with the games despite the clear scummy business practices towards their paying customers. Just maybe extend that courtesy to the millions of players just trying to have fun in this awful, putrid, shithole planet that just keeps getting worse and worse with each passing day.

Plus... you know, think about it. Do you think Pokémon would ever get around to making a gunless Palworld? Probably not. Do you think Palworld would exist if The Pokémon Company and Nintendo were the slightest bit chill about Pokémon fan projects like SEGA is with Sonic? Also probably not. From what I've read, the devs just wanted to make a fun game that happens to mostly be ARK with Pokémon adjacent monsters. That's not really a bad thing, all things considered, and it seems like the worst they've done is reference official Pokémon when making their own models.

Palworld being successful is actually beneficial to Pokémon fans, as well. It'll never really truly compete, but it has outsold Legends Arceus in terms of units sold (not as much financially because Palworld was only $30 plus a sale recently, but still impressive), and it is enough that Game Freak is aware of its existence. Let Palworld light a fire under their ass, and maybe GF will actually finish their next game before releasing it for full price (and no, we're not bringing up the tired imaginary ball and chain game devs, game freak owns 1/3rd lf the franchise and can easily take methods to get more dev time, they just haven't because money). Just saying, at least the Paldevs were honest enough to sell it in early access for half the price.

[markerblue]

I'm loving Palworld. It's good actually. They combined breath of the wild and pokemon and said "here build a house and customize yourself" and they were right

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

Game Night: Cassette Beasts

Pokémon fans threatening to find a new monster taming series is like Americans threatening to move to Canada: we’ve all said it at some point, and for completely valid reasons, but the reality is that it just isn’t that easy to pick up and go.  For me at least, it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is about Pokémon that’s central to my interest in it, so I’m not quite sure what to look for in other monster tamers.  At the very least, when something like Palworld rolls around I can easily tell that it’s not that.  The last several Pokémon games have been some of my favorites, but I’ve remained curious about the genre at large; unfortunately these games are innately a rather large commitment, which doesn’t pair well with my indecisive uncertainty.  All this to say, while I was definitely intrigued by Cassette Beasts when I first heard about it years ago, that intrigue never actually went anywhere…until now.

I believe I recently heard someone toss it out as a recommendation on a stream I was watching, which is why it stuck out when I was browsing the Games Done Quick channel on YouTube.  Out of curiosity, I wound up watching the speedrun.  I then poked around the official wiki a bit and came to realize this game could be very appealing to me specifically.  And BOY was I right about that!

Before we get into it, spoiler-free tl;dr: Cassette Beasts both wears its inspiration proudly on its sleeve and iterates upon it in many truly fascinating ways, with an atmosphere that switches effortlessly between delightfully cozy and creepy cool.  I have some gripes, but I have been thoroughly entertained and downright mesmerized playing this game.  If you have any interest in monster tamers, pixel art indie RPGs, and/or cosmic horror, I highly recommend checking Cassette Beasts out.

>PLAY

The game first asks you to customize your character, sans outfit—that comes later so you’re not entirely overwhelmed right away.  There’s also an option for pronouns, including he/him, she/her, and they/them, which is lovely to see.  You are then dropped onto the shore of a mysterious island, and are found by a girl who tells you that you’ve landed in a different dimension.  So, yes, technically an isekai.  But this is a limbo-esque world that only has humans because they keep falling into it from time to time—every single character is either from another world, or was born to parents who are stuck here.  That, combined with making your character’s explicit goal “find a way home”, excellently avoids the most common pitfalls of the genre and lets you assess it without preconceived notions.  What’s really interesting about this is that people are pulled from many different worlds, and from various points in the timeline: you have characters talking about the Mars landing of 1969 and the 20th century peace treaty with the elves, and also famous Greek philosophers and Karl Marx.  I love how eclectic it is, and it’s frequently used in really funny ways. (You all remember Diogenes, right?  Guess what traits are shared by all the monsters he uses.) The people brought here have all banded together in a mutually supportive community, with everyone contributing what they can and materials like wood and metal being traded for goods as opposed to using money.  Why do we want to go home again?  This sounds like a nice place to live!

But anyway, we’re here for the monsters.  And in-game they are just called “monsters”, never “Cassette Beasts”.  Which strikes me as odd.  But the monsters have been in this world way longer than the cassette tapes, which are actually a relatively recent arrival courtesy of an isekai’d shopping mall.  Rather than catching a monster, you record them on a blank tape, meaning that even if you are successful you’ll still need to defeat the monster or flee to end the battle.  You then use your tape and cassette player to take on the form and powers of the recorded monster, and fight your battles first-hand!  Pokémon briefly flirted with this idea in a spin-off manga (Pokémon ReBURST), but here it’s fully embraced; this sort of approach can be seen in other aspects too, as we’ll see later.  After learning the basics, you’re given a few major questlines and then set free into the open world of New Wirral, tackling whatever catches your attention as you romp around.  There is some level-scaling, though I’m not sure of the specifics.  Regardless, both it and enemy AI can be adjusted via Settings, and you can also turn off the glitch effects that show up if those are impacting your experience.  In battle you control both your avatar and one of several recruitable partners, and can carry up to six tapes at a time—essentially Doubles format, with all the complexity and chaos that entails.  One very interesting wrinkle in the formula is that in addition to the tapes/monsters having health bars, the humans also have their own health bar, hidden under that of their tape as if the tape’s HP was a shield meter.  If attacks overkill your tape, the excess damage is dealt to your own HP, and if you lose all of your HP then you’re done regardless of how many tapes you have left.  It’s an important extra resource to keep in mind, and the same is true for (most) NPC cassette-users: if you deal enough damage to their own health bar you can defeat them without having to get through all of their tapes.  Until the late/post-game, that is, where your human foes are invulnerable beneath their tapes while you very much are not, and that feels very unfair.  I also find it strange that there’s no item for restoring your human HP—campfires to rest at are fairly plentiful, but it’s still somewhat odd.

Each monster has one type, and rather than limited uses for each of its moves, both characters generate AP every turn they can then spend on certain attacks.  Moves also each have a type, but while there is a same type attack bonus (STAB), it’s not as significant as it is in Pokémon.  Naturally, each type has advantages and disadvantages over other types, but!  Weakness and resistance is also toned way down, and is not your primary goal when using type advantage. Type interaction is far, far more nuanced in this game, involving the entire spectrum of ailments and buffs and debuffs, and even changing the target’s type.  For example: Water extinguishes Fire, temporarily reducing its attack power.  Using Fire on Water creates steam, which heals Water over the next few turns.  Fire also melts Ice, changing it to a Water type for a few turns.  And this is all just barely scratching the surface!  A chart showing these interactions is given to you in-game, which is nice; more than that, whenever you discover a new interaction for the first time, a tutorial box pops up and elaborates on the effects, as well as providing an explanation of why (extinguish, steam, melt, etc) that goes a long way in keeping track of them all.  While a fantastic feature, it can get repetitive at times: the mystical Astral type has identical interactions with all four classical elements, and despite all 4 being mentioned the first time, you’ll still get that same text box explaining that interaction 4 times.  Types range from the usual suspects (Fire, Water, Air) to some very…surprising choices (Glass, Plastic, Glitter), plus Typeless moves that take on the type of the monster using them.  Moves are treated as stickers applied to your tapes, and can be peeled and moved at your discretion; you obtain them either from leveling up a tape, or from shops and chests and drops.  Leveling up monsters (from 0 to 5 stars) also increases their max AP and how many move slots they have, and I think slightly increases their stats?  Your human characters, though, have their own stats which increase as you level them up from 1 to…well I’m not sure exactly but it exceeds 100 at least.  I couldn’t tell you the exact mathematical way the two sets of stats interact, but it’s a neat idea, strengthening yourself as well as the tapes you collect.  Your partners gain experience even if they’re not with you, and thank God they do, otherwise it’d be a pain to spend proper time with each and every one of them.

There’s one other major battle mechanic unlocked at the end of the tutorial segment: Fusion.  After filling up a meter, your avatar and partner can fuse their monster forms together to unleash hell upon your enemies.  Monster sprites were made modular so that the game could automatically generate fusions on its own, meaning that there are in fact over 16000 different fusions you can make, and your bestiary will keep a list of them all. (Thank God there are absolutely no incentives for filling that list!) Fusing will also cause whatever music track is playing to gain vocals, which is a fun way to up the presentation factor.  Your relationship with your partner is key to Fusion: its measured from 0 to 5 hearts, and you need at least 1 to be able to perform Fusion at all.  At 2 hearts, you gain a super move.  Every level gained increases the stats of your fusion as well.  It’s a fun mechanic to mess around with, even if a lot of the fusions can look a bit derpy—small price for the sheer flexibility of the system.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Pokémon fans have been enamored with fusion since at least B2W2; I doubt it’s coincidence that Cassette Beasts chose to implement it as a Mega Evolution-esque gimmick.  Once you get to the late/post-game, the NPC fights also gain access to Fusion, giving you a chance to figure out ways to play around the feature from the other side.

Like I said before, this game greatly expands upon a number of fan-favorite concepts from Pokémon, and I’m pleased to say that extends all the way to Shinies.  Every monster has a small chance to be a “bootleg”, with not only a different color scheme, but a different type.  There are a total of 14 types in the game.  Do you see where this is going?  Every single monster has 14 variants with different types and color palettes (even their original type, weirdly enough?).  And every single one has a page in their bestiary dedicated solely to tracking how many of these variants you’ve found.  Probably nightmarish for a completionist, but holy shit is that insanely cool!  Multiple palettes to choose from instead of being stuck with just one that might suck!  And they have mechanical differences to incentivize recording them beyond simply collector’s value!  Fantastic!  There are also various ways to increase your odds, all the way up to 20% in specific cases, which I imagine will entice quite a few players into the hobby of bootleg hunting.

Let’s see, what other mechanical topics can I cover before moving onto more story-related stuff?  Field moves are a thing���you obtain them by recording a specific monster, and in the case of some like the glide you’ll partially transform when it’s activated.  I think it strikes a nice balance: it’s dependent on what you yourself have actually recorded, but doesn’t ask you to dedicate move or party slots to it.  Their approach to evolution feels simplified: when you rest after getting a tape to 5 stars, you’ll be prompted to “remaster” it if applicable, rather than having to guess which level you should be aiming for.  There are a few wrinkles when it comes to branching evolutions, but only a few, and mostly come down to either having a certain move on the monster to change its remaster, or, after choosing to remaster, being given two options right there.  Those options can be a bit vague, though; I looked into it ahead of time, and if I had gone with the option my gut opted for when remastering my starter, I would have gotten the less cool-looking monster.  I also want to mention the loading screens; you know how The Sims lists random stuff on its loading screens?  They do something similar here, except they’re all related to one of the monsters: “Directing Traffikrab”, “Tuning Kittelly”, “Sharpening Ripterra’s knifeclaws”.  It’s a little thing but I find it charming, and perhaps a bit devious in making players curious to track down these various monsters being teased.  Oh, and selecting the Flee option will tell you your percent chance to flee, and even if you fail you can still choose to blackout if you really just want to get out of there.  There’s also a Mystery Gift analogue that’s been used to distribute various bootlegs, and things I haven’t even tried like the “Gym Pass” to customize your player character's stats.  Beating the game also unlocks customization options for future playthroughs like randomizers and permadeath.  There’s a LOT.  It’s a very packed game.

Right then, story.  There are two BIG big questlines, one of which being a setup similar to collecting Gym Badges: there are 12 special NPCs all over the map who give you a stamp when you defeat them, but rather than specializing in a certain type, they tend to have a favorite tactic they employ in battle.  One of the easiest to find specializes in moves that create defensive walls; one particularly annoying one prioritizes controlling accuracy and evasion; there’s even one who specializes in just one particular monster with an elaborate signature move.  It’s perhaps not an enormous difference, but again, it’s nuanced.  There is also a “Champion” fight at the end, but I won’t get into that.  More importantly, the questline that the game is largely centered around and leads to the end credits, is the hunt for hidden subway stations that house powerful, eldritch boss monsters known as Archangels.  Apparently, when humans first wound up in New Wirral, they didn’t know what to make of the monsters and tended to refer to them as angels or demons.  That fell out of fashion as the community came to understand monsters better.  The Archangels, however, cannot be understood by human minds.  Each one is drawn/animated in its own style that clashes with the world around them—your partners all say that it hurts just to look at them, and just being in the stations makes them feel uneasy.  A personal favorite is the claymation skeleton with a vertical mouth, to give you some idea of what to expect.  These fights have their own unique mechanics, and the Archangels tend to hit very, very hard; if you do survive, some floating guy in a red coat with a 3D rendered reflective triangle for a head shows up and absorbs the boss (concerning), and you’re given part of a riddle that will eventually lead you to the final dungeon.  The vibes are incredibly at odds with the typical overworld gameplay, and I mean that in THE best possible way.  The Archangels were a real highlight for me.

In addition to those, every partner you can recruit has their own questline, which can range from a single fight all the way to finding 6 hidden locations around the map with their own substantial battles to win.  The girl who finds you at the start of the game, Kayleigh, is your first partner, first having a quest that’s essentially “finish the tutorial” before switching to a more personal quest that involves dealing with an actual cult.  You’re also very early on pushed in the direction of Eugene, who has that long, long quest finding hidden locations all over the map.  Slow-going as it is, though, it’s about fighting off a horde of capitalist vampires who are trying to establish a housing market, so.  That’s fucking hilarious.  But it has stiff competition in Felix’s quest, where you follow his middle school OC brought to life as she journeys to four sacred altars to slay their guardians.  That’s right, Felix’s edgy anime OC, an angel demon catgirl ninja named Kuneko, is also up and about in New Wirral and he is mortified by this discovery.  Excellent questline, no notes.  Another partner you’ll run into fairly early is Meredith; her quest involves navigating a dungeon you probably won’t get to for a good while, though it’s a solid dungeon when you do get to it.  There’s also Viola, the character from Twelfth Night by William fucking Shakespeare, whose search for her brother takes her into a haunted shipwreck to face a villain from a different Shakespeare story.  New Wirral is very eclectic.  But perhaps least expected of all is Barkley the dog.  One of your playable partners is a dog.  His quest is the shortest and an utterly fucking brutal punch to the emotional gut.  Anyway I like all these folks, they’ve got personality and endearing character development that touches on some personally relevant topics.  Aside from Barkley, you can romance any partner after maxing out your relationship level, and that was a tough choice to make.  The Gym Leader analogues are sufficiently quirky for their role, and you meet a handful of other perfectly fine recurring characters—including a few who are only encountered in post-game quests.  If I’m really being strict here, I don’t think I’d say any of this game’s characters have jumped the ranks to new blorbo status, but take that as you will.

The post-game has an interesting structure to it.  You don’t unlock any new areas, not really, but after engaging with the newly-unlocked sidequest board for a bit, you gain access to a few longer questlines.  There are two that eventually come together which each feature their own new characters, one following the direct consequences of actions you took earlier in the story, and one that’s about someone new being dropped onto New Wirral, showing that the world keeps turning even if your particular story is over.  There’s also another questline which delves even deeper into the background lore of the game, and that’s something I’ll never get enough of.  The repeating sidequests are brief and rewarding enough to from a satisfying gameplay loop to disguise the grind, and I’m only just now considering an extended break after nearly 70 hours total gameplay (which I would guess is around half post-game).

Oh, I should also talk more about the bestiary and completing it!  Each monster has the standard flavor text and habitat listing, plus that page that tracks bootlegs, and a list of how many you’ve encountered/defeated.  However, when you raise a tape to 5 star level, you also unlock an additional page of flavor text, usually something related to the inspiration for the monster’s design.  While heavily scaled back, having this sort of progression in the bestiary reminds me of doing research in Pokémon Legends Arceus, and I very much appreciate that.  Going that far is optional, of course—really, doing anything involving the bestiary is optional.  But the game does nudge you in that direction and reward you several times along the way.  When you first encounter the “professor” character, he gives you a series of quests that just ask you to record one of the monsters found in the central region of the map.  Easy!  From there, he gives you a handful of resources and tapes every time you hit a new milestone of 10 monsters recorded.  In the post-game you can also randomly get quests asking you to get a certain monster to 5 star, or perform a specific fusion, or use a specific monster to fight the professor’s assistant, all slowly, slowly nudging you in the direction of completion.  But what’s really interesting is that you don’t necessarily have to fully complete the bestiary to get the grand prize (this game’s equivalent to the Master Ball).  Cassette Beasts originally had 120 monsters.  A later update raised that to 128, and some time after that, they released a DLC that added a handful of unnumbered monsters.  You get the Master Tape by recording 128 monster species.  So, if you record a bunch of the DLC monsters, you can “complete” the bestiary without tracking down every last monster in the base game.  If you do go beyond that, the completion percentage will actually go over 100%, which is so weird to see, but in a cool way.  It seems the intention was specifically to not make completion increasingly difficult as new updates are added, which is honestly pretty rad!  And, again, though I appreciate the bestiary remembering all of your fusions, I’m so glad there’s nothing incentivizing you to from every last one of them.  Same goes for bootlegs.  So, does this mean future updates/DLC with even more monsters are on the way?  No clue.  But they are working on a multiplayer update expected to release soon! (I don’t have Switch Online so I won’t be able to do much with that lol.)

I did purchase the DLC right away; I was confident I would enjoy the game enough I would want it eventually, and buying them both together was slightly cheaper than buying them separately. (The bundle also comes with a cosmetics pack but it’s nothing that interests me personally.) After progressing through the main quest enough that you become able to access the final dungeon, a small boat washes ashore, and you’re able to ride it to a dock in the middle of the ocean housing some sort of carnival.  The ringmistress asks you to explore the three major attractions and beat their power sources, the “Infernal Engines”, into submission.  Despite being a small area it’s still just as open-ended as New Wirral, an effort I appreciate.  You can tackle the attractions in any order you want, even leave in the middle of one to go do another if you prefer.  The place is also populated by several new monsters to record, including one of my personal favorites, a ghostly book monster named Hauntome.  It’s a few mini-dungeons, some solid bosses capping them off, and then one last boss, with a loose story in the background that has some connections to the main story but isn’t anything essential.  I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call it a must-buy, but it is fun, and inexpensive, and more Cassette Beasts.  Up to you.

There are two major themes I picked up on during my playthrough: community and art.  The people who’ve ended up in New Wirral, in spite of coming from countless different dimensions, have all banded together to support each other and however many newcomers show up; they don’t even ask for anything in return, they just value life and want to be sure people are cared for.  The theme that plays in Harbourtown is transparent about this: “we’re all in the same ship […] but at least we’re together […] I don’t know you but we’ll make the most of / wherever we are now”.  Fusion is about literally joining with someone to create something stronger than either of you could do on your own.  There are even some genuinely scary twisted manifestations of this idea, like the Mournington cult and the truth behind the Landkeepers—people crave community, and there are some who will use that to their own advantage.  It’s baked into the motivations of all your partners, and, switching gears, most of them are heavily connected to art too!  Felix is an artist learning he doesn’t need to be ashamed of his past, less “polished” work.  Kayleigh, after addressing her regrets with Mournington, reconnects with her old hobby of playing guitar.  Meredith actually takes things in a different direction: she used to spend all of her time consuming vast quantities of art to the point that it cut her off from her community, showing that you still need to exercise moderation when it comes to art.  Viola is a character from another, pre-existing work of art!  The Archangels play into this as well: one of the biggest things setting them apart is the way they clash with the rest of the game’s art style, and their nature as incarnations of humankind’s ideas is a delightfully malevolent spin on the whole thing.

Taking these two themes together, Cassette Beasts presents a thesis on our responsibility to our fellow people and how we can all find our own way to fulfill it, with a particular focus on art and how it broadly conveys our ideas and inspires change.  The final boss fight punctuates this beautifully when, after Aleph destroys your cassette player, Morgante awakens and tells you that you don’t truly need the cassettes.  “THE ABILITY TO MANIFEST YOUR WILL TO ALTER REALITY…TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD, AND YOURSELVES...THAT LIES WITHIN YOU.”  Then she and ALL of your partners fuse with your avatar, and through your combined might, you strike down the malevolent forces in your way, secure a path home, and bring a huge, fundamental change to New Wirral as its inhabitants now have the option to decide if they should stay or go.  It’s an extremely satisfying ending, even if it does see you and your partners going their separate ways.  But, who knows?  Given a few tidbits from the post-game, it sounds like we just might get to meet them again someday.

Again, I had a really, really great time with Cassette Beasts and highly recommend it.  It’s charming, its fun, and it’s only $20!  Maybe don’t get it on Switch, though, not if you can’t stand frequent load times.

And, just to brag about my bootlegs a little:

-The random free bootleg from Harbourtown was a Glass-type Dandylion for me

-The freebie Ritual Candle netted me a Water-type Glaistain!

-The post-game bootleg starter, I got a Poison-type Candevil

-Was able to use the mailbox to get a Fire-type Undyin

-And obviously there’s Barkley’s Ice-type Pombomb

-The first one I encountered purely by chance was an Astral-type Jellyton

-Air-type Jellyton

-Ice-type Carniviper

-Astral-type Carniviper

-Fire-type Traffikrab

-Plant-type Squirey

-Ice-type Boltam

-Lightning-type Snoopin

-Poison-type Kirikuri

-Glass-type Scubalrus

-Glass-type Spooki-onna

-Lightning-type Dominoth

-A Fire-type Piksie

-A Glitter-type Picksie

[the-witchs-cafe]

Directory | BYF | Witch Essays

Hello, hello! And welcome to the Witch's Cafe! Have you gotten weary? The crushing loneliness of your own self-torment became way too much? Fret not- this establishment is here for all witches; those who have fallen from the greatest of heights, to those who have been left with nothing at all.

Here in this little coffee bar settling between the cosmos, our customers have traveled far and wide just to socialize and find solace within their shared agonies- some managing to cross through universes; so be on the lookout for those whose faces you might have the luck to recognize!

We also herald our existence with this flag- oh, don't you worry! This flag is free for anyone to use, even if all our operations were to cease!

With all that being said, I'm certain you would like to know the way through these halls;

#Witching Hours: The customer list! Go right ahead and greet yourself to these fine folks! Maybe you'll find more similarities between yourselves than you would intially assume. (Gen. tag for crossover witches made by other people)

#Registered Witches: What cafe would this be if we didn't have any regulars? Recognized their choices of beverages just like the back of my hands! If you wish for a story, they're your go-to's! (Witch essays written by either mod H.N Elly or mod Charlotte)

#Witch cards: Every now and then, familiar faces start popping up more than usual; not as much as our regulars, but it is fun to observe their activities, even if from a distance. (same as the above, but in the form of much smaller witch cards)

#Would Witch Out: Passerby's and their rumors...honestly, you couldn't blame a gal for eavesdropping every now and then, no? Not even while getting the latest scoop on who was the poor soul whose destiny caught up with them? (due to the shutdown of YFWWO and in order to give its mod a break, I've opened up operations here.)

#Would Survive PMMM: Of course, some folks do happen to be naturally lucky; finding a way and reason to keep going forwards even in the darkest of nights...it's admirable, maybe a little enviable, don't ya think? (The complete opposite of the above; if you know a character who would cakewalk through this universe's trials and tribulations, let us know with the full details regarding why!)

#Would They Witch Out?: (Submissions are now CLOSED!)

#There Is a Pipe Bomb in your Mailbox: Those lil' misfits out there and what tricks they got on their sleeves- ah, what fun would it be if I didn't allow any tomfoolery every now and then? (The joke submissions tag)

#There is no Secret Menu!: (The shitpost tag; hey, the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, had called his little self-insert fanfic in which he and Virgil went through all sects of the afterlife "The Divine Comedy" for a reason, right? We all need a reason to crack up since we're gonna be in our self-inflicted torment and punishments for some time.)

#You're now listening to . . .: Solace can be nice every once in a while, but a nice tune to distract yourself from the pain and get in the mood to continue working on your eternal goals is just as comforting! (general audio tag)

I do also have to warn ya'll that we also have to abide by the blacklist; yeah, we do try to cater to all that enter these doors, but an eldritch horror needs to have some standards, ya know?

Hetalia

Country Humans/Country Balls

Any of the media created by Okegom/DeepSeaPrisoner

Minecraft SMPs, especially Dream SMP

Building upon the above, we do not take requests for real world figures, unless if they were obvious jokes. This includes, and is not limited to, youtubers, musicians, pop idols, and individual game developers.

Percy Jackson

Harry Potter

Palworld

Genshin Impact (x)

UrbanSpook // The Painter

Good Omens, and other works by Neil Gaiman (x)

Omori (x)

[chaifootsteps]

I know you're getting ready to cannonball back into DA, but if you ever decide in the future that you need even more customization to play with, come join us in Guild Wars 2! Between easy armor and weapon transmuting and a huge variety of dyes, we have an entire Fashion Wars subculture even before getting into any paid stuff.

Between DA and Baldur's Gate and the latter half of Palworld sitting unplayed on my computer, I've got a lot to cannonball into, but I'll definitely give that one a look!

[romantichore]

my partner convinced me to give Palworld a try and I can't believe I'm saying this but it's such a good game? like, I'm shocked.

I was not a Pokémon kid and never even tried playing the games, so when I read that it was like a copycat I thought I'd hate it.

here we are 35 levels and lots of hours later and I have explored like maybe 25% of the map, I'm still having a blast, and I legit can't believe it's still in early access. it has features, already well implemented, that some AAA games had to have modders create.

oh yeah, and you can customize your experience at any time by just changing the settings to your world. want to make things more difficult? sure. want to have everything spawn on you at once? go ahead. play it as a farming simulator or min max the shit out of it, you can do either or both. like👌 ggs devs

plus, you know. I can give my sheep a machine gun and use my fox as a flamethrower. 10/10 for that alone

[nymphrasis]

Ok so my art to-do list from, starting from what I will prioritize to work on from top to bottom: - Private large commission - Work on 10 custom art as part of a trade - ^^^ If no full info on what is needed, I will work on the Galarian Ponyta fusion adopts ( I'll just finish up what I have. Will not be a large batch ) - Work on Kuruna's blog art responses - Do a small handful of chibi Eevee fusions - Draw Tedaterra in a Kirby onesie - ^^^ If no drive for that yet, I will work on a few headshots ( Or pixel art ) of the characters for the Tale of the Kingdoms blog. - Do an art piece of Kuruna and my persona together ( Base on the anon ask that has been sitting in my box for a good while now ). - Work on more chibi Eevees - Do a lil fanart of tricks-n-illusions character ( Base on aro-pokeverse ask. I do apologize for me being late on this ) - More Kuruna blog art - Chibi Eevees again - Made in Abyss x Pokemon SV ( More specifically Area Zero ) crossover piece - ^^^ If I don't feel the drive to work on that yet, it would just be me making lil fun art of Kuruna instead. - Work on gift art for a small handful of friends ( It was supposed to be a Christmas gift but, well... Plans have made things get pushed back ^^" ) - Kuruna art for the blog - Work on art responses on ask-the-abomination - Try something I've always wanted to do was to make a very big art piece that includes a lot of my characters ( As it has been a decade since I last included multiple characters in the art piece. Aka, before I dabble my hand on digital art [ I started digital art on 2016 ] ). Have yet to decide on who and what scene it would be. - More chibi Eevee fusions, if I haven't finished yet - Fanart of actual POC characters ( Because I am tired of seeing people pushing aside existing POC characters when doing a fan piece [ Coughs at edits ]. So I want to try. I have yet to decide if it will be a headshot or halfbody. I don't feel up to doing a fullbody art ) - Yet more Kuruna blog stuff - Anatomy practice for larger size beings. More specifically the back ( Not in a sexual way. I really am still not too confident on drawing backs of larger size characters. I am more use to doing those for less heavy sizes and creatures ) - [ Input Sketch colored art raffle. Note that it is clean sketch like this . Have yet to decide if there will be shading involved ] - Kuruna blog art yippee There is a few I have in mind that I don't know where to put in the list. That few being: - Finish up this Kuruna art piece:

Work on random Pokefusion adopts ( This one is a random spur, as ideas do pop here and there. Not frequent )

Work on personal character art ( Of Pokemon ocs )

Random Kuruna art ( When I feel bored, need motivation, or had a random idea that I've wanted to draw out real quick )

Work on Arcy reworked blog ( Newer characters, with the exception of Arcy ).

Work on some art examples for my commissions ( As some lack more examples than others )

Do a new YCH that is something simplier and cute, price shouldnt be that high really.

Fanart of games I have been playing, like Eastward, Palworld, FFXIV, or even Digimon ( Speaking of which, I still havent done that Alphamon x Lunala fusion. This idea is a few years old and I just never dabble into it TwT" )

Dabble on doing clean sketch color comms. Price has yet to still be decided.

Work on fanart / gift art of the following blogs: ask-eden, omniandco, ask-the-royal-absol, askcomet, ask-a-silvy, ask-valiant-victory, sphaeramjourney, the-feral-one, ask-aeos-company, and lightofunova. More in the future ofc because I love the ask blog community!

Scenery practices of things I don't often do ( I need to practice more with places like cities and those that are more complex-decorated ).

Fix and finish this art piece of Namithia:

Finish this art piece of Eevrutty

Finish this art piece of a random lil creature ( Probs will sell it? Undecided yet because I do very much like them )

Finish this piece of Nerissa ( A character I have yet to decide whether or not I will remain keeping. I did removed her kingdom to revamp it to be the final sea kingdom to be falled [ Since there are two. One from the North and other from the South ] )

Create a few Pokefusions to be a part of a giveaway

Draw an art piece of my grandmother and have it be printed as a carry on bag design.

I think that is all I had in mind of what I've wanted to get done ;w; It is, uhhh.. A lot to say the least xD

[princecharmingtobe]

Everyone's doing it, so here's my list of things to know or do's and don'ts when starting Palworld for the first time

When creating your world, look at the custom options, especially things like death penalties. The game's difficulty is highly customizable.

Do NOT just plop your palbox down anywhere. Your base area will be in a radius around the palbox (you can vaguely see it before it's built) so you'll want to place it in the middle of a wide open space. You CAN move bases, it's just a pain so save yourself the hassle and choose your location carefully.

The palbox works as a teleport point, so don't worry about making your base close to one.

You will earn less tech points through level up than there are techs to learn. You can earn more points through dungeons, but early on at least you should unlock things as you need them.

READ WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN. I've seen people struggle figuring out the controls when they're being displayed right on the screen because they just don't read them. The game will tell you how to play it if you pay attention.

Pals and players count as obstacles when placing furniture. In some cases, even you are an obstacle.

[feministmetalgreymon]

If The Pokemon Company sues Palworld they are admitting they can't make a better game than Palworld

Some people are citing this post made by the Pokemon company as evidence that The Pokemon Company will sue Palworld.

The Pokemon company may or may not have a legal case against Palworld. I strongly believe they don't, but we would have to see a legal case to know for certain.

But whether The Pokemon Company wins or loses a lawsuit doesn't really matter. What is legal is not the same as what is moral. And a billion dollar corporation suing a small indie studio that made a best selling game is not a good look. People like to root for underdogs and the world's largest billion dollar franchise is going to look like a bully to anyone that isn't a capitalist shill.

What's more this lawsuit would be coming after Pokemon released it's worse game ever. Palworld fans love Palworld because it's a improvement over the stale Pokemon formula. By suing Palworld Game Freak is admitting they can't make a better game than Palworld and aren't even going to try. That's a even worse look for Pokemon.

While there are some diehard Pokemon fans that will defend Pokemon no matter how bad it gets. The reality is there are a lot of Pokemon fans that have become increasingly disappointed with the games over time. And seeing confirmation that Game Freak would rather sue a indie studio rather than improve their games is going to be a death knell to Pokemon's respectability as a brand.

They are basically telling Pokemon fans. We are fine selling you a broken, buggy, mess of a game. And we are going to destroy any competition so you have no choice but to buy the same broken buggy mess of a game each year. Why would any sane person want to support a company that has that little respect for it's customers?

[niacousland]

Palworld has absolutely consumed me so here's a quick drabble about some future cool things that i would like to see in the game and also my own fucked up story working in the brambles of my mind.

Game ideas:

zoom function

Selfies with the pals

More emotes

Ability to dye your hair in two colors

Well more body customization in general

Revives please, i get bodied in the middle of nowhere with strong monsters around me and then have to come back after i die? Give a medicine that can wake up a pal from being incapacitated

Ok so that's out of the way now for story ideas

You wake up as a castaway and then free to explore from here. What I'm thinking is these islands don't want people to get out.regular technology doesn't work besides what you build, the towers have to be owned by you in order to get messages out. People keep coming but none get out. You are stuck until you finds a way to reach out to the people who are waiting for you

I also thinkit would be neat to align yourself with a faction. There are 3 so far, the syndicate, pal alliance, and settlements. Perhaps allying yourself to one gives you benefits and disadvantages. Or don't align yourself at all

I have 3 ocs for this game so far. I'll talk Abbott those later