I don’t have a pulse on social media nowadays, but I’m vaguely aware of the drama that ensued after PocketPair revealed some of their monsters in Palworld’s first trailer. Since I care a lot about character design, there’s an inevitable question: How do I feel about Pals looking like they stole from Pokémon (if not explicitly possessing their features)?

Truthfully, I don’t care that much, and the drama (what little I saw) was stupid. Pure originality is always preferred, obviously. But people were paranoid and obsessive over it.

I just can’t find the energy to rage over a collection of bland ripoff monsters and cheap Deviantart-tier furry OCs. Nintendo created a Streisand Effect when they sued PocketPair, but at the end of the day Palworld is simply an addicting survival game with bad character designs at worst.

Taking a different approach to the “inevitable question”, are there any Pals that feel unique? Fortunately, it’s not all doom and gloom when looking through the Palpedia. The quality wildly varies, but that’s what makes for an interesting discussion.