10 Lessons Pokémon Needs To Learn From Palworld

8. Linearity

pokemon palworld
Nintendo

Fair's fair — Scarlet and Violet made great strides in giving players the freedom to choose how they progress in its world, but the façade quickly fell apart when it became apparent that difficulty scaling was non-existent. 

Sure, you could go straight to the eighth gym, artificially handicap yourself with an under-levelled team, and succeed with enough guile and perseverance, but you wouldn't be able to use that very same line-up you've become attached to in the first gym without absolutely trumping it with zero effort.

Palworld's sandbox nature enables it to naturally sidestep this issue and, truthfully, Game Freak has already succeeded in offering a similar experience outside of the mainline franchise. Pokémon Legends: Arceus did a tremendous job of reining in the series' tendency to handhold; smushing together the best of both worlds would allow for a more organic experience akin to Palworld without resorting to straight-up derivation.

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.