10 Lessons Pokémon Needs To Learn From Palworld

6. Performance

pokemon palworld
Nintendo

Palworld doesn't boast perfect performance by any stretch of the imagination but for now, at least, any issues players are encountering are forgivable while it remains in early access.

But even ignoring this, Pokémon has over 20 years of history and Game Freak, no stranger to developing for Nintendo-owned hardware, doesn't have such a luxury. Despite claiming that it needed time to get to grips with porting the mainline franchise from full-fledged handhelds (à la the DS family of consoles) to the Switch, Scarlet and Violet arrived in 2022 in a worse state than 2019's Sword and Shield. Comical bugs (pictured), a frame rate slower than molasses, and crashes aplenty resulted in a justified furor among the fan base expecting more from a company owned by a multi-billion dollar corporation.

While the two games cater to different audiences in several aspects, the comparison even being made should be the powerful kick in the backside. Game Freak needs to know that other developers are going to come along and deliver surrogate alternatives that run and perform better if it doesn't buck its ideas up.

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.