What for our MeinMMO editor Karsten is the good old Super Mario, will likely become Palworld for his 4-year-old son: a game he will look back on with nostalgic love for the rest of his life. The little one has been having so much fun with the monster collector for weeks.
If you have been gaming with great enthusiasm for many years, you certainly have one or two classics that got everything started and to which you still look back with nostalgic love even after decades. For me, that’s Super Mario Bros. on the NES. My very first video game. Andi, an old elementary school friend, put the controller in my hands back then and everything changed.
When I sit next to my kids today and play with them or watch them play, I sometimes wonder how they will look back on their gaming beginnings in 20 years. Will they also record podcasts or videos (or old-school write articles) to share their gaming enthusiasm with others? And what games will it be about?
With the little one, I am quite sure that the name Palworld will come up during such a nostalgic look back. Although the 4-year-old lad is a big Pokémon fan outside of the PC, he has been having the time of his life with Pocketpair’s monster-collecting alternative for weeks – and this is despite the fact that Palworld is often labeled as “Pokémon for Adults”.
Many options = great fun even for the little ones
A 4-year-old plays Palworld with joy. The fact that this works without frustration is due to the many options that Palworld offers. Low difficulty level. Solid XP bonus for quick level-ups. No penalties for dying. Hardly any negative effects from mistakes. His character dies every now and then, but that’s not a big deal. Just try again!
Palworld is fun for a little one who can just reach the keyboard and mouse from his office chair (and thus prefers to play with a controller) – oh, and for our shooter expert as well.
It’s also helpful that you can navigate well in the world of Palworld even if you cannot read and write yet. Much of it is self-explanatory. Everything else can be simply tried out, just as I taught myself a lot on the C64 back then in blind flights. Many of the dialogues in the game are optional.
Only occasionally do we need to step in to help because he wants a specific piece of equipment but doesn’t know where to get the missing resources. Additionally, at first, half of his team always starved because he never fed them. Now, with level 79, that doesn’t happen to him anymore.
I look forward with a bit of concern to the time when he reads the descriptions of machines like the Pal Juicer for the first time…
Dad, do you have the Pal yet?
Currently, the little one is mainly interested in catching and collecting the Pals and expanding the base. The visual and gameplay similarity to Pokémon certainly helps with that. He gets excited every time he spots a Pokémon that looks like one of his Pals while looking at his cards or watching the series – or vice versa. The concept of capture balls was immediately clear to him.
When he discovers a large egg in the game world of Palworld or catches a new Pal for the first time, he dances in front of the PC with joy and loudly calls for us. His standard question: “Dad, do you have the Pal yet?” The answer is almost always: No. He is much further along than I am.
For this, he benefits from the fact that I play a bit more purposefully than he does. My focus, for example, is on expanding my base and mainly building the things I need for the next upgrade. He then observes me, drives me away from the PC, and copies me.
In the evenings, we lie together in bed, flipping through his collection of Pokémon cards, and he tells me with shining eyes which Pals look similar, which animal he has caught again, and whether Pokémon will someday also get “as cool Pals as the one with the awesome water attack”.
I really enjoy that my boys have a similar enthusiasm for games as I do and that we can share this enthusiasm with each other every day. How about you and your kids? Do your children game? Do you like to game together? And if so: what games do you play? Feel free to share in the comments.
In the case of my son, Palworld currently has the edge over Pokémon, and certainly also because Nintendo is letting the enormous potential of its brand lie dormant in parts. The games of recent years could have been much better. This is reflected in our list: 8 things that Palworld should adopt from Pokémon to become a better game
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