Didn't realize that at its core it's a survival crafting game.
There goes any interest I might have had in it.
The presentations looks pretty nice though. Makes you wonder what a next gen Pokemon would look like if the Switch 2 has decent hardware and The Pokemon Company gives a shit for a change.
I've been watching previews an the entire game is about running around hammering at things. Sometimes you run off to catch a Pall then run back to your base and hammer more things.
This is not Pokemon with Guns, It's Pokemon with hammers.
I hope its not heavy on the crafting and survival side. Can't wait for the Pokemon crossover event that's not going to happen.
After watching three of the preview videos these seem to be the positives and negatives:
-The game starts out heavily focused on crafting. You'll need to craft the capture balls and home base, however, there is a positive:
+The devs were smart enough to make it so that after some hours, once you hit a stride with your PAL collection, you can have them do the busywork part of collecting/crafting for you, essentially putting them on tasks that you would no longer want to spend time on doing.
+This same smart design is used for traversal. When you start to find and capture mounted PALs, you'll no longer have to worry as much about the player stamina system when climbing, swimming, etc.
-The only survival mechanic is hunger, however, there is a positive:
+Food ingredients are easy enough to find and food crafting will give you and your PALs big bonuses in combat, crafting, and speed.
-Player weapon combat is too simplistic as of now, however, there is a positive:
+PAL combat and fighting with your PALs is much more fleshed out and it makes the game feel more like you're commanding a small team especially on boss fights
-The story is mainly in the beginning portion of the game as it tells you there are boss towers you will have to conquer in each region.
+You are free to tackle them in any order and there will also be world bosses roaming around that can be fought in any order.
(I personally think they should just use a soulslike-adjacent storytelling method if they don't have the budget for something greater)
Hopefully this clears up some confusion.
It doesn't fully pull the trigger on the survival aspects (and thank goodness for that). It is used in the beginning to show you the ropes and then later on it is used as a background mechanic so that you can get to PAL hunting faster and more efficiently.
My own personal hope is that there is a hard mode for this game. Right now it seems too easy and I want to feel the struggle of these fights, much like some of the harder Pokemon games out there where you weren't sure if you could make it to that next save point.
