Why Is Palworld SO POPULAR?! And... AWESOME?! 

DON'T LOOK UP PAL N0. 69 IN THE PALDECK!

What's funnier for the Free Pal Alliance is that their camp is located in "Hypocrite Hill"

When depresso uses the hot spring it lays face down in the water like it's trying to drown itself.

Nothing makes me genuinely happier than seeing people make something great, they expect it to fail, and then they get absolutely rewarded. So damn deserved. Such a great W. Hats off to these devs

The pal descriptions range from cute to horrifying. Bushi's is an awesome implimentation of the japanese cursed sword trope :3

Gliding over Gotham City almost makes you wish for THE ACT MAN to do a “Why Batman Arkham City Was So Awesome”

I legitimately slammed my head into my face when you said the trees with skill fruits were "literal fucking skill trees". I did not see that...

There's also an Isekai meme, a old dude with his office clothing who now can summon pizza form his hands. You can get the pizza btw. Best afterlife skills so far!

My friends were playing it and I thought "Eh, what the hell. Its only 30 bucks, I'll try it out." Now its got its fuckin' hooks in me and I love it, games got potential.

The fact that it’s breaking these steam records while also being available for free on Game Pass is insane

AAA companies forgetting that love for your game brings the money

14:35 I mean… they’re distinct enough to where there can’t be a lawsuit. And Anubis is just it’s own thing. There’s only so many ways you can make a Egyptian jackal like creature

Just FYI, you can actually capture and enslave humans in Palworld. It's just that the base capture rate is incredibly low even for higher level Spheres. You can even enhance them like Pals by sacrificing others at the Condenser. You can't breed them (yet, reportedly), and they can't use weapons other than their fists while under captivity (for now), but if you want your own your own shopkeepers, you can capture the Black Market Dealer, and any Shop Keeper either wandering around or at the few towns, and then deploy them at your base like you would a Pal. Further, if you can afford to capture multiple humans, they sell for a lot to Pal Shop Keepers as well as the Black Market Dealer. Also, if you captured any Shop Keepers, they'll eventually respawn while you have your copies, so you're not permanently ruining the world setting. Also, you can sometimes get rid of the wanted Status if you can hover out of range for a bit and they can't get to you. It's not consistent in that regard. However, you can also make the Wanted Status go away for sure by deliberately entering a Tower battle. The PIDF will follow you (and your friends) in, but if you get rid of them first before attacking the boss, the Wanted status will tick down and then go away. You can also use them to do tickle damage to the Tower Bosses too, but it's faster to just capture/kill them and then focus on the Boss.

Palworld is literally júst the conversations you'd have with your friends about pokemon, come to life. "Do you think they eat pokemon", "aren't pokemon just slaves?" "Can you use the pokeballs on humans?" etc. etc. I literally remember talking about all these questions as a kid with my friends because it was never addressed in the franchise, except for that one time with the magikarp.

What makes Palworld even better is the unintentional hilarity it brings to the table. Like the guy, who is talking about how all his friends were eaten by Pals and then you look around and all you see is giant chickens and fluffballs and you cant help but think "Dude, how incompetent were you guys?" Or that panda ActMan showed of chopping wood. That is only their animation for it, if he does it at the endless woodfarm you can build. If the panda chops down free standing trees, they just agressivley flex at it and the tree takes damage from it. Its just so absurd, in a very funny way.

I honestly think the system they have for teams is pure brilliance. You have pals you can ride, that hover as passive assistance, ones that can act as utility items (which are better than those items) and they also act like power up weapons, on TOP of some being just "stat stick" items and general combatants.

It’s funny you are using this background music. I got bored one day and put on some old school Pokémon music on while playing Palworld. It actually enhanced the gameplay a bit 😂

That opening sequence 😂 “Palworld uses ‘Game Development’, it’s super effective” 🤣

The more Twitter users and game journalists hated on Palworld the more popular they made it.

I never talk about games at work, but I brought up at Palworld to two of my coworkers who are gamers. One of them has been playing it a lot with her brother and she's been having a blast with the dark stuff in the game. Word of mouth is very powerful

The render distance in Palworld is fucking insane I can literaly see a tower I built from miles away

im at the 18 min point, but sure alot of people mention the whole they were learning Unreal on the go while making the game; but I rarely hear anyone mention the fact that they originally were using Unity and deemed it to laggy so they swapped engines and restarted. The dedication these guys have is insane, massive respect for them

The developpers weren't familiar with firearms and finding a gun nut in Japan can be hard. They recruited a dude at a convenience store, iirc, who turned out to be pretty passionate about guns. I think the secret ingredient is passion.

It’s really weird for me how this neat looking little indie game I started following 2 1/2 years ago that nobody else seemed to have hear about it exploded to be what it is

Word of mouth is absolutely right. I never heard of it till I hopped on one day and a couple of friends were playing it. They used the "Pokemon with guns" sales pitch and now I'm hooked

This game simply hits the mark between competent and parody. A great blend of genres, quality and self-awareness that just works.

One of my friends nailed it: Palworld is Pokémon but you're playing as Team Rocket. And its fantastic.

I remember seeing the announcement trailer and been following it since, but i could never find anyone to really talk to about it; barely anyone was talking about it and the communities were small so i genuinely felt going into it on release day that it was just going to be another game that slipped under the radar to see it suddenly smashing records as much as it did is genuinely and pleasantly surprising as it seemingly came from nowhere.

*Tip* that I haven't seen anyone cover. You are able to reset the clocks for all perishable food items by transferring back and forth from storage to feeding site and vice-versa. You'll never lose your unused food early game.

12:40 Those are actually heavy barreled M2 HMGs. Bringing the caliber up from 7.92 mm to 12.7mm! Those Lamballs are truly no joke Act Man!

Don't forget the Isekai guy that generates pizza out of nowhere. It is sooooo "Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill". XD

4 days later, I'd like to say that the support for Palworld is phenomenal. The developers have been consistently squashing bugs with impressive speed. - Fixed the bug where pals would clip into walls - They made attempts at improving pathing and work assignments at bases - Fixed the Lifmunk Effigy bug to make them actually affect capture rates, after probably only about 2 weeks of being noticed.

in terms of creature catching games: -Temtem -Nexomon/Nexomon Extinction you could check those out.

Pokemon: "You can't defeat me." Yokai Watch: "I know, but he can." Palworld:

I love Nitwings Paldeck entry "it takes small pals to it's nest and cares for them as a surrogate parent , when they get plumb it hunts them"

i’ve never personally been a fan of the pokémon genre but man this game is so much damn fun

8:51 *OMFG!* The Oblivon NPC guards caught me out of guard! AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA

You’re GOATED for that Intro, Gen 3 was so underrated and is still a classic to this day.

This is exactly how games like Battlebit have become so popular and loved. You can't explain to the average FPS COD fan why it's so good because on the surface it looks like a Roblox kids game. You just have to play it to appreciate how brilliant it is.

I'm loving this trend of random indie games coming out of nowhere to humiliate big AAA releases. Hi-Fi Rush kicked Forspoken's ass, Lethal Company outsold the latest Call of Duty despite costing $60 less and lacking console availability, now Palworld's beating, well, everything.... keep it going, indie devs! You're keeping the love for this industry alive!

I find it so funny how so many pal animations feel janky but then they went and did an accurate animation for reloading a musket.

Palworld is basically "What if we built an entire game around RSE's secret base idea, then did a line of coke and kept adding features". I love it. I'm currenly grinding until I can fly my quivern and even though I'm taking breaks I keep coming back.

Really appreciate the older pokemon music in the background. Just absolute bangers. Really reminds you of how much more effort was put into those older games

This devolved into a Pokémon rant and I just find that really funny 😂

The next Pokémon game is gonna be called "Palworld without guns"

Know what's even better? With UEVR, modders are working on a FULL VR version/mod for Palworld that uses 6dof controls. That is going to be sweet.

Hands down this has been one of my favorite edits I’ve seen in years, kudos to your editor bro.

I didn't actually plan on trying this, but now I want to. Great video, Act Man 😊

Palworld is to gaming what pizza is to food. Not only in how it takes separate parts and blends them into a better whole, but also in how it allows players to customize their experience they way someone can customize what goes on a pizza.

I was waiting for someone for so long to point out the skill trees, I noticed it since day one and no streamer ever talked about it, even youtube guides called them "weird tress that happen to have skill seeds in them", I almost thought I was going crazy being the only one who noticed the pun.

First time viewer! I absolutely NEVER hit the subscribe button but man, point #8. If I were a content creator, this is this EXACT POINT that needs to be made. All told, though, great video! I'm in your shoes, a Pokemon Stan since Red and Blue. Now I have an option and I'm so fucking happy that this should light a fire under Game Freak's asses to actually INNOVATE!! Great video, sir! Well done.

5:30 It never occurred to me that it was a literal skill tree until you pointed it out. That's kind of amazing.

Hitting a random butterfly twist mid fight to dodge a fireball alone makes the game worth

The assets part of scarlet n violet to mario64 killed me so hard hahahahah great video dude!!!

I was waiting for this! Keep up the good work!!

Fun fact, Lovander the 69th pal, is not only furry bait in design, but in its PalDeck entry. "Seeking a night of love, it is always chasing someone around. At first, it only showed interest in other Pals, but in recent years even humans have become the target of its debauchery."

Did you all know Pengullet SLEEPWALKS? it is so cute. I love the way he carries stuff on his head

I bloody love the use of Emerald music throughout the video

The fact that this smaller company can have Pals follow you in an open world at the same speed as your character yet Gamefreak can’t figure it out is insane

i think one thing is it combined alot of popular game mechanics almost flawlessly into something that felt kinda new and fresh even though almost everything in it was done before just not same way it did them.

20:48 "Isn't it ironic that evolution is such a critical component of Pokémon and yet this series is incapable of it" made me lmao

I hope they can manage to implement voice acting into the game. Perhaps not for all game dialog but at least for cutscenes, which currently are very few, and perhaps for the diary entries since they are chronicled on an iPad so perhaps they can be like audiologs. The game already has so much character and soul that it feels like an actual living, breathing world, so i hope when they implement more sound, original score, and dialog/NPCs that they include voiced dialog for the important stuff as well.

Fun fact: in the Pokemon world, there was a war way back when where people used Pokemon to kill each other. Whenever I look at Palworld, that’s what I like to see it as.

With Palworld, you feel a PART of the capturing process. You and your Pal getting their health down then pulling the Pal back in order to try and catch it. Even then you're not safe because the cheeky Pal can get an attack off between you throwing your next ball to try again.

At first I thought Palworld was a cheap and effortless cashgrab. But there's too many animations, unique pal abilities/designs, and a lot of detail in the game world for it to be effortless. It's insane and I love it

I agree with you 1,000% It's so nice to find that. Thanks.

Dude I just wanted to stop by and say that you really should stream more last night was the funnest and chillest stream I’ve seen in a long time

5:10 I've been saying this ever since the game released. It's hilarious that the CEO straight up admitted he isn't into making "unique" games and just wanted to create a game that has a wide audience so that many people will play it. Dude absolutely succeeded and in doing so made a "unique" game in the monster catching genre. Mission failed successfully. Outrageously successfully lol.

What I like about Palworld is that while it does indeed lift a lot of mechanics from other games, it does so in a way that they interact with each other to make them be more than the sum of their parts. For example: Yes it does have the combat of Fortnite, yes it does have the exploration of Breath of the Wild, yes it does have the Base Building of Valheim and the creature capturing of Pokemon. But none of that is just thrown into the game in a vacuum just to have it. The Pals are the core mechanic of the game around which everything else revolves. You explore to find new Pals, you fight alongside your Pals, you can put your pals to work at your base, and you build a base to get better equipment or have a base of operation from which to explore, which aides you in getting better Pals, which let you challenge harder enemies or make your base more efficient. Everything is interconnected in a well thought out way, you never have the feeling like something was just put in just for the sake of having another thing in the game. Like you said in the video, this is the video game equivalent of Cell. It takes the best DNA from all the best games and does something with it that neither game could have done on it's own.

Very well put! I agree with pretty much everything you said.

They didn't JUST add a grapple, they actually have physics and momentum, too. So canceling your grapple at the last second can let you ramp off objects at insane speeds, and if you cancel into the glider, hover along faster than nearly anything in the game. Discovering that made exploration SO much more fun.

My desk is covered in snorlax memorabilia, my wifes is covered in pokemon and we have been loving palworld, i hope it makes game freak do something and i hope we have 2 awesome franchises

I like how visually it looks like an Unreal Engine asset flip game like The Day Before, yet functionally plays very competently and chockful of content unlike the latter.

The best part is that it's early access. Usually it means the worst part but here, i can actually believe this is not the finished product, nowhere near.

14:28 No.33 Depresso... Game of the year material right there. That Pal has the same resting face as me, it's like looking into a mirror but not being disappointed with what I see. Time to buy Palworld and make a Depresso Colony I guess.

Palworld did something that I've always had an issue in games, Base building and gathering resources eventually I'd get bored. In palworld the loop is so well designed, I'd be doing chores in this game for 3 hours and don't get bored at all.

Pokémon Legends Arceus was a step forward for Gamefreak and then they took a step back again with Scarlet and Violet.

2:15 I appreciate the original shiny odds reference ;)

5:19 It's a "Skill Tree" in the most LITERAL way. It literally is a Tree that allows you to pick up "Skills". Whoever designed this skill tree need to get promoted.

Fun Fact: Pokemon Black and White 2 actually did have (extremely poorly implemented) difficulty settings back in 2012. On the DS. Twelve years ago.

13:37 you forgot to mention, the most likely the first place you meet the “free pal alliance” is at a place called “hypocrite hill”.

The Pokémon company should be embarrassed.

That clip at the end of White Goodman was perfect 👌🏻

This guy out here reviewing Palworld while still managing to play some of the Halo OST during the review 😂😂 Never change, Acting Male 🤟

What I'm enjoying about Palworld, personally, is that it's complex enough to keep my bf and I interested in multiplayer, yet it's simple enough that I can log in and feel that I'm doing something constructive if I have free time when he's at work. (He works nights, I work during the day).

the skill tree being a literal tree is peak comedy

That one Cracked me Up , and the Team Magma Boss Theme on Top , lol .

I don't know you if you saw it. But there is a Free Pal alliance camp on a spot on the map called "Hypocrite hill" Which I thought was rather hilarious.

When you said "I secretly root for its downfall" I felt that. I've been a die hard DC Comics, Star Wars, and Marvel fanboy since I was born and I wanted so bad 5 or 6 years ago for it to do well and be good but it's so far gone that I see something like 'Suicide Kill the Justice League' and I just want it to fail. Part of me would love a new DC game but it also destroys me because I love these characters and want them to be respected and treated with integrity, and that's why I watch your videos. You're the exact same way, even if we don't love the same exact things, I know what you say is genuine. Btw love your RDR2 streams (love the game)

I am excited to see what they do with the funding from its initial success. Features, options, and upgrades are now possible with the runway. It's also interesting to hear how much the game had to change within the last few years in order to release at all, what they've done with limited personnel and funding is impressive. I wonder how different v1.0 will look.

ok, major props for that custom intro

As a die-hard Pokémon fan, I've been having an absolute blast with Palworld for the past week or so because it's been scratching an itch that Pokémon hasn't scratched for me since OR/AS. It's genuinely pretty fun and everything I'd want in a Pokemon title: open world, survival elements, base building/crafting, and the creatures you catch can help you out with various ways other than just battling other creatures.

I think most of this is also about how Game Freak / Nintendo have absolutely WASTED the Pokémon license. Now someone copies it and shows you what you could have done with it.

Seriously addicted to palworld and I've only seen 1/4 of the map so far Can't wait for full release

Something not mentioned but that I actually enjoy in the game is the climbing mechanics, If you have enough stamina you can go anywhere lol and the fact that to glide with celaray they just have to be on your team, nit actually called out and you can glide whenever you need to, makes it good for using damage dealers in tandem

Palworld appears to be like Hi-Fi Rush last year. 1) Shadow-dropped in late January 2) Released on Game Pass 3) Made by a non-AAA studio 4) Works (for the most part) at launch 5) Spread via word of mouth If this trend keeps up, late January is when great indie games will be released.

This is the most energetic I’ve heard The Act Man in a while especially when he tears apart Pokémon near the end of the video. Pokémon really needs to put in the effort to make new game again. Palworld deserves its success for managing to thrive in such a difficult industry. Their game deserves the recognition it’s getting for shaking the formula up. I can’t wait for Act Mans 2024 videos, I hope this will be a great year for gaming.

This is probably the best infomercial I've ever seen.

I wasn't all that interested in Palworld before now. Now I am! Also, I know PalWorld's scratching your creature catching itch, but I urge you to give Cassette Beasts a try! Cassette Beasts is also an incredibly strong contender as a Pokemon dethrone-er!

I also love that the Pals are so cute and a lot of their designs are good. When your Pals complete a task, they chirp, smile and a little ray of flowers appears above their head! I thank my Pals all the time, like some kind of psychopath. In Pokemon games, its hard to get any personal attachment to any of my Pokemon. They might as well be just pixels and stats on screen. While you can mistreat or hurt your Pals, its the last thing I want to do! Your Pals can become sick, depressed, or worse. If you forget to feed them, they won't fight for you very well. There are consequences for abusing your Pals. But its having the option that makes it truly feel open world and like the player has freedom of choice. Actions have consequences