 PAL WORLD! Ha ha, sure! There's enough people upset with me already, not like I can make it any worse. Why the hell is this such big news right now? Are we... are we looking at the same thing? You're telling me that we have all these AAA studios investing billions of dollars into the next AAA blockbuster? And we're all rushing out to play Pokémon version? No, we're not stopping for a cheeseburger at McDonald's. We got cheeseburgers at home. And then the cheeseburger looks like this sh**. It's already sold something like 20 million copies, it's broken records for concurrent players on Steam, and it's even managed to piss off every remaining Pokémon fan after Scarlet and Pilots. I'm pretty sure PAL World is about to or has already passed God of War Ragnarok in sales. And this just in, in the next game, Kratos is going to have an AR-15. Why is PAL World so popular though? Is it because it has guns? If it was that easy, Volition would still be in business. Is it because it's half the price of an actual Pokémon game? No, that can't be it. I mean, Nintendo fans are anything but cheap, but our favorite pastime is buying the same game 30 times and then thanking Nintendo for the opportunity. This game, technically speaking, is awful. Everybody is so hyper-focused on Nintendo needing to sue PAL World for stealing their trademark Pocket Monsters when really they should be suing for how similar these games are with their glitches, bugs, and game-breaking issues. Did Pocket Pear think that falling through the floor was a feature? This is like when you can't be bothered studying for a test, so you copy a friend and then you find out that your friend is just a dipshit. And yet, I kind of love it. I'm sorry, but the whole concept is still fun. It's how I managed to squeeze some sort of fun out of Scarlet and Violet despite those games being as tedious and outdated as rotary phones. If you see one out in the wild, you may as well spit it around a few times. It's nostalgia. Are you sure the PAL World devs don't have much shame here and that they literally just looked at Pokémon and thought, well, we could do that? I mean, they named their company Pocket Pear. They weren't exactly trying to hide the connections. That would be like if I started putting a yellow border around all my videos and called myself Wood the Was. Hey, y'all. On the other hand, Wood the Was kind of sounds like a terminal illness. G'day, mates. Wood here. And this video is sponsored by Bloomin' Raycans. Oh, that is the worst Australian accent I have ever heard. I am Australian. Scott the Was is rolling in his grave right now. Okay, he's not dead. Who are you talking to? I'm talking to you. Well, I don't care for that. I'll piss off. I haven't worked with Raycon in over a year. We took a little break from each other because we were together for like five years and just needed some space. But I'm no two-time Cheaton Ross gala. I respect the sanctity of a break. We were on the break. I even got an iPhone recently and everyone was telling me to get redacted. But I said, no, you can't beat the quality and value of Raycon with eight hours of playtime, a 32-hour battery life, amazing audio quality at half the price of other premium audio brands. You've got three customizable sound profiles. They're noise isolated. I work out every day. Sounds like I'm bragging, but I just do. I also go for daily walks. And my Raycons are always with me. Blocking out the world around me while I listen to music or a podcast and pump out some reps. Also, can I take a second? Why is it that every gym has the worst music blaring over the speakers? Like I go to a full-bound muscle man gym and all they're blaring is Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. All day long, who is listening to this? So if you want to help support the channel or just get some great audio earbuds or look like an insane rabbit dog when you do the shake test, click the link below or go to buyraycon.com forward slash beat them up to get 15% off your purchase of a pair of Raycons. Oh, and free shipping. Oh, man. With deals like that, why were we ever on break? But listen, I'm not one of those idiots that think that Pow World just stole everything from Pokemon. I mean, they also stole a lot from Ark. Most of it from Ark, actually. Nintendo fans are pretty pissed, but has anyone checked in on the Ark community? Do they care about any of this or are they out actually living a life? As far as I can tell, nobody gives a crap that this game is essentially Ark, but without the crap. But this thing looks like Eevee, so quick, somebody find their home address. I have death threats to send. It's just a little funny to me, you know, being a 33-year-old man living through three decades of Pokemon. Only now seeing people care this much about somebody coming along and stealing Pokemon's whole bit. This is the world's largest franchise people. They've been around so long that people have been stealing from them for years. I mean, Pokemon even stole from themselves once or twice. This is nothing new. Pokemon POWs. Pokédex Pow Deck. I mean, how could they, right? Oh, I'm so mad. You ever seen Digimon? Complete with a Digivice. These weren't pocket monsters. No, these were digital monsters. Oh, nice loophole. I guess Pow World should have said that their version of Nintendo's fake monsters were also just fake, fake monsters. Then I would have totally got away with it. Weirdly, there's even a Digimon called Powmon. So we've come full circle, and I don't even know what this means. I'm kidding Digimon fans, of course. This franchise has always had to deal with being called just a Pokemon clone, despite the fact that they both released the same year in 1997. At least, that's what they tell you. I think there is actually a little bit of copying going on here, because if we go back to 1997, when first IPs launched, it was the Pokemon anime that launched first in 1997. For Digimon, it was the interactive Tamagotchi toy device that launched the same year. So before we had the Digimon anime or Manga or anything like that, all we had was this sick brick of pixel nostalgia that made up most of my happy childhood memories. Since I don't have many of those up here, this thing was special. It wasn't until 1999, two whole years later, that the first episode of the Digimon anime released. By that point, Pokemon had already swept the world by storm and become a huge phenomenon. So I don't think it should come as any surprise that when the Digimon anime finally released, it had a very similar style to the Pokemon anime. My point is, up until 1999, all we had to go on for Digimon was just a few pixels on a Tamagotchi. There was one single issue Manga that had released before the anime, but it had a completely different style and even bun, which was technically the first unofficial Digimon in it. Oh my God! Don't look right. The Digimon anime, looking a lot like the Pokemon anime, was obviously very intentional. And it's most likely the reason why people always saw Digimon as just a Pokemon clone, despite the two franchises launching in the same year. To be fair though, Digimon look absolutely nothing like Pokemon. I mean, these guys are sexy. Pokemon aren't hot. Yeah. This was so weird. This creature would turn into this thing, would turn into 10 year old me, needing a talk about the birds and the bees. Digimon were cool! I mean, Pokemon, that was for dweebs. These guys, they got ripped jeans and guns. A lot of guns, actually. They got guns for hands, guns for arms, guns for days. I am now realizing that Digimon is just Pokemon with guns. Did Palmon copy Pokemon or Digimon? That's a serious question. Someone should call up Big Tamagotchi. I think we got a lawsuit on our hands. I think because we grew up with both of these franchises and were nostalgic for them, we're very quick to point out all of the differences between them. You go to any Reddit thread about Pokemon and Digimon and all the comments will say, nope, these things are totally different. Don't let the whole mon thing confuse me. These guys are sexy. But then this new challenger arises and threatens to ruin everything of that which we hold dear. And suddenly we're all very eager to ignore all of the crafting, looting, rooting, tooting, splooting, rebooting of it all and just say, hey, Pokemon invented sheep. How could you? You want to get wild and wacky for a second? How about we compare the original 150 Pokemon with Dragon Quest creatures? Oh, what? Did Dragon Quest invent bats? It's okay to be inspired by things. People are inspired by things all of the time. Software was inspired by Breath of the Wild and then we got Elden Ring. Without Breath of the Wild, we wouldn't have Genshin Impact. This game literally would not exist. The developers themselves have said that. And it's one of the most popular games right now and people are very quick to point out its uniqueness and that it's nothing like Breath of the Wild at all. I mean, this game is sexy. None of these Pokemon designs infringe on any of these Dragon Quest designs. Copyright. But, uh, I mean, come on. You got to put yourself back in 1997's shoes. And if those shoes air Jordan's, take them off. You know how much those are worth? I mean, this is one guy named Masuda, making his first game ever inspired by him as a kid catching some bugs. And now all of a sudden he realizes, what's that Mr. Nintendo? You want me to make 150 of these guys? I mean, I was thinking a couple caterpillars and a worm dude. Dragon Quest had already been around since like 1986 at that point. And I don't think it's ridiculous to think. I actually think it's a little naive not to think that even back in 1997, just like now with games like Genshin Impact, people weren't inspired by or borrowed ideas from other creative people, movies, video games, media of the time. And there's no problem with that at all. But sure enough, if you look in the comments section, anywhere this image is posted, they'll call this comparison weird because they're all just based off of animals and hey, a dragon is a dragon. You can't copyright a dragon. Nintendo invented this. It's just funny to me, you know. Digimon definitely didn't copy Pokemon, right? We all agree. Pokemon no way they copied Dragon Quest at all. Meh, animals are animals. Pow World though? I mean, have you found that mailing address though? I'm writing all these death threats in blood. I'm about to faint. Now that hopefully we're on the same page that I've done a good job setting up my argue. Games can be inspired by other games. Even Pokemon can be inspired without necessarily infringing on anybody's copyrights. Let's take a closer look at the monsters in Pow World compared to the monsters in Pokemon. Oh yeah, they're f***ed. Yeah, I mean, Nintendo probably have a case here. The developer's name is a pocket pal. What did you forget? Pokemon didn't invent penguins, but they could have at least color swapped this little guy. That our falfer isn't fooling anybody. They did at least color swap Zebstriker. Good job. This cow is just Snorlax. It even has the same face. The teeth are just flipped upside down and they put it on all fours. And this is literally just Glarian Meowth's face, control seed and control veed onto another cat. I mean, at least don't make it a cat. Robin Krill not only looks just like Decidae, but in a game that has handguns, machine guns, spears, all kinds of weaponry. And most of these pals don't even use weapons. What's the one weapon they decided to give this Pokemon? You gotta be kidding me. They're not all just straight copies. I mean, some borrow parts from some Pokemon and mix and match with parts from other Pokemon to create something almost new. But then you have the dash. And I don't know what I find more offensive here. The fact that it's just another lazy color swap or the fact that they replaced race with dash. I mean, that's just an ironically fast way to end up in court. I don't even know why they bothered to take the Luxray clone that we saw in the initial reveal trailer out of the game before launch. What, they thought that was too far? People are even starting to datamine the game and find other hidden pals that were scrapped that are literally just clones of other Pokemon. I mean, at this point, I'm expecting them just to find a model of Masuda himself in there, looking disappointed and wagging his finger. And the thing that baffles me the most is the one thing that we barely talked about yet. And that's that this game is actually fun. Despite all of its flaws and just like a skyscraper in Tokyo, Jesus Christ, there's a lot of flaws. It is fun to play and a little addicting. Let's get this straight. Nintendo does not own the rights to creature collecting video games. Monster Hunter Stories, Yokai Watch, even Persona. The one minigame in Sonic Adventure that was actually better than the whole game, even Temtem, which is literally a Pokemon clone. Kickstarted with the whole idea behind it to be exactly like old school Pokemon. And nobody cared when that came out quite literally. Does anybody even know about this game? All of those games and even Temtem didn't matter because they each had very unique creature designs. They go out of their way to create their own look and feel to their monsters. And to be brutally honest, Power World, nobody wants to catch dollar store Pikachu. Who's that Pokemon? It's Pikachu! It's dollar store Pikachu. Power World, I need you to come in close and listen up good. The whole ass reason we're playing this crappy mess of a game you put out is because you have provided us with something that Game Freak has been failing to do for years. A completely open world creature collecting game that looks very cookie cutter to put it nicely, but the freedom to do whatever you want that makes it special. I get that same childhood wonder I got from Pokemon whenever I'm out exploring in Power World and I come across a creature I've never seen before like Chillid or Gummos. I love this little guy. He's so derpy and cute. Lockston taught me that he is tree sap and another word for tree sap is gum and he's got moss so he's gum moss. That's unique. I even found a shiny one and in this game shiny means massive. Oh look how big he is. He's even more cute. But every time I run into a pal that is very clearly a Pokemon clone, I just laugh and get that same disappointed feeling of seeing the same thing but the hundredth time that I've been dealing with for the last 30 years in Pokemon. Which is exactly the reason why I'm even here in the first place. Don't you see I'm getting tired of this circle of hurt. It's not even just Pokemon and Ark that Power World are stealing from because they can't be bothered being original. All of the UI and sound effects in this game are ripped straight from Zelda. Even the map stamps look the same as Breath of the Wild's map stamps. USPS has been creating new stamps since 1894 and what you can't make seven. This straight up the temple of time. This looks just like the church from the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild. You could even walk in and pray to an altar using the orb things you've collected to upgrade yourself. Regan any bells? Oh and speaking of the Great Plateau when you select where you want to start and multiplayer you can literally select the Plateau of Beginnings. The Great Plateau where you start the game in Zelda Plateau of Beginnings. Like that's they're not creative are they? And don't even get me started on the fact that we have a glider and you can climb on anything. I know in this day and age it's hard to create anything original that hasn't been done before but when you're stealing this blatantly it's hard not to look at your entire game and think are these the chests from Fortnite? Is this the outfit from Horizon? I mean at this point we're just collecting lawsuits like Infinity Stone. But we all know why they did it right? They intentionally stole these designs in a way that was obvious. Just skirted the line and maybe they could get away with it legally but it got people talking. There's no such thing as bad press and in this case that's true. People only paid so much attention to this game because Volpix is a flamethrower now and Shaman is a hand grenade. Players bought into this game to either stream it or laugh at it with their friends and ended up getting sucked into an addictive parody of a game that barely even functions most of the time. The grappling hook doesn't work 80% of the time and when it does it still doesn't. There's a 50% chance that every time I use it I'll get stuck glitching in place. What is happening here? I don't know how you fix that. There's also no sound effect whatsoever for this thing. Like they just forgot to add that. The game world is built so poorly you'll spend half your time getting trapped in it falling through it or being yeeted above it. Oh I just went down in one hit and then I fell through the map. The only bright side of the terrible lazy world design is that you can just straight up walk on the lava because this is just a visual asset and means nothing. There are NPC players all over the game. You might be glitched. Oh no he pulled a gun at me! Oh my god! And they also all just pass out once night falls and sleep on the ground like other Pokemon. So I can only assume that canonly by law these are just Pokemon that look like people enforced by the fact that you can catch them and make them work for you which is problematic for all of the obvious reasons. Also the game kind of acts like you're supposed to be able to catch them since it brings up in the right hand corner of the screen that this is an inhumane thing to do and yet whatever you try and actually use these people pal Pokemon things they're see-through. They're like all glitched and they don't have bodies. Actually it's mostly just a floating weapon. If you try to catch a pal too close to water they'll do their best Jesus impression. When I close the game and log in later there's a good chance I'll have lost all of my permanent items and I'll have to craft them again which is a pain in the ass because trying to get materials in this game is like pulling teeth. Their world is too big. A lot of areas are devoid of all life without any pals anywhere to be seen not even sure why these exist. A lot of areas look like they've been stolen straight from Zelda even the Calamity Ganon type areas. There's even areas that look like that from Halo Infinite. I mean is anything here original? And just about any glitch bug issue you can imagine you'll experience it. And yet I can't stop playing this stupid game. I can't be the very best unless I catch them all and trying to keep all the materials in stock I need to make the stupid pal poke bowls whatever they're called is nigh on impossible even though I have my pals working day and night. There's about to be some budget cuts around here you guys don't pick up the pace. Casual Friday will be canceled. Pow world locks you into that cycle of mining resources crafting, catching, repeating. It's annoying but every catch does feel very earned and rewarding because you had to source and craft every element that went into that catch. I even broke the game and managed to catch Zoe. I own a Zoe. Wait the girl's on the head. This is my new girlfriend everyone come say hello. Come say hi to Zoe. They might all be stolen but this game does have some good ideas. It just needs a lot more of its own. If the creator of the game happens to be watching this maybe you could use your last game to generate some new ideas. I'll show myself out.