We have returned to the wonderful MMO game Palia from developer Singular 6, but this time on the Nintendo Switch. If you don’t know much about this game, you absolutely should. If you don’t want to put that much effort into researching it, then let me enlighten you.
Palia is a wonderful MMO that presses you as much as it relaxes you. Led by a quest-based backbone, and a wonderful story to kick things off, it’s an easy game to fall into and enjoy, which makes revisiting it a pleasure.
So, break out those mining tools, and let’s craft something from all these wonderful details. On with our preview!
A good story
The story of Palia begins with you, a common human, though a rare race amongst the Palian’s, somehow getting teleported into the land of Palia. Your purpose there is undetermined, as is how you got there, but what is certain is that the folks in Palia consider you legendary. As someone of prominence, you are tasked with helping Jina, your first meet and greet in Palia, figure out why humans are making their way to Palia and what mysteries the land holds in its unknown and undiscovered territories.
As standard MMO stories go, this one matches the personality of the game quite well, which is relaxing yet pleasantly pushy for the player to explore. While the mystery of why humans are starting to appear in Palia is the overarching theme of the tale, it’s not completely pressing. There’s no world-destroying cataclysm you must save everyone from before it’s too late, rather it’s a simple mystery that pushes enough to encourage the gamer to start exploring Palia’s vast world. It’s a story that works well with the gameplay design and it never loses that gameplay complementary focus along the way, well, at least from what we have previewed so far.
That is the story you’re given and it’s a good one to kick the game off correctly. You always have to have a heaping help of hooking narrative to pull you in, give you reason, and then send you out to pick up the breadcrumbs to form the yummy story bread. There is quite enough here to form that bread. Now, how does that bread react to the gameplay? Let’s talk.
The gameplay does its job
The gameplay design in Palia consists of a few odds and ends. The two main points in the overall gameplay are to explore and solve a mystery and to build/collect/keep going. The former is driven solely by the story and the story of why humans keep appearing in Palia. Your character interacts with NPC characters to piece together the underlying assumption that something terrible happened to humans and how that relates back to them making a return visit. This is akin to some of the adventure games I played as a kid, where there was just enough mystery to keep you pushing forward. One such example from my childhood gaming experiences is LucasFilm Games’ Habitat on Commodore 64. Considered the first MMO in video game history, even featuring avatars, you were basically dropped on an island in the middle of somewhere and you were charged with exploring and uncovering the island’s mysteries. Much like Palia, uncovering those mysteries wasn’t pressing and never felt like you should hurry or else. Just like Habitat, Palia is a positive and welcoming place, even with its mysterious undertones scattered everywhere in the land. Exploring the land and seeing where you can get to are driving pieces to Palia’s adventure and just a relaxing time. It’s a simple, fun experience.
To compliment that piece of the gameplay puzzle, Palia has a hefty amount of collecting, building, and completing side quests that also involve collecting and building (department of repetition department). As you progress through the main story, you run into all sorts of people in Palia. They have side quests ready for you and are ready to help you expand your living and surviving arrangements. For example, you might run into a fellow who wants you to mine material/rocks and get to a certain level so that he can give you a brick-making blueprint. Once you reach that level with mining minerals, you gain access to the blueprint reward for a machine to make bricks. Having that machine allows you to take what you collected from mining rocks and make bricks to build your home, or whatever you would like. There are a lot of blueprints you can pick up in this game and build out your human homestead with, which is so much fun…and is so relaxing. Mining is not the only attribute you’ll be using during this game, you also have wood chopping, cooking, and growing veggies (gardening? Yeah, probably). Each one of these techniques can work hand in hand with the other to create some massive structure that you can call your own. Gathering, growing, and creating is such an addictive piece to the gameplay, and Singular 6 did a great job of pushing the player towards those purposeful pleasantries.
What is also wonderful about growing, collecting, crafting, and building is that the game tends to create ‘purpose’ and agency for the gamer, something that some gamers may need during these holiday times. I know that sounds funny, maybe even odd, but when you’re going through depression this time of year, a game like this creates purpose and progression and is a healthy thing for one’s brain. It’s why Stardew Valley is widely popular, as it relaxes the mind and puts a positive spin on the gameplay, no matter the obstacle. Palia falls into that same vibe, as you will be driven to build out your homestead, go hunting for material, and all of it creates purpose and progression. It’s a mesmerizing game in that sense, and it never lets up, which will certainly help people get through the winter.
Aside from side quests, collecting, and creating, there were hunting and fishing elements in the game as well. The hunting elements, at least in the early part of the preview time we had, were bow/arrow and hunting down bugs by gassing and grabbing them. The bow wasn’t too terrible, and the game helped a bit with aiming and contact. The latter of that bunch was loose-y goose-y, but in a good way, as I can see the aim assist and contact area around the animals as a bit friendlier than most games of this type. If younger gamers are trying to get into an MMO gaming arena, having fewer frustrating controls, and more flexible accuracy using the bow and arrow stands only to help them get used to this type of game. The hunting was great overall and proved how multi-generational friendly the game was in its design.
The fishing was equally as good, though a bit more complicated with the controller. The fishing was just a cast, waiting for the bob, and then reeling in the fish. That last part comes with having to guide the fish between two green curved lines to successfully capture it. It took me two fish to figure that last part out, but after I got it down, it was second nature. I spent a good deal of time fishing, as it was fun and less burdensome. Both hunting and fishing allowed me to build my cooking level as well and made me want to keep finding recipes.
As you can probably tell, the gameplay stretches along different paths that include farming, building, hunting, and exploration. Each one of those contains a large amount of work and sometimes very complicated projects. For example, I’m still trying to build out my home in the game, as the building portion has more than a few steps, including creating more refined wood and bricks in massive amounts that are produced in a set amount of time (60 seconds to produce a plank, a minute-and-a-half for brick). It takes a while to get things up and running, but it never feels like a chore. That was a big concern considering most MMOs send you on multiple quests to get one thing. This doesn’t feel like that at all. And to help, you can leave machines on and going while you produce brick and planks, then just go do other quests or gathering. It is built to handle and juggle complicated methods to create and build. The game is complicated at times but relaxing in its execution, which is a big deal because you play games to get away from a burdensome life, not to replicate it.
Palia is just relaxing, fun, and it’s not too over the top with its story or demands. There’s not a thick layer of drama in its story, rather it is driven by mystery and discovery. The collecting and building are just the icing on the cake throughout the entire process. All the pieces of the gameplay seem to nicely complement each other and work well as they move the player along. Most importantly, the experience is just fun.
Still a minor issue
When I first previewed this game, Palia’s only blemish was how the map and HUD worked. I still think it’s a bit too janky when it comes to showing direction and understanding where you should be going. Taking a page out of the Bethesda Studios handbook for HUD advice, you’re given a compass during gameplay (top) that shows you the direction you’re walking and where your goals are located. Most of the time, that is accurate and works well. For a small chunk of time, sometimes the goals aren’t defined, and no indication is given about where you should go. While I understand that it is the job of the gamer to memorize details of the quest, it’s common practice nowadays in MMOs to point out where the active quests in the game lie. For someone in my age group, near 50, having some help when it comes to going from point A to point B is always appreciated. This aspect of Palia comes up short just a bit in its pointing and positioning. Sometimes it can be a little disorienting on direction and agency.
Now, is it a dealbreaker for the game? Nah. There is too much positivity and fun built in to have something so minor bring it all down. But this does need to be tweaked and improved a bit for this MMO to become the complete package.
Nintendo Switch-ing things up
Going from a PC experience with this game and shifting it over to the Nintendo Switch hasn’t been as jarring as I thought it might be. The controls are simple, and comfortable, and they make sense. They are designed to be unobtrusive and, in that respect, Singular 6 has succeeded in the translation. Not many developers can claim success when it comes to going from a mouse/keyboard to controllers, especially not when it comes to an MMO experience.
Now, I do need to offer one tiny unsolicited suggestion in the game’s construct on the Nintendo Switch, and that is to make choices touchable on the screen. I must have spent 60 or so seconds trying to get a message off the screen that gives me the option to never see it again. I kept touching, and touching, and touching the check box until I realized nothing was going to come of it. Having the ability to select options with your fingers might put a bigger positive spin on the controls. I don’t know why or if that is a good way to go with everything, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. My ego wouldn’t have been as bruised with that checkbox debacle if the tip-tappy was activated.
Anyway, it’s minor. No big deal at all. Overall, if you enjoyed the experience on the PC, you would like it on the Nintendo Switch. Portability is a huge plus, and linking one’s PC account to the Switch is a cross-platform benefit. The fact that the controls were translated nearly seamlessly is the icing on the cake.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Palia is still a charm to play on the Nintendo Switch. In some respects, it exceeds expectations when compared to its PC brethren. At the very least, it is certainly nice to play on the go. There are some hiccups still to the gameplay, but nothing that is going to disrupt its constant flow of fun.
