So in an attempt to make more money on the side, I picked up SwagBucks. One of the things they offer is playing games for money, and one of the games they offered was this thing called Palmon: Survival.
I was curious how it'd go, and I somehow managed to stumble upon the most frustrating gaming experience I've ever been victim of.
So starting off, the brand identity. It's called "Palmon". Short for "Pal Monsters", it's a portmanteau of the two properties it's ripping off: Palworld and Pokemon.The reason I make this claim is that its 2D Artwork tries its hardest to emulate the Pokemon Style (likely through AI Generated Artwork), and the designs therein are just a few details off of being Palworld Pals. Graffitty is just Cattiva but paint-based, Auktyke is just Hoocrates but Water-Based, and Herculeaf is JUST Mossanda but under-designed. While Palworld is often accused of stealing designs from other monster-catching games, Palmon is more than likely just stealing designs FROM Palworld.
Next up is the gameplay, which I can only describe as the most predatory time-waster I've experienced. I haven't played many mobile games, but this game feels like how one would assume the worst ones feel to play. You capture and "raise" a bunch of Palmon to help you grow a camp where you can gain materials to keep said camp growing. These Palmon can go on expeditions where up to five of them will attempt to fight enemies in a top-down arena where their stats and skills go against another team-of-five's set of stats and skills. Once the player has captured enough Palmon, they will no longer be required to participate in battles. The player just sits and watches as all these colorful creatures fight each other and make the most annoying "creature noises" as possible unless you either mute your volume or click the "Skip to the end" button. That makes up maybe 10% of gameplay, as the other 90% is spent making plans to construct buildings and waiting for hours on end (or paying premium currency) for them to actually be built. Like, almost the entire game is spend making orders then waiting for the results. And all the while, the game is bombarding you with advertisements for special events that can only be completed by paying a premium. Not only that, but I believe the tutorial is broken. The last piece of "New Information" I received was information on how to collect one of the rare Palmon by studying a "Shrine". It then proceeded to not tell me about the shrine, not guide my camera, and basically leave me in the dark about this detail for over a day. After about three days with this game, I'm pretty sure I've gotten all I could out of the thing; so with a playtime of 6 Hours and 25 Minutes, I'm calling it quits.
This is the most "Nothingburger" game I've played. 2/10. I can't even give it a -2 because there was no ironic enjoyment; it was just a frustratingly hollow experience.