Palia

This looks like a cute builder etc. Its not. The majority of the content is cosmetics/decor. No real custom home building, limited character customization (and the majority of content there is paywalled). And the only interactive structures are crafting units. Hundreds of decorative units and only a few crafting stations. Decor cannot be recycled or sold, only deleted or "gifted" once day to one of the npcs. Honeslty I'd put any open world game before this. But the closest comparisans might be Second Life and the Sims and both would be better considerably. If you want content flexibility go with SL (or maybe VRChat). If you want ease of play then go with the Sims. But either way they outrank Palia considerably.

I love the story, both past and the coming future. The visuals are amazing. The mechanics are fun. Now onto what I'm sure you've seen everyone else talking about. I understand having to pay for cosmetics since it's a free game. HOWEVER! It is no longer within reason. There should be ways to grind to get the animals you have as pets or as rideable mounts. Ways to grind to up your storage. Make it less than the payable amount of storage, but still have a way to grind for it. There is a difference between having players pay for in game things verses making them have to pay for every NEW thing that comes out just because.

It was just a year or so ago that I came across Palia and introduced all my friends to play it with me, initially thinking I'd spend several hours on the game and for awhile I did have plenty fun with it despite its bugs and glitches. Eventually, I fell out of the game and stopped thinking about it until semi-recent. I booted up the game and it was completely broken, the UI was messed up and I couldn't load into the world at. all. no matter what I did. So fast forward to even more recent, I try Palia again. Thankfully everything's working in terms of UI and the world not falling out of itself- and the updates to the UI were quite nice but I noticed the cosmetics were increasingly expensive to a degree that I genuinely couldn't ever justify? Granted sure, they're cosmetics they're not a requirement to play the game but it felt very unfriendly? I tried looking for anything cute or cool that was free or on the cheaper end but nothing caught my eye. Either way I tried to get into the game to play it again and just wasn't feeling it- while the world loaded in it was evident that the game was still extremely buggy. Fast forward yet again to today, I learn they're now monetizing storage which is arguably p2w and generally just not a good move tbh. This game feels so lifeless, it feels like all the focus goes into the expensive cosmetics with everything else just left alone because the gameplay itself isn't making the profit. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of paid cosmetics but the way they're implemented here feels dirty amongst the piles of other issues like bugs & glitches and their reversal of promising to not paywall core elements of the game (such as storage) It's really quite unfortunate because the first time I experienced this game, there was a real sense of community and fun to it. I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it as much as I think others have- and there are the positive reviews for those experiences but given the business practices I feel inclined to say something. especially if there's any chance of changing the course of this games development into something enjoyable for players but that's extremely hopeful thinking. Either way I really just can't recommend it as it is and I'm honestly irritated for the greater community because whether or not they pay for these things and are ok with that- its still just not right to them. whether they mind it or not that's just how I feel.

I cannot in good faith recommend Palia to anyone like me. The game looks nice, the premise is interesting and I love the characters so far. However, that's as far as I can go with the positives. Don't get me wrong; I love this game so far... but it's just unhealthy for me to continue playing. Palia is buggy, extremely so. I would understand if it was made by a small indie team or if it was a more recent game, but it isn't - Palia has been out for three years now. I'm someone who doesn't try to encounter bugs, but I have faced several in my hours playing. You can get sent flying up into the sky from playing a minigame, you will clip into objects, animals you are hunting will suddenly teleport away or run under the water where you can't reach them. People say Palia is still in beta, but that's no excuse for this behavior lasting this long. Pay elements are everywhere, and I mean everywhere. You cannot exist in Palia without finding an in-game ad asking you to fork over your money for subscriptions and cosmetics and the ability to get around much faster with a horse. All a free player gets in terms of character customization are some hairs and basic clothing, but if you want to customize beyond that, you HAVE to pay real money. There's no other way to customize besides paying up, or you'll look bland and boring forever. I think the game specifically knows this, because the cosmetics offered in the premium shop are things anyone would enjoy, especially cottagecore folks like myself. I <3 (character) shirts, meme clothing, dresses, emotes, pets, ect. There is not a single quest in the game, from my research, that gifts for clothes or lets you craft it yourself. It's not like the cosmetics are cheap, either! Some sets are worth nearly $50 USD. There's even a battle pass. So, yeah, while there's memes and Jimothy plushes, this game is extremely predatory. The devs don't care how broken it all is or how your experience goes, they just want money.

I've played this occasionally since it came to Steam, and I was having a good time with it! Enough to buy some cosmetics here and there to support the devs. But now they've gone back on their word to not monetize actual gameplay elements, and that's not okay, especially when they've stopped fixing the bugs. I might continue to play once in a while, but I won't be giving this company another cent.

Glitchy and every cool thing is locked behind a paywall. I get its a free game but like dang there are no ways to get a pet without spending money. I mean its alright for a free game but just my opinion

Palia is one of my favorite games. The game is relaxing but addictive. There are almost no time limited goals, so you can play at your own pace, but at the same time there is so much stuff you can do, so sometimes it's hard to stop and close the game. Minigames like fishing and cooking are still fun after hundreds of hours. What I like the most about Palia, is that it was built to connect and cooperate with other players. All the core gameplay activities are more easy and fun with friends (like, all the loot from hunting is shared, and you get buffs when fishing next to others). At some point, the game almost forces you to team up with strangers you meet in the open world (artifact trading, flowtree groves). And the community is really kind and nice. Players are always happy to help you, and I think I've never seen a single toxic person in chat. HOWEVER ! Since the Royal Highlands update, it seems like the game changed it's course. It started to feel like the devs care much more about money, than the product quality. Updates are now released twice as often, though they are bugged and almost all the content is premium skins. Most of new free content are just recolored copies of the existing things (just look at the Highlands fishes and bugs). Devs have clearly changed monetisation strategy, and now they not only raise skin prices, but also add mean micro transactions like expanding storage (in the past, they promised that only cosmetics will be premium). Yes, I know that the game is free. Though, I've spent more than $50 on ingame purchases. When I learned that you can catch bugs in this game, that's not how I imagined it (haha). Palia is the most bugged game I know, and what's more surprising, people seem to be ok with it. Some of the bugs you encounter every day (like adding people to party), and they exist in the game for years. The most ridiculous part, is that they list NEW BUGS INTRODUCED IN THE FRESH UPDATE at the end of the patch notes. If you know that the patch is bugged, why release it right now? Why don't you hire more devs to fix bugs in time? So, why should I spend money to support devs who don't care about my player experience? Imo this is not normal and players should not accept the game in this state. Oh, and also, I think they delete negative reviews posts on Reddit. Maybe that's why I don't see a lot of people complaining about bugs. I hope one day I will be able to change this review to positive.

This game is free. Your time is NOT. Don't play Palia because it's a game with bugs that erase your progress and devs that refuse to fix their mistakes. The devs prioritize their paid content: cosmetics and battlepasses, over fixing bugs. Palia has always been buggy, and each new patch delivers new bugs because they never test them properly, but their latest patch had a huge bug that erased player's progress. The backbone and endgame of Palia is decorating your house... and the bug was that all the items placed on walls in player's housing plots were sent back to storage. It's not even the first time this happens because last year it was a bug that made all the items placed on surfaces go back to storage. Buggy update released on the 7th and a day later they offered rollbacks and told you not to play until it was done because the rollback would undo all your progress in the new patch. I was one of the many, MANY affected players and never got that rollback. After waiting for two weeks with an open ticket they told me it would be fixed in 24-48h, immediately marked the ticket as solved and... when those 48h were over the rollback still hadn't happened. Usually their patches last a month and a half but this one is going to be only 3 weeks and the new one is releasing on the 28th so I basically missed on all the temporary event stuff because I couldn't play. I know swearing off a game and wanting to warn others about it over some stored decorations might come across as petty or melodramatic but... this isn't about some items, it's about the most important thing between a dev team and their players: TRUST. If players can't trust the devs not to release buggy updates, or not to undo their progress, or even restore it... What even is the point. Why would anyone wish to play a game that will one day undo all their hard work and make them feel like they wasted their time by playing it...

This was a great game until they instituted things like paid storage after having stated multiple times that paid items would only be for cosmetics. They then told us what a great feature this is. It is not a feature, it is a direction for the game that will continue taking it down a bad path and kill it. Please rethink this. I personally will no longer continue to support the game with this direction and I know many others feel the same.