Palworld has brought back a Pandora’s Box that Pokemon let open in Black/White: Does Team Plasma have a point? Is the player in Pokemon/Palworld an evil entity just for playing?
Some preliminary context for those unaware. Pokemon Black/White’s version of an evil team was Team Plasma, which argued that Pokemon trainers were evil for capturing Pokemon and forcing them to fight alongside them. While the game gave us the character of N, who is honest and sincere in his ideas and intentions, Team Plasma is presented as an hypocritical boogeyman that wants to force all other trainers to free their Pokemon, but secretly this is only a ploy to make sure no one can oppose them when they attempt to grab power for themselves.
Palworld has its own take on the idea: out of the different hostile factions, we find early on the Free Pal Alliance, which similarly argues that capturing pals and forcing them to do your bidding is evil, and we find again that their leader really commits to the idea, but her underlings are constantly attacking pals in the wild and sometimes even putting them in cages.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Pokemon fanbase was very defensive of this idea, often repeating the arguments provided by the games that captured Pokemon like the companionship anyway, dismissing the fact that wild Pokemon violently resist being captured unless you force them into submission to accept the Pokeball. The fact that you forcibly push them into a situation where their previous freedom to choose not to associate with you gets overwritten by a newfound willingness to obey means that they’re being effectively brainwashed - if we were to apply our real life standards to this situation we would say without a doubt that the situation is exploitative and we’re wiping our ass with the idea of consent. Palworld is even more “in your face” about this, given that the brainwashing mechanic of Pokeballs/spheres does not only work on the mons, but on humans as well. The general reaction of the Palworld community seems to be acknowledging that it’s fucked up, but nonetheless jumping straight to the fact that the Free Pal Alliance are hypocrites as a whole or even calling them a parody of PETA.
My position here is: should these games even address the ethical dilemma? Once you put the ethics into the game’s narrative, the designers are basically forced into going to “Yes, but” territory, since acknowledging the ethical issue leads you to the conclusion that the game only allows you to play as a morally dubious character at best, but given that that would be unwise from a marketing pov (at least for Game Freak), the narrative ultimately has to twist the argument into some sort of fallacy (The Pokemon actually want to be captured/The Free Pal Alliance is full of hypocrites anyway), which in my opinion is actually the heinous design decision, since you’re pushing the player into twisting the moral dilemma in a way, thus training moral hypocrisy, rather than the much healthier position “Yes, capturing Pokemon/Pals is evil, but it’s a game so no actual sentient creature is being harmed”.
Both Pokemon Black/White and Palworld hint at the idea of human-Pokemon/Pal association out of free will through the character of N and the Free Pal Alliance, who do not capture their creatures, but rather they choose to cooperate with them out of real free will, but this option is mechanically impossible for the player (save, arguably, for rare exceptions where Pokemon freely join you through through scripted events). This ends up cementing the ludonarrative dissonance where the player has to justify themselves into thinking that what they’re doing is morally acceptable, despite being presented with actually ethical in-lore alternatives that they just do not have access to. It is understandable that, from a game design perspective, the Pokemon/Palworld developers do not want to spend significant effort into reworking the mechanics of Pokeballs/spheres, which are already effectively fun for their gameplay loops, but that leads them into the position where Team Plasma and the Free Pal Alliance have to become caricatures of their actual ideas, which on the other hand is a waste for their respective lores.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my rambling. My Chikipis have already laid all the eggs I need for baking cakes, so I’m off to butchering them for meat, bye.
I mean, every “Mon” series has to deal with the fact that your basically making animals fight for your amusement, but that this is somehow a good and normal part of the world that the player shouldn’t think too much about. But yeah, unless the game is trying to actually comment on that aspect of the genre then it’s probably best not to even bring it up. Palworld is an interesting case. What with the guns, putting pals to work, and butchering them for resources. Admittedly, I haven’t played the game, but it really doesn’t paint the player in the best light. You’re certainly not an innocent ten-year old off an adventure. If anything you’d be a villain in a Pokemon game. But it’s difficult to say how hard the game wants you to think about that. Like, is the fact that the game lets you do all these things the developers way of saying “Being a Mon trainer would be really messed up if these games were realistic” or is it part of the “Pokemon with Guns!” attitude that has been a big part of the marketing?
Either way, I think that a game that focused on building a cooperative relationship between a “trainer” and their Mons would be interesting. Like instead of just capturing them and sticking them in a PC you would need to actually work to keep them satisfied and willing to follow you. Kind of like SMT mechanics, but more of a constant relationship you have to manage. Could get tedious, but it’s an interesting idea.
Interestingly I can think of a couple games that get around the mon-game issue you mentioned, and in pretty different ways.
Ooblets (which I haven’t played, but appears to be popular with 91% positive on Steam) has you grow your mons in a garden, and rather than pitting them in fights with other critters, you do dance battles. It appears to be a bit more slice-of-life vibes but with the monster-collecting element.
And Cassette Beasts (which I have played, would recommend to anyone who likes monster collectors easily, and is 96% positive on Steam) dodges the issue in a different way. You don’t actually capture and train monsters… you record them, and that recording lets you transform into that kind of critter. Successfully record a Traffikrab in a fight, and you can then transform into one later. You are still fighting the wild ones, but you aren’t enslaving any or having them fight for or serve you in any way. The equivalent of trainer battles is fighting other people who also do this.
That’s basically what the game is. The pals help you keep things running and you give them food and a bed to sleep in. Sure you gotta beat the shit out of them to capture them, but the happy noises they make when they finish something is satisfying. You can also pet the one you have out.
Monster rancher is definitely more along the lines of a relationship you manage while still having battles in an arena. Monsters have personality traits and they either like battling are neutral or hate it, but you have to manage their needs and likes the whole time with food rest and activities. Not perfect but historically my favorite take
Palworld doesn’t attempt to make the player seem like a good person, you’re stabbing and shooting wild creatures off the bat. But it’s a survival game, with you needing to establish a base for food, gear, and protection. Pals maintain berry fields, help you build, chill your fridge, etc. Wild pals die fighting each other all the time, so maybe being put to work in a defended community isn’t the worst fate for them?