Palia is cute, and actually cozy like it states. So if you like games like that, then i'd recommend it but please keep in mind the massive issues that hide behind the tags of being "Cozy". Side note, this game IS IN OPEN BETA. It is NOT full release yet like they like to lead you to believe, and have BANNED people from the Official Discord for pointing it out. Now lets get into it.

Pros:
- Cozy
- Cute environment
- Great for mindless gaming and hanging out with friends
- Cute Concept

Cons:
- Terrible execution
- Money hungry leads (they had 50 million to do this project and lost most of it from over-hiring and poor monetization)
- As said above; Poor monetization
- Premium shop gets more releases every monthly patch than ACTUAL CONTENT. 15-20USD to buy a PET and around 30-70 for the outfits, some of them having special VFX that do nothing in-game other than idle animations
- Ported over to Nintendo Switch BEFORE it was even stable on PC
- Leadership has said they're very much uninterested in listening to any sort of positive / constructive feedback from the community.
- VFX issues that FLASH and HAS given people seizures.

There's more but i have a limit here. so ill leave it off with a couple of Con posts from past Singularity 6 Devs:

"The Leadership does not actually listen to people. They smile and nod while people talk, but then don't act on the things people say; they just explain why the thing they decided is what we're doing. Tragically, they probably think that they are listening, but they're not. They're hearing, but they're not listening. When people say things that they don't want to hear, they ignore it. This is both internally and externally. There is almost no insight into why new players try Palia and stop playing. They instead focus on what the most die-hard players like."

"The leadership of S6 truly drove Palia into the ground. It breaks my heart that a project where 200 folks poured themselves into it, got ruined by poor decision making made by a handful of people. They hired massively talented people, truly the best in the industry. Just to ignore their wisdom and experience."

Thanks for reading if you did.

Edit: i have 188 hours on Steam, and probably another 500 on the standalone launcher before steam release and have spent most of that time in the Discord.

do not recommend this game /now/, in its current state, but i really hope i get to come here in the future and edit this to say i've changed my mind

-
palia has a lot of potential, but the company seems intent in driving it all into the ground.

i'll start by saying that as of right now, jan/2025, this game is still in beta despite it not being made clear here nor on the switch. you'll have to pay very close attention when you boot up the game to find the tiny little 'beta' in the game's login screen. and as beta game, it has very, /very/ limited content. patches are monthly, but the only things they bring are premium cosmetics - /all/ cosmetics and pets cost real $$$, and they're not cheap, either, but they also don't bring anything new to the game or your character aside from ✨looking cute✨; even the pets only just follow you around and you can't even interact with them, pet them, nothing. content updates are very few and sparse, and even the seasonal events are simply a copy of the previous year.

the environment is gorgeous and i'm personally very invested in the lore; there's still so much to discover, but after burning through all of the main story quests in like two weeks, i've been forcing myself to find other things to do, because a beautiful world only goes so far. i'd cut it some slack for being in beta - if they at least were honest about it. the community, on the other hand, is a blessing. for the majority of the time you'll find kind and helpful people, especially on the discord, but ingame too. people will share resources and answer questions, and everyone tends to be very nice. it's a breath of fresh air from other multiplayer games.

speaking of community - the thing that hurts the most is the blatant disregard from S6 for our feedback. certain issues can take months, if not a whole year to be addressed - i'm looking at you, snowball flashbang. palia is marketed as a cozy, comfy game, yet it has issues with VFX and flashbanging which put player's lives at literal risk; mini-games and plataforming mechanics which render certain main story areas unplayable for disabled people; a history of miscommunication with the player base, and so many other instances that show us they just don't care as long as you're buying their cosmetics. last year a broken interaction prompt held back friendship questlines with 3 NPCs whose friendships are connected for /three months/ while they kept silent about it.

also and hey, if you're starting this game from steam, they won't tell you, but you /have/ to create a palia.com account when given the chance. trust me. the first time you boot this game you'll want to add your email when the popup shows and you're gonna wanna go to palia.com and try to 'recover your password' to actually create a password, because you /are/ going to have bugs you'll want to report and you /will/ need a palia.com account to do it. but they won't tell you. so i will ✨

-
anyways 3/10 because i actually think this game is pretty and relaxing, and it /can/ go places!.. but not until S6 decides to do it.

I love this game so much. It's everything Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing wishes it was. And it's FREE? Wild. I've made in-game purchases to support the developers because they put in a SHIFT with this game and deserve it. Highly recommend for any cozy gamer