Palia Closed Beta Review

I've had the pleasure of getting into Palia's closed beta yesterday, and I played it all day yesterday and all morning today.  I'm delighted and can't get enough!  This game gives me all the happy chemicals to my brain!

The character creator is a good start, but needs work.  The palest skin tone is very tan.  So my player character is a bit orange for my liking.  Also, there are no freckles to be had.  On the bright side, there's an excellent set of pigtails and a basic set of glasses on offer from the very beginning.  For outfits, there are a bunch of mix and match tops and bottoms, and a couple dresses, all available to you free of charge.  You can change your outfit whenever you like from the tailor's shop or your wardrobe once you craft one on your housing lot.\

The controls are easy to get used to.  WASD to move, mouse controls camera, F for most interactable objects.  If you don't like those controls, you can map them to other keys.  There's no controller support yet, but they are promising to add it in the near future.

• Cooking is simple to start, but there's a bit of a minigame at higher levels.  I haven't gotten that far yet.
• Hunting is a test of patience.  You need to sneak up on the animals and aim carefully, because once the animals notice you, they bounce around like crazy.
• Bug catching is much of the same, but with more margin for error.
• Gardening is pretty straight forward.  You plant things, water them every in-game day (1 hour), and eventually you can harvest what you planted.
• Foraging is a combination of picking flowers and chopping trees and bushes down with an axe.  
• Fishing is more challenging than most fishing minigames, but not too challenging that it's stress inducing.
• Furniture making is one of the things you can do with all the lumber you've collected.
• Mining is the same as it is in any other game.  You pick at rocks to get stones and ore.

Since I enjoyed the beta very much, I showed my support by purchasing a premium costume bundle.  I'm aware some people don't like the premium costume shop, but all the rest of the game is entirely free, and servers and devs need to be paid.  I have purchased premium costumes from other games and I feel the pricing is both on average with other current games and fair.  Simple costumes with a top and a bottom go for about 10USD, more advanced costumes with headpieces and back accessories cost more, around 20USD.  If you like a whole set, the bundle is buy 2, get 1 free, which is a good discount.  They are only accepting credit card payments at this time, but people have requested Paypal, so that may come in the future.

What about the quests and the NPCs?  They're fine, and they're cute.  I will make fanart of them and post it on my DeviantArt.  I'm not emotionally attached to anyone yet, but we'll see what happens.  What about the community?  I haven't spoken to another soul yet, forget joining a community.  The communities only fit 25 people, which is way too small.  We'll see what happens.