Palworld would be best described as 3rd person Rimworld (they like the game's style so much they even ripped off the name), with Pokemon elements.

Because Coromon and Nexomon haven't both been a thing for ages, and those are actual copies of the formula.

They're both Japanese companies operating under Japanese law, so even if you are an "Internet Copyright Specialist", you're probably only familiar with the American laws. 'Fair use' and 'parody' are not codified terms in their laws, but they have their own quirks and exemptions.

Like, honestly, while I can see how a couple of the pals are suspiciously similar to existing pokemon, most of them bear no real resemblance simply because they're so generic. And it's basically just a reskin of the developers' prior game "craftopia" (which is also permanently early access) anyways.

NGL, all the "hype" and "controversy" around palworld feels manufactured/astroturfed. I hardly see any actual pokemon circles talking about it, but what I DO see is hoards of probably-chatgpt bots loudly proclaiming how you should buy the game to "stick it to nintendo" or whatever.

This will fail since this has been heard in the past during the Street Fighter 2 boom back in the day.There were tons of copycat fighting games that mimickek the gi main character with other similar trope characters and moves, yet they were distinct enough that court found Capcom's claims unmerited.

Nintendo said they'd, "take a look at it," and then when radio silent. Which means their army of psychopathic lawyers are cooking a cruel devious plan... or they don't see anything they can sink their teeth into and want fanboi cultists to stop flooding them with screenshots and 3D model rips.

guys believe me, i have a major in internet copyright law