Palia: Holidays & Nintendo Switch Launch – Giving it Another Try
Posted on December 11, 2023 by Aywren
Last time I wrote about Palia, I was having trouble finding a hook to keep me in the game. This is odd, because it seems like the type of game that would really appeal to me. And yet, I kept bouncing right off of it.
One of my complaints was the lack of money in the game, and how everything – including holiday decorations – seemed to require money that I struggled to get. So, when I heard that the Palia Winterlights event centered around questing for decorations rather than buying them, I decided to give the game another shot.
On top of that, I knew that they’d added rare Starstones that you could find when you mine nodes. These could be sold for a good chunk of change, so I wondered if that would assist in sorting through my money frustrations.
And even further more than that, they announced the Nintendo Switch version of the game (launching December 14), which can connect to the PC version of the game and be played on the same account interchangeably. Now, considering I do not have any MMO game on my Switch, this did excite me.
Holiday Event Troubles
I logged into Palia with the express intention to try out the new Winterslight event. I knew that part of it launched with a letter in the mailbox, so I tooled about as I waited for that to come. I had a bunch of quests that I’d not touched in the journal, and I wanted to see if I could mine up something that could help me put some gold in the bank.
In fact, I did just that. I lucked out and mined up a rare gem that netted me an instant 600 gold… which… for me… was huge. I continued to work on leveling a skill to 5 (if that tells you how far behind on quests I am), and mined up a few more lesser-value gems as the time for mail came and went.
Similar to some of the old Harvest Moon type games, you only get mail twice a day – at 6 am and 6 pm. So as those times came and went and I saw no mail, I began to wonder what was going wrong.
That’s when I returned to blog post and saw this:
Oh. Right.
I hadn’t finished any of those quests, though they were in my journal.
So, what started out as a log in and try it out thing turned into a much longer gaming session as I worked to achieve the goals to finish these quests. One part of the Prove Your Generosity was not easy, either. This required you to fulfill 5 player requests by sending them the items that they put out as a public request (you can do that if you’re missing crafting components, for example).
The thing is, everyone is so much further advanced than I am in the game that they were often requesting items I had no chance in the world to own, much less send. This part took hours to finish, with me checking back every few minutes to see what the newest requests were.
Eventually, I did complete that, and the other quests. It was then that the mail finally arrived.
I was so very pleased to see that the centerpiece – the tree – was straight up given to players.
There was a second mail that dealt with a sort of scavenger hunt for holiday chests, but in my research to figure out what I was missing, I’d already found a guide that pointed me to all the locations. You apparently didn’t need the mail to come before you found the chests.
Holiday Event Fun
Once I had the tree – this took unexpected hours to get, keep in mind – I was then pointed on another questline for the ornaments. This one centered around meeting up with all the NPCs in the game to light a candle with them. Only then would they offer their hopes for the upcoming year.
It’s also about this time when I figured other things out – such as where the general store was to purchase seeds for farming. Since I was running around gathering and locating NPCs the whole time, I’d started to have a stronger grasp on the map and the gathering locations. I even ran across a second map that I didn’t know existed, due to a quest that pointed me that way.
I’m starting to warm up to the NPCs finally. I never disliked them (though purple elves are kinda odd), but I just didn’t fully connect with them, even though they’re well-written and they all seem to be full of personality.
I think my favorites so far (I don’t remember names) are the fishing robot fellow and the pun-slinging farmer who is always ready with a dad joke. Though I could see myself liking a number of them if I spent the time to get to know them better. I’m just not sure how much time I want to spend lavishing them with gifts and chat every day. We’ll see.
What I was most impressed by, though, was that the ornaments you earned from the quest were individual items. And the tree itself was an item that contained many open slots for the ornaments to fit into.
It’s kinda hard to explain, but the effect was as if you were decorating a real tree in a way – no two trees would be alike due to this, and I felt this was super neat.
My little house still doesn’t have much in the way of décor, but as I’ve made new connections with the people in the town, they’ve stopped by to give me their favorite color of wallpaper. This gives me a lot more to choose from than I had before.
And the finished tree, with the wall decorations, turned out quite nice.
Overall, this was so much better than the Halloween event where I struggled to scrape up enough gold for just one jack-o-lantern and the wall paper. That was such a frustration that I’d not logged in to Palia since – I had to put the jack-o-lantern away, in fact, because it was still on the front step.
I still don’t know how much time I will have to put into Palia, but these newer changes and approaches help to alleviate some of the things that I found annoying. I still don’t have a ton of money, but I feel like I have a better idea how I can make it now. I’m starting to understand things like repairing tools as I unlock more workstations.
I’ve already downloaded it on the Switch and will be connecting my account come the release on December 14. There are some pretty cute rewards, and the idea of having a cozy MMO on my only handheld system is a plus for me.
Thumbs up to Palia’s development direction as of late! I might be checking back in more often.