Fortnite meets Palworld sounds like a dream, but this battle royale monster tamer mix is a nightmare

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SHOULD I PLAY DREAMSTER WORLD?

Skip it for now; at least wait until the full release to see how things turn out. Dreamster World merges battle royale gameplay with monster-taming elements to create a game where I used resources to summon adorable monsters and have them fight against opponents. It’s all super interesting conceptually, but Dreamster World has a long way to go before it’s worth playing. The current beta test of the game is terribly underdeveloped and riddled with technical problems that make it a torturous experience.

TIME PLAYED

I played Dreamster World for two hours. I’ve played over two dozen matches and won about sixty percent of them. I’ve acquired four out of the thirty-seven monsters currently available in the game.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT DREAMSTER WORLD?

• Cool creature designs. Each monster in Dreamster World looks unique. Put another way, these don’t feel like they’ve just been copy-pasted from Pokémon. My favorite monster was Fieppy, a cute little fire-elemental puppy that sort of looks like a Shiba Inu.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN DREAMSTER WORLD?

• False advertising. The advertising on Dreamster World makes it seem like an entirely different game instead of a battle royale with monster-taming features. The trailer shows an open-world game with monster-catching, questing, exploration, and other RPG elements similar to Pokémon. In reality, though, there’s nothing like that in the game, at least not in the current test version. Maybe the game that’s promised in the trailers and screenshots is still getting worked on for the full release, but be warned that all that’s on offer right now is repetitive battle royale gameplay.

• Repetitive battle royale gameplay. Speaking of! There isn’t anything to do in Dreamster World beyond playing battle royale matches. I spent all of my time either fighting against bots in a match or waiting in a lobby for the queue to pop so I could do it all over again. And unlike Fortnite and other great competitive games, the gameplay offered no strategy or depth to make things challenging. I won most of my matches by just farming resources until I was strong enough, but I didn't feel like I was being pushed to think about my approach at all.

• Connection issues and bots. I regularly encountered lag throughout my playthrough, causing massive delays and rubber banding. Of course, that’s when I was even able to get into a match against actual real-life players. One of the biggest issues I encountered with Dreamster World was the lack of players and the number of bots inserted into matches to compensate for that. Even though I played a ton of matches at different times in the day, I never got the chance to play against another person. Matches were always filled with bots and while that kept games flowing, it was always disappointing to play alone.

PLATFORM TESTED

Android via Samsung Galaxy Ultra S22 5G phone.