Honestly feels more like the Pokémon anime than the games in many ways

Honestly, this is why I think all the complaints about it being edgy and stuff are overblown.
As easy as it is to call Palworld "pokemon with guns", it's really just pokemon. JUST pokemon. It's Pokemon as a 3d openworld adventure game, instead of abstracting through turn orders and menus. It's pokemon where you can do all the things implied or outright stated in the official games. It's not pokemon with guns, it's pokemon that lets you use the guns.
If they do it well they could end up making the best pokemon game in terms of immersion, they've just stopped saying that being the main character makes what you do inherently good.