I've been playing Pokémon for over half of my life, and over the years, I've seen countless fans clamour for a MMO Pokémon game. So, when TemTem, an MMO inspired by Pokémon is scheduled to release on January 21, you would expect some hype around it. Despite this, I hadn't really heard of it until recently.

TemTem is one of those rare Kickstarter projects that actually seems to have pulled through. First launched in May 2018, the project managed to reach its goal in under a week—perhaps a testament to how popular the idea is. In fact, the project eventually reached almost $600,000, over 7 times the initial goal. This ensured a release not only on PC, but also on the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

That's enough of TemTem's history, though. We've kindly been given access to the alpha, and I'm happy to share my feelings on this 'unique' title. This is not the final version, but given that the game is scheduled to release in a few weeks time, it should be a pretty good representation of the final

TemTem's Gameplay

I'd describe TemTem as 'Pokémon, but not'. That should be enough to give you the gist of the game. Where TemTem distinguishes itself is in the online functionality, improved interaction with NPCs, and slightly tougher battles.

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The first and most important part of a video game, of course, is designing your character. TemTem's simple character creator nails it for me, with a simple but effective interface. It's admittedly limited, but that makes it much less intimidating. There are also clothes shops in the game, something that excites me more than it should. Oddly enough, though, I didn't notice any options for height or weight, which seems to be a small oversight, given it's a fairly common feature of character creators.

You pick a starter TemTem at the Professor's lab early in the game. This is where the more obvious differences start to become apparent, with the starters being 'Crystal', 'Melee', or 'Mental' type. Afterwards, you are sent free into the world of TemTem, to capture wild creatures, battle tamers, and defeat Dojos across the land. Stop me if I'm going too fast for you.

Battling works similarly to the traditional Pokémon style, with a few key differences. Firstly, instead of having PP for each move, your TemTem have stamina bars. Different moves use up different amounts of stamina, which is slightly restored between turns, or by letting them rest. If you don't have enough stamina for an attack, your TemTem will overexert itself and take damage. Status effects also work differently, with poison wearing off, for example. The most interesting change is probably that most battles are fought 2v2, with both you and your opponent sending out 2 creatures each. This also applies to wild battles, where many encounters result in a 2v2 situation. Even if you only have 1 enemy TemTem, you will still send out two.

A neat mechanic is the ability for TemTem to complement each other in battle. Certain moves can do additional damage or apply certain effects if you use the right two creatures. For example, my 'Crystle' TemTem knows a move called 'Crystal Dust', which does additional damage if the TemTem besides her is Crystal type.

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Unfortunately, the type match-ups don't seem intuitive. There's the traditional Fire, Water, and 'Nature' types, which makes sense, but other types are more confusing. Maybe with more play you could get used to it, but it's definitely a barrier when you're starting out. The biggest issue I've found is working out what type my enemy TemTem are.

This leads into the designs for the creatures, which I'm not really enthralled by. They're not bad, but for the most part, they seem generic and uninspired. There are a few that I like, but even they don't resonate with me all that much. The designs aren't so similar to Pokémon, which makes the game stand on its own, but there's not really any charm to them.

Whilst playing TemTem, I kept forgetting that it's an MMO. If it was a single-player game, I don't think you'd be missing out on much. I haven't interacted with any other players, and whilst it is nice to be able to see them, it feels like a single-player game with multiplayer tacked on. Keep in mind, though, that this was my experience during the alpha, and not many players are around to interact with just yet.

Story

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I think one of the weaker aspects of Pokémon is the repetitive and sub-par plots. TemTem seems to be following this general formula, but does a few things that make it a bit more interesting. When talking to characters, there are usually dialogue options, and a lot of NPCs have quests you can carry out. I didn't get too far into the story, but the TemTem also seems to have a group of bad guys similar to Team Rocket. Overall, the story doesn't seem particularly interesting, but the optional quests and dialogue options make more involved than Pokémon, at least.

How about the graphics?

Y'know, there's something to be said about simple, cell-shaded graphics. I can only assume that this art-style is much easier to put together than something more realistic, and yet it still looks fantastic. As a game that is heavily inspired by a Nintendo franchise, I'm sure this works in its favour, especially since it is also releasing on the Switch.

On PC, it doesn't run so well. On a PC that is above the games 'recommended requirements' for 1080p/60fps, it's extremely disappointing. It runs at a solid 120fps during battles, but in the overworld, the framerate fluctuates wildly between 120fps and 45fps. The graphics menu also seems bugged, with only 'Ultra' settings available for the textures. I'm sure this will be fixed by release, since it's a pretty obvious mistake.

This is one of the few games where I think I'd take the Switch port over the PC version. I'd take a wild guess and say it will run at 30fps, but the portability is a huge bonus. Its saving grace here is the simple graphics, which are sure to scale down well, even at lower resolutions. We will, of course, have to see how the console ports turn out.

Final Thoughts

Overall, TemTem does its best to differentiate itself from Pokémon, succeeding in some areas, and failing in others. It's shaping up to be a fun game, which I may pick up myself in the future. It's almost like Pokémon from an alternate universe. That said, there are some issues with performance, and I dearly hope the online functionality is more exciting when there's more players around.

 

[Iggles]

Genuinely looks interesting

 

[Eonarma]

I dont agree with the temtem having bad design, they are definitly different from pokemon but they arent bad. Some are actually pretty good and better than what pokemon has come up with in years (looking at you garbage bag and vanilla cone pokemon, I dont even know why they chose to put those junk pokemon in SwSh). Also one of the main reasons people tend to think pokemon has better monsters than other franchises is becuase we have seen them hundreds if not thousands of times over our lives, we have shows, movies, advertisement, toys etc. Infact, gen 2 was the last show I saw, after that I probably know the names of a handful new pokemon.

Only reason pokemon stands out is because they got there first, not because its better or because only nintendo can make good monster tamer games. I like pokemon games, don't get me wrong, and I've played most of them and have sunk thousands of hours in them but the last time GF added some depth to their game was in Emerald (if im not wrong) when they added IVs, Evs and natures, everything else from there have been gimmicks that dont last past a generation.

As for the temtem typing, some are intuitive some others arent.... but then again every game has a learning curve.

I do agree with the point of the game sounding like a single player game made MMO, there doesnt sound like there are enough reasons for the game an MMO. You can play sthe story campaign with a friend in co-op, but other than that and probably people not being able to generate temtem using tools like PKHEX does in pokemon games, I dont know what other activity or benefit there is to having an always-online mosnter tamer game. They need to come up with some cool PVE content to keep players bussy besides competitive battles, I do need to say that their breeding system is amazing though.

 

[Deleted User]

Love that this is on all consoles and on pc, but would love to get it on Android aswell, so I can play my account anywhere.

Will be buying this the day it comes out, depending on the price that is.

 

[guisadop]

the monsters look so bad that they almost resemble gen 7 and gen 8 pokémon

 

[Skelletonike]

Love that this is on all consoles and on pc, but would love to get it on Android aswell, so I can play my account anywhere.

Will be buying this the day it comes out, depending on the price that is.

Well, the switch tehcnicaly fills that void.
I do carry mine pretty much everywhere.

 

[Pipistrele]

I dont agree with the temtem having bad design, they are definitly different from pokemon but they arent bad. Some are actually pretty good and better than what pokemon has come up with in years (looking at you garbage bag and vanilla cone pokemon, I dont even know why they chose to put those junk pokemon in SwSh). Also one of the main reasons people tend to think pokemon has better monsters than other franchises is becuase we have seen them hundreds if not thousands of times over our lives, we have shows, movies, advertisement, toys etc. Infact, gen 2 was the last show I saw, after that I probably know the names of a handful new pokemon.

My gripe is less with design being "bad" (it's not really all that bad), and more like it's way too pokemon-like for its own good. One thing that can be said about successful mon games is that each one carved out its own personality - be it Shin Megami Tensei with its semi-realistic and creative demons, Digimon with its kaijus and bold edges, Yo-Kai Watch with its unique spin on Japanese mythology, etc. At least judging by what we have, TemTem doesn't have such hook - its artistic direction borrows from Pokemon to the point of feeling like a fan-made romhack, and that really goes in the way of bestiary standing out on its own.

 

[Eonarma]

My gripe is less with design being "bad" (it's not really all that bad), and more like it's way too pokemon-like for its own good. One thing that can be said about successful mon games is that each one carved out its own personality - be it Shin Megami Tensei with its semi-realistic and creative demons, Digimon with its kaijus and bold edges, Yo-Kai Watch with its unique spin on Japanese mythology, etc. At least judging by what we have, TemTem doesn't have such hook - its artistic direction borrows from Pokemon to the point of feeling like a fan-made romhack, and that really goes in the way of bestiary standing out on its own.

This is true, they have been very vocal about being heavily inspired by pokemon but it would've been cool to have their monsters take a more original style, like what Rivals of Aethers did with their Smash platform fighter game.

 

[DuoForce]

As a Pokemon fan this game doesn't look interesting at all. It's just another Pokemon ripoff like the ones you see on the iOS appstore. I think I'll pass

 

[Pickle_Rick]

This is coming to Switch! Very hyped for this. I've been watching a few people play the alpha.

 

[Zkajavier]

It feels way too much like Pokémon, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't good either. Where it feels different, is that it is a MMO, and that's amazing.

The game still needs work. I wish they took more time before releasing it...

Nowadays people only value the first impression, games need to be on par to those they compare to or they fail, and releasing a perfect game on the first attempt is quite impossible.

I had fun playing it and hopefully it turns out to be popular, not for the sake of Crema, but to get Game Freak some good competition

 

[Xzi]

The game still needs work. I wish they took more time before releasing it...

As I pointed out in my first reply, it's not even in early access yet. Release likely isn't going to be until 2021 or very late this year.

 

[Eonarma]

As I pointed out in my first reply, it's not even in early access yet. Release likely isn't going to be until 2021 or very late this year.

unfortunately some people will judge the game as a full release, even after reading that its an early release. I've been following this game for so long and i'm really looking forward to EA but I am afraid that the content they have wont be enough to keep other people interested until full release.

 

[Xzi]

unfortunately some people will judge the game as a full release, even after reading that its an early release. I've been following this game for so long and i'm really looking forward to EA but I am afraid that the content they have wont be enough to keep other people interested until full release.

I suppose that's true, but anybody buying it or backing it for consoles won't have their first experience with the game until after it's out of early access.

 

[medoli900]

I really wonder whether Nintendo even agrees to a release on the Switch.
They already agreed to a few games that are similar to their franchises (Fast RMX (F-Zero), Brawlout (Smash Bros.) and so on) but this is a pretty obvious one.

Having that said I'm as hyped as I'm sceptical (as odd as that sounds). I'd give it a go when it really comes to the Switch.

It's like you've never heard of Spectrobe or Fossil Fighter

Speaking of which, the battle mechanics reminds me a lot of Fossil Fighter. Stamina with varying amount for attacks, sending multiple creatures at the same time for interaction between them and the like.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Surprisingly looks not bad. I'm definitely interested, but I have a feeling it will be repetitive as MMOs tend to be.

 

[tiamat999]

Looks cool but part what makes Pokemon fun is offline mode

 

[chrisrlink]

sadly i read no mac version (they always get the short end)

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Not too jazzed about the MMO factor - I'm an antisocial introvert with only one real friend, one that I've somehow kept ever since primary school (I'm amazed I haven't lost contact with him yet, like I did with my other primary school and high school - separate schools; none of the former went to the latter except me - friends), so I practically always play singleplayer.

Just keep an offline version, please, TemTem devs?

 

[MasterBlaster13b]

• Pokemon needs a little change