Temtem

Long time since buying this I'm finally writing a review as I picked it up and started playing it again recently. This game is an easy recommendation from me especially if you enjoy monster collectors. I'll make shit simple.

Story 7.5/10
Has it's up and down points. Defiantly seems like it was trying to be a more adult pokemon story. Which I personally love. I feel like it taps into a bit of the potential something like this could have especially near the end.
Gameplay 8/10
It's about as good as you get for a turn based battle system. What puts this apart from something like pokemon is that all the battles are double battles and really gets you into the mind set of using combination attacks and building your team around supporting moves and spread attacks to quickly get through the fights.
Difficulty
Not sure what to give this out of 10 as the game has co-op and can be easily done with a friend that has high level tems. it also have challenge modes over all I feel like the difficulty is at a good place. The boss of the base game threw me for a loop though. Better be prepared.

Other notes:
The co-op is great, you can run through the whole story with a friend via the party system. You get to fight the same wild Tems and you do the same Tem Trainer fights also.
I haven't touched end game yet but the story alone is good enough for me to recommend this. The end game seems to be money farming, building a team for comp, dungeons, and some other variety of stuff. I saw some people talking about releasing tems for thing also. So, it might has something for you to stick around after finishing the story.
I will say I did run into some bugs while playing co-op with a friend through the story, though not game braking but was a bit annoying.

Final thoughts:
Great game. I really hope the devs keep with adding stuff to the game or making a sequel. I think this game a great alternative to pokemon. The community is pretty great to willing to help out people in the chat and surprisingly very alive even in earlier story areas.

I really love the combat system, the designs of the temtem and just the over all vibe. I'm very burnt out from pokemon so I have enjoyed being able to play another monster catcher game that in some ways reaches that pedestal. Love multiplayer. Love stats, competition. I would highly recommend this game. And it's also super cute.

Welp, i gotta say, Since Palworld is in the crosshairs with Nintendo i was keeping an eye out for another Pokemon alternative just in case. but this is some solid gold right here!

its diverse enough with new types of creatures like Crystal and Digital type tems, unique designs that nintendo can't come after them, and the world feels far more interactive than any pokemon game ive played since black and white.

the double style centered gameplay feels soo much better. I loved the doubles battle in pokemon but it didn't get the proper support needed. the actual Tems and meta data: the SVs and TVs are far easier to understand and it is a blessing that they aren't hidden like in pokemon, this game gives the full control to make the team you want to use

Just a reskined Pokemon, and a really boring one at that. Cut and paste rival, cut and paste "gyms" cut and paste story, "oh no, the first gym leader is missing" made it to that point and just could not bring myself to continue. Maybe it gets better later, but I do not have the mental fortitude to find out.

i dont have much to say for the game itself. im bored and i want to feel like im producing something, tho, so i may as well talk about pokemon. mmo's are bad, FF14 is one big erp server, next question.

pokemon was so accidentally genius it's staggering, the proof is in how many of these monster taming games either completely miss the mark (coromon, temtem, cassette beasts etc) or completely dodge the idea of pokemon in favor of attempting to make devolved, mystified versions of animals to capitalize on that fuzzy warm feeling you have for your cat and that sinister feeling in your gut to want to own an exotic animal for clout and draping them over a completely different game (palworld, monster sanctuary, dragon quest monsters ((yes im aware of the irony here)), etc)

i would like to see someone make pokemon again. it hasn't been done before, and pokemon itself is devolving by the moment, losing some of it's most coordinated attributes on the carelessness invoked by 20 years of crunch. a game so involved with placing a player in a world tour through a modern analogue of a region of earth to just interact with should be so simple that it's shovelware, yet the only other game that vaguely tries the same thing, digimon world, has also deteriorated as it's purpose is being manifold lost to the whims of commodification.

not that pokemon isn't inherently a commodified idea, it deeply embraces petty production, being a simulacrum of the japanese pasttime of beetle raising, but the scale of the regions it wants to inhabit elevate it beyond this simple fact, beyond the obvious questions of whether pethood is slavery (it probably is)

This game does what Pokemon is afraid of: A fully double battle format, stamina system instead of PP prevents abuse of one Tem, trainer and dojo fights are difficult, well in the sense that you can't steamroll the game, your tems will faint and you will constantly need revives/heals. The game knows this and they give you a FREE FULL RESTORE for your whole team and it refreshes! Trying to figure out their super effective/weakness system is hard, I am still trying to figure it out without looking them up, but it just adds to the challenge. Disabling battle animations and increased speed when trying to capture Tems feels amazing, especially during your time training. The battle theme song is really good too.
It's also fun to see people in the open world, but it does heavily spoil a lot, it might be nitpicking, but obviously you will be able to get into the water, but seeing people physically in the water spoils the surprise of how you do it. Besides this, there are not many glaring flaws.
9/10

its fundamentally better than pokemon, and looks better. but as anything would it has its issues.

first, this is offically dead. confirmed by the devs it wont have any more updates that arent bug fixes or season pass adjustments, and they said theyre stretching the duration of season passes.

on top of that, the game gives you features, and at one point you lose them. i HATE when games do that. now i have to spend a bunch of hours to get all of that back.

this is also always online, with no option to play offline. i dont care about chat or being able to see other people when all im playing this for is PvE. and the dev hasnt shown any interest in making the game work offline. which also means when they kill these servers, this game dies with it.

the story is all text, with very little animation, just characters waving at each other sometimes. no voice acting at all. and the story itself is very bland.

there are upsides, its more challenging than pokemon, with DRAMATICALLY better animations. fun traversal when you have them unlocked, though the crytal dojo is an awful sin of a puzzle thats more annoying than fun.

It's Co-op Pokemon without the legal team. What's there to dislike?

This game is pokemon if everything took 3 times longer to do. You get no exp, no currency, your starter first evolves at level 34 and so does most other creatures. The side quests are all fetch quests that reward you with nothing. The routes are full of npcs that start the battle with tons of pointless dialogue. Also it's online only. Get Cassette Beasts instead if you don't have it already it's much better.
Temtem 3/10
Cassette Beasts 9/10 play this instead

cant stay connected for more than a few minutes without the server crashing

Very mixed feelings on this game, so far all it has is aesthetics that keeps me playing. Super irritating gameplay, can't walk literally 5 steps without a battle. It has been maybe 20 mins just trying to get to a quest area

Fun pokemon like - Likely will just play to beat the campaign but we'll see

The mechanics in this game are amongst the worst in any pokemon clone ive ever played

7.5 / 10

graphics - great!
audio / atmosphere - great!
mechanics - even better than basic pokemon imo; 2v2 battles with team abilities like synergy that are random per-monster

why not an 8, 9, or 10?

pacing and quests. it gets a bit grindy and some quests are low fun like "hey go run this errand for me"

monster tamer mmo. difficulty curve is a little on the steep side but not bad.

10/10 experience so far, and I still haven't finished the story. Knowing there's, not one but, two variants of "shiny" equivalent makes reaching end game sweeter. Very well worth it and one of the best in the creature collector genre that doesn't stray to far from the one we all love and hate.

Very enjoyable monster battling/collecting game.

-Mom, I want to play pokemon
-But we have pokemon at home
Pokemon at home:

temtem my beloveddeded

tem/tem would tem agem

I think I can safely recommend this after having played Temtem for 2219 hours.

i went to pigepic bridge and all i got was a t-shirt

I refunded it after 7 minutes of playing because I couldn't name my character my first 3 choices because they were taken, and I tried to save but realized its an online only game and saw a battle pass. I just quit WoW and am struggling with that I'm not going to be stockholmed into a pokemon clone mmo right after getting out of one of the most toxic communities ever.

I love this game. that is the long and short of it. I recommend this game if you have any love for the pokemon series and don't mind double battles.

it is totally fine game for what it is
It is obviously a pokemon clone with no real difference other than the Temtem using stamina for all their move instead of each move using their own PP
the main thing is all combat are done with 2 Temtem
for a game that has been release for more than a year there is still a lot of QOL not present and that would greatly enhance this game, grab this at the super price of 15$ it is not worth it at all at the normal price of 50$
It is just, sure, whatever, no real interesting thing but at the same time its totally fine
it is passable
but after 10 hours, its whatever, It's a no for me

Commented just to say CaptainCassidy thats the dumbest review ive ever read hahahaha

I've been playing for 6 hours now. I've restarted a couple of times, because I learned more of the mechanics, and wanted to start fresh with my new knowledge.

Pros
• Cute and vibrant graphics
• Cool and varied design of the Temtems
• Combat is fun, sort of...
• I like the violin-driven fighting music

Cons
• Linear as all hell
• NPC are boring and interchangable
• No voice acting
• Long treks through grass which interrupts your traversal every 30 seconds with obligatory fights
• No real incentive to or joy in collecting the monsters
• And the cardinal sin: It's not fun!

Total 4/10 - Other Pokémon-clones do it better. Mediocre isn't good enough.

The development team does not give a single ♥♥♥♥ about you.

Okay, while this is a negative review, it's primarily for the following reasons:

1) This is a Pokemon clone, which does not really bother me, but it's ALSO meant to be an MMO... but has no offline mode, and is not treated like an MMO. The Pokemon aspects are overwhelming, with nothing particularly unique brought to the table in the story or mechanics. I also like that it's not for kids, but it's hard to think of it that why when "the evil team eats poop" is a frequent dialog option you can select. Seriously? Eugh. :/

2) No memorable characters. Everyone is a very basic combination of traits, with minimal exploration on what those mean for the characters as a whole. Everyone feels like a cardboard cutout of some particular trope or theme.

3) It's... weird... how often you can misgender characters, or are preached at by the Free Tem people, or how weirdly morally righteous some dialog feels. It feels like this game wanted to tackle bigotry and the moral implications of battling Tems, but does neither in any meaningful way. I could just go on Twitter and have the same dialog from 10k randos. The story doesn't hold my interest at all, either. I don't feel like I can connect with or care about any of the characters. Max is infuriating in away Blue/Gary Oak could never dream of being, for all the wrong reasons.

4) Designs look unfinished. I have this problem with a few games, including Palworld, but some designs just feel like they aren't done. Saku doesn't look like a final evolution. Pigepic doesn't feel like it matches the style of the rest of the game. Raiber looks less like an evolutionary line and more like "baby, teen, adult," with nothing particularly changing about the evolutions to make them unique from one another. The Pahro line is red, green, and pink- that's nitpicky but it's a very strange color combination for a bird.

5) The price feels indicative of an MMO, but the MMO aspects are so toned down that it doesn't at all feel like an MMO. And there's no offline/single player mode. Why not just have options to connect with groups or servers like Terraria, Stardew, or even Don't Starve Together? Smaller sample sizes, more likeliness for interactions (if that's what the goal is), etc. I'm not super savvy on it, but would that be less of a server load, too?

6) Needs a functional in-game report system where the player doesn't have to be right on top of you. Passed by user "itouchminors" and could not report them because of this. (Idc about fiction stuff, that's well known, but I do care about people being nasty and toxic and gross for "shock value" or whatever :/)

Ultimately, I'm going to continue playing, and I really like the idea behind this game (and have 0 issue with Pokemon/any other game clones/inspired by/parodies/whatever), but it's just not very engaging. The story would need too much of an overhaul to be practical for this game, so I hope the other TemTem stuff focuses more on that! And less on preaching to the player in an attempt to be Black and White 1 and 2.

EDIT: POST ADDITION 10 HOURS (60ish hours)

Wow. Who is this game trying to preach to? From the "tasteless cosplayer" to the weeb in Chipaku, to the transplant who is almost comically appropriating the culture in Omninesia... They're written like bad caricatures of cultural ignorance, or something you might've seen on forums in 2002 anime boards, in a way that's less than charming. Every time I stop to read dialog it's like I'm back on 2015 tumblr, being preached and yelled at that xyz is badevilwrong. Again, this game isn't made FOR kids, specifically (your character refers to themselves as an adult but are likely under 21, and has plenty of swearing and themes that are teen-and-up in nature.

It feels like a section of the writing is done more like a callout than a story. Why? What purpose does that serve? All three instances of cultural ignorance (or general ignorance) are completely valid and interesting topics to explore, but the most you can say is "you're a clown" or "belostro eat poop!" ???? What is this, Twitter? I'm just waiting for an NPC in this video game about fighting monsters to start preaching about the morality of evil drawings next... which is extremely unfortunate. It's no wonder this game didn't catch on in most online subcultures, especially those who have moved away from the tumblr/twitter drama of the late 2010s.

I really like playing this game, but every time I stop to read the dialog, I take psychic damage. :( I honestly can't recommend anyone buy it if they want an interesting or well-written story, nor if they want to join the competitive scene (there's very few players). What's left feels like a great idea, with a beautiful world and so much hard work put into it... but with the soul stripped out of it.

I'm sorry, I don't normally leave reviews like this. I'm so happy that this game is so inclusive of queer folk, and clearly wants to talk about more mature topics. But... hire a writer over the age of 14 to do it, even if it's just NPC dialog, please.

Played since Early Access and up until a couple months after official launch. Fun monster tamer with plenty of QoL appreciated for matured gamers like myself

The game is awesome! Design, battles, aesthetics, everything is coming together and they're doing a great work so far. The downside in my opinion lies mainly in maps and navigation... All maps are too much of a labyrinth, it can become really frustrating trying to get to mission spots or simply wondering around the archipelagos. Besides, everything is still too expensive to get, but they're trying to get this better.

Nope. Devs made one of those lazy and stupid "survivor-like" "games". Don't support that stupidity.

abandoned...

Everything Pokemon never gave you

Better than pokemon but Crema messed up the Launch.

Pokemon with a friend. Very nice and satisfying coop gameplay, playing the game because of it and this game is amazing at it. Definitely better than the last pokemon games, PLUS A COOP! Amazing, recommending it!

This game is interesting. It allows you to play with another player and allows up to 2 Tems on the battlefield. It also makes you think of strategies when competing in the gym battles. You can buy and sell items as well as breed for better Tems. You get lots of items that help you customize your self, Tem, house, etc. It is the best Pokemon-like game I have played!

A very long and repetitive game: Instead of diluting the gameplay with various activities, you are forced to fight literally every few steps.
At the same time, there is no fast travel (until you complete main quests), the gadgets are very limited in use and they are periodically removed just to complicate your movement around the map and force you to take detours that will take 3x more time, and fights i remind you happens every few of steps.

Everything is too poorly worked out and repetitive, it gets boring super quickly and positive emotions turn into annoying routine.

Since you're just lazily copying from Pokemon, try to learn what users liked and what they didn't like about Pokemon. Because you managed to make the bad sides even more annoying than the original.

Honestly, it isnt bad at all. I love the designs of the Temtem very much and the art style is great, I just wish it wasn't always online.

amazing

Good monster capture game

An amazing alternative to Pokemon or other creature collector games. Essentially an MMO Pokemon game if you will. Every battle is a doubles battle, allowing for incredible diversity and insight into your next move and what the opponents next move might be! You can also play this game COMPLETELY WITH A FRIEND! My buddy Krayshawn and I have played this sooo many times together. Either the base game, or the challenge runs.. Both are so much fun and we have a blast roleplaying as the bad guys every time. We hate Max! I love Temtem and if you enjoy any creature collector games I think you will too.
Overall: 8.3/10

This game is a lot of fun. It feels like other monster catching games, but it has some serious strategy to it. The story has some really cool twists and turns and the characters are charming and interesting. Overall I really am enjoying the game.

its great... what we needed from a pocket monster collecting game with a new take on it. . . very refreshing!!

if they fixed the nuzlockemode I pefer this in every way over pokemon I mean every way it has a story that is simple but doesn't treat like a dumdum. there is no in fight rng breeding is much easier to rig and it's a mmo

So i played back in early acess left off as story was incomplete the game can be fun for a bit it has the concept and the art of a good creature capture game , however i comeback as i seen their newest thing is a survivor like genre so i figured i would complete the game now that i have the time just to see identity politics and immersion breaking things come into the story as well as the slog to even get through the game at points as exp isnt balanced and the amount of trivial banter that has no impact or the loss of key items really felt bad then to get through the later half story if felt like a rushed scrip like their was supposed to be more indepth story and development of npc and lore that got shoehorned in the last second . a weekly challenge that locked behind completion to even some really good things that help with movement it like a slap in the face as you get no satisfactory story climax no real question were answered and then they hand you after words a item that couldnt exist before . Overall Its gameplay loop is okay diffrent enough but gets old quickly the despairty to leveling is hugh and a slog, the story lacks and fill with obscene amount of battles that you wish you could just skip and then keeping key things from player till they beat your story is a bad decision and rude in most cases as you tell them you dont respect their time.

Its pokemon and great. They need to shorten the battle text delays: game could be 2/3 as long as it was with zero difference in experience... Other than not being told my dudes ability the 600th time for 3 seconds.

the game was good. it had tons of potential. there were small issues in the past but after the 1.0 release, the devs just added a cash shop for outfits and mounts (no pay for power or anything) and then didnt do a single thing with the game. for pvp, all they ever did was just nerf strong stuff mainly by removing moves and abilities from the temtems that were strong so a lot of them are just shells of their former self.

if you want to play the game, the story is very simple, very predictable, but it does its job. the fights are hard and the postgame fights are also hard. the issue is that theres no reason to do anything, theres hardly any coop endgame activities, and the devs dont give a shit.

absolutely never worth the $44.99 that they are asking and please dont support Crema for future games. they clearly don't have any interest in growing a game. they just collect on price tags and promise then dip.

Nowhere near finished, but I already feel like this is the kind of monster catcher gameplay I've been missing.

Although it scratches the itch for monster taming RPGs, something about the story and progression feels "anti-fun" for lack of a better word. Purely miserable sections of the game where you are stripped of resources (that you only just received) and forced to fight through a miserable continent with monsters you didn't even want or care about. Some of the most grueling and unforgiving tactics deployed against you, all the while barely scraping by on resources with some little freaks you never even asked for. Genuinely just not fun to play through! Still worth it despite it all, especially if you can get it on sale.

I cannot recommend this game. Not since the developers abandoned the game. No more new temtem monsters or updates to this game. In theory its what Pokemon fans always wanted, but it always felt a bit off. The art style of the Temtem and graphics are okay.

Take my word for it and just buy Coromon instead. It emulates the pixel graphics of the Gen 3 Pokemon games (Emerald and FireRed). That game is still getting updated and to me is just more fun to play. The sprites and graphics of Coromon just feel more comfy that the 3D models and bright graphics of Temtem. Temtem always felt a bit soulless compared to Coromon.

Also why pay $45 for a dead game that the developers gave up on? A dead always online monster catcher? Nah dont do it.
Wouldn't you rather spend $40 on the new Dragon Quest Monsters game instead?