Temtem PC Review

Temtem is quite a unique game inspired by the Pokémon franchise in many ways. Crema studio introduced their take on a fantasy world filled with unusual monsters that can be tamed and trained. The game was taken to Kickstarter where it quickly won over a dedicated audience.

In Temtem, you play as a tamer on a creature-collection adventure which will allow you to explore the open world of the game. Your journey starts on the Airborne Archipelago as you chase your ambition of becoming the best Temtem tamer.

Prepare your squad: this is our Temtem PC review.




Temtem is an MMO with all the associated online and community features. The game has recently left Early Access and embraced the full release, inviting new players to explore the Airborne Archipelago.

Once you step your foot in Temtem, you will find a colorful and pleasant title in many aspects: a large number of players, lively online community – sometimes even queues to log in! – as well as a Global chat with other Tamers that are always ready to lend you a hand. Of course, you can’t completely escape trolls no matter how you try.

The game’s take on cooperation is nicely done and beautifully implemented, and features a great functionality: you can duel your opponents or join other Tamers to quest and adventure together. You can also join guilds and much more.

However, like most MMOs, Temtem also will have you grind, backtrack and participate in painfully obvious time-sink activities. The game incites this in a variety of ways. For example, earning currency in Temtem might take quite a long time. The issue is further instigated by the fact that Temtem will eat up your hard-earned money right away, be it buying an outfit that caught your eye or losing a battle and having to resurrect a Temtem with already pretty scarce consumables.

If you have finished the main campaign of the game, you might want to consider the option of buying the Tamer Pass that will unlock additional bonuses and other cosmetic items not found in the game. It’s not a bad idea, especially if you plan to spend a lot of time playing the game.

And Temtem seems like the game you can lose a couple hundred hours to. It can eat up A LOT of your time. Mostly due to its main feature: creature battling. After all, there will be a lot of them as well as surrounding activities such as leveling up your squad, catching new Temtem and participating in dungeons featuring special challenges.

The battling system is the very core of Temtem. It is diverse and fairly complex: as a rookie tamer, you will get your first Temtem at the Academy, starting your army of cute, diverse and beautiful creatures.

Every Temtem has its own parameters: elemental affiliation, with its strong and weak sides, endurance, defense, attack and many others. To competently battle other Temtem trainers, it is something that you will need to remember or better yet save the list of weaknesses/counters of various elements somewhere and use when needed. Water creatures counter the Fire ones, the Fire Temtem can beat Nature-based monsters while those easily overcome Rock-affiliated ones. There is a lot to keep track of, both in terms of Temtem and in terms of elemental affinities.

As a tamer, you will collect, catch and raise your squad, help them with Evolution into stronger and more developed versions and also breed them, getting new unusual Temtems for your little army. The developers took a peek at the Pokemon system and honed it to a state of a beautiful, polished diamond.

The battles are taking place in turn-based manner. Every Temtem has its own health pool, stamina/mana and skills. This is where the interesting part starts: if you have, say, 10 mana while a particular skill costs 15, it will take away from your health pool the amount you are lacking in mana. If your Temtem was beaten, you can swap it for a different one from the squad that consists of up to 6 Temtem.

Preferably, you’d have each one of them leveled up and developed, ready to battle. And, while your squad does feature only 6 at a time, the overall storage can have very, very many of them. The overall mechanics are quite simple to grasp from the very beginning although the system does have its peculiarities.

Outside of battling, your time will be spent exploring the Archipelago and interacting with other players.

There is no main quest per se. You arrive at the Academy for training, and from that point on you are guided by quests and tasks: fight in the arena, find a special Temtem, gather something and so forth.

You can play on your own or join a group. Altogether, being a part of a group with other players is a more interesting and enjoyable way, although the solo game is not lacking in any means. As an MMO, Temtem currently is very basic. There are no particularly massive events, no strong hooks for a multiplayer game outside of battling. Yes, you will be seeing other players around but the game does not force nor entice you to interact with them.

I will make a special note of jRPG-like mechanics – the combat will haunt you everywhere. For example, you need to cross a sidewalk from one house to the next, literally taking a dozen steps from the starting location to your goal. So far, so good. Except you might be forced to fight half a dozen battles in that time, which is something I’ve personally experienced, dragging this occasion into a lengthy experience.

Sure, you can attempt to run… except moving counts as your turn in combat, and it doesn’t stop the enemy from attacking your Temtem. Healing them with bandages to off-set the received damage is quite expensive.

You can attempt to go to the hospital where your creatures will be healed for free, except the path will take you across 4-5-10 zones that will feature aggressive patrolling wild Temtems. See where this is going?

If that wasn’t enough, there is also a great number of NPC-tamers that will challenge you to a fight and no, declining is not an option.

The combat system itself is well thought-out but quite simple overall. After a few hours spent in battles, you will settle on a convenient and most importantly effective combination of skills and Temtems and… that’s about it. After that point it becomes a bit same-y and boring.

Luckily, Temtems increase their levels, go through the process of evolution and get new skills. Catching rare Temtems is also a fun way to spend time, especially if you are into gathering collectibles. Assembling your own team is a lot of fun.

The overall story of the game is quite standard and half-baked. You are awakened by your mother and… out you go to become the greatest Temtem tamer and to collect them all! Pardon, wrong franchise. I can’t say that the plot managed to grab me much but at least it is not another Isekai. Overall, the story plays a more complementary role to the overall gameplay.

The game itself is bright and beautiful, the music is nice, and the creatures are plentiful. After all, the Temtems are the main reason to jump into the game. If you like collecting and breeding all kinds of interesting, cute, powerful or efficient monsters, this game is for you.

To sum it up, I think the game has a lot of room for improvement. It does not feature a convenient in-game map (no active markers) or a strong quest system. There are many questions to the in-game currency that is spent almost entirely on healing items. Temtem also doesn’t shy away from wasting your time with backtracking and other problematic aspects. But when it comes to Temtems and the battling systems, the aesthetics and more – the game can suck you in for a few dozen hours at least.

As a final note, if you like collecting, leveling up and breeding cute animals, then the game is worth your attention. I am going to follow the development of Temtem with great hope because in its current state it has great potential.

Note: the Steam key was provided for free for the purposes of this review.

Summary
If you like collecting, leveling up and breeding cute animals, then Temtem is a game is worth your attention. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but the creature-collecting part of the game shines brightly.
Good
  • Visuals and music
  • Temtems!
  • Character customization
  • Interactive map on the site
Bad
  • In-game map
  • A great number of lengthy fights
  • Time sinks
7.5
Good

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