Howdy! When I learned Pokemon was cutting the National Dex, I sought out alternative games. In doing so, I discovered Ooblets (monster collecting & farming, with dance battles as opposed to violent battles), Coramon (monster collecting in an old-school pixel-art isometric format), and Temtem (massive multiplayer open-world monster collecting with the addition of home customization)). I love Ooblets, Coramon ultimately wasn't for me, and I'm currently playing Temtem. I grew up with Pokemon so I'll be bringing those games up for comparison a lot here.
There's a lot to like. Temtem is available on Steam, which is very accessible, Playstation and XBox. The graphics remind me of a more polished Crash Bandicoot. The world is huge, filled with lore, and each nation has it's unique legends, culture, and slang. My squad is around level 40 and thus far, there is no equivalent for Pokemon's Fly HM. Meaning, I'm getting around manually, when not taking the flying equivalent of the S.S. Anne. There is a plot, and occasionally, my meandering is directed by the story, but mostly, I can do wat I want. There is a vast variety of Temtem, more so than Ooblets. There are also more "types" than in the early games of Pokemon, to the extent where I haven't quite memorized who has what advantage yet. The game feels well populated, like in the golden age of World of Warcraft, in that no matter where I venture, I see other players running about. It is possible to trade with, and battle players. I simply haven't done so.
It takes longer to progress than in Pokemon. The way I play Pokemon is I try to catch every species available in a route before progressing to the next location. This doesn't take long, and by the time I've accessed the next gym, I'm usually at a high enough level to take on the leader and win. That's not the case for Temtem. Some regions have very little Temtem variety and I'll have to grind for a while before I have a chance against the next dojo master. It's not as much of a grind as World of Warcraft was, from level 20 onward, but I find myself zoning out a lot once I've caught everybody but I still need to level up.
I first began playing Temtem when it was pretty new, still in Beta I believe. One of the features I'd looked forward to before buying, was the ability to customize a house. Customization is a key feature I expect in the games I buy. While I was initially able to customize my character, I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to acquire a house until much later in the game. And now, with my squad between levels 35-51, I'm just about to begin the quest that'll earn me a house. One of the reasons I stepped away from the game for so long, was the limitations I experienced while trying to customize anything at all. There wasn't any house yet, so I could at least deck out my Avatar, right? Sort of. There are dye sets, hair styles, and clothing for sale in the boutiques. Trouble is, they're very expensive. There are multiple currencies in the game. One is earned via batting, as with Pokemon. The other, I gather, is paid for by premium players, meaning those willing to spend actual real-world money on in-game aesthetic items. I hate the whole concept of loot boxes and DLC. I'm a firm believer that the game should be finished when it's released and the price should be a one time payment. I understand the necessity of subscriptions for maintaining an open world server, but in that case, there should be the option to play off-line. I've yet to trade or battle with a fellow payer and wouldn't notice their lack if I was able to play offline while others chose to play online. What little options there are for decorating my Avatar are generally out of budget, in-game, or cost real money I'll never pay.
As I don't have a house yet, I assume furniture will be similarly astronomically priced, but who knows? Maybe Temtem will surprise me. Parts of the game are fun. Parts are a drag. There are the occasional glitches (I actually should have been able to access the quest to earn the house a few hours of playtime ago, when I defeated a certain dojo master, but I was notified of an issue causing a slight delay.) but the company is good at relaying relevant information in a timely manner, as well as quickly repairing known issues. All-in-all, it's not a bad game, but the parts I take umbrage to soil much of the experience.
Thanks for stopping by! I drop a new blog post every Monday. Toodles!