TemTem early thoughts

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
TemTem went on deep sale for a few days last month, so I grabbed it. It's basically "Pokemon as an MMO," with just enough differences to avoid getting sued into the ground.

I've really just gotten past the first Dojo (Gym) and unlocked the ability to travel on water, and it looks like a lot of the PvP content is intended for those who have finished the entire Main Story Quest line...fine by me, not really interested in PvP.

One somewhat annoying thing about the side quests is that you often cannot complete them until you've made progress in the MSQ. I have side quests from the first night of play that I still can't complete because they require going to a town that's still locked behind other quests (at least I've gotten far enough to get what looks like the last MSQ "find a missing person" quest, so I should be able to get that done next time I spend serious time playing).

There's very limited fast travel so far. Basically a Smoke Bomb item that returns you to the last Temporium (Pokecenter) you visited. A surfboard helps make some stuff faster, and Scent lets you reduce the random encounters so once you've cleared the mandatory NPC fights in an area you can go more quickly. Some TemTem can be used as mounts, but that's probably pretty far off in the MSQ if not outright a real money transaction.

Oh, on that topic, this is a "buy to play forever unless you get banned" game, but plenty of cash shop items and likely paid DLC later on. Basically the Freemium model, but the base game when not on sale is $45. You can buy a premium membership which unlocks a lot daily rewards and stuff, but most of it appears to be things that aren't even useful until you've made it pretty far in the game (e.g. furnishings for your home, once you get one).

I will say that the setting is pretty gay. I've run into several same-sex couples with zero indication that anyone thinks this is unusual. One fight-NPC was clearly into the PC and trying to get sempai to notice her, regardless of the PC gender. (I am playing a version of the same female character I make up on most MMOs, although this is not a game with jiggle physics...yeah, I tend to make female characters to see how close I can get to a real human and not a realdoll waifu. Not a problem here, all the PCs are tweenagers.)

I've seen help pop-ups suggesting that you can team up with another player (the fights are 2 v 2, so no large parties), but that's probably only for PVP. Also, according to one NPC taunt, if all your TemTem faint, you wake up in a Temporium (as if you'd used a Smoke Bomb). I've managed to avoid dying yet, though. You get a one-use refillable item that brings your entire 6-TemTem roster back up to full, which slightly reduces the time spent running back to heal.

Anyway, if any of you are also playing, my character is Kath Anders, for purposes of friend requests.

---Dave
 

Tm_Silverclaw

Active member
Citizen
Did they ever make the "MMO" anything more than it was in Pokemon Sword and Shield wild area... IE, See people on the world map.. but not really able to interact with them?
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
I haven't tried interacting with any of the other players yet, but there are chat channels, so there's at least that much interaction. Also, it looks like PvP is very much a thing, and might be doable with teams (each person on the team has one TemTem out at once, and I presume can only use three of their six).

---Dave
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
The main complaint I've heard over and over again from Pokémon fans is that every new game is basically just the same as the last but with new character designs. So I'm assuming anyone serious enough about being sick of the franchise to actually make their very own off-brand game would be focusing on addressing that. Besides the MMO aspect, what does this game do to make it radically different from the real deal?
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
Hard to say, since I haven't really played anything between Yellow and Go. I know breeding was introduced very soon after Yellow, so that's not something TemTem has unique. Similarly, I don't know if any official Pokemon games aged up the protagonists from the "10 year olds having adventures" thing, but TemTem protags seem to be more in the 14-16 range, and there may be romance options beyond flirting.

Still, after about 10-12 hours of play, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the "opening the map" quests, and without doing a deep dive for spoilers in the wiki I dunno if it's just PvP and dojo grinds after that, or if there's more story stuff you can do.

---Dave
 

Tm_Silverclaw

Active member
Citizen
The main complaint I've heard over and over again from Pokémon fans is that every new game is basically just the same as the last but with new character designs. So I'm assuming anyone serious enough about being sick of the franchise to actually make their very own off-brand game would be focusing on addressing that. Besides the MMO aspect, what does this game do to make it radically different from the real deal?
From what I understand.. It was mostly made for "PvP!" Because "PvP IS ALL THAT MATTERS! PVP! PVVVVVVPPPPPPP!"
 

Spin-Out

i cant take it anymore im at my limit
Citizen
temtem would genuinely be better if it wasn't an MMO. one of the greatest strengths of Pokemon since its debut is you can play it anywhere; having to be online to play kills that.

also, it needs more bug monsters.
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Any memorable entries in the TemTem Dex or Encyclopedia, or whatever the equivalent is called? Basically, does any of the LORE stick out to you?
 
Last edited:

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
Well, this isn't the first MMO I've played where the questline is really just an extended tutorial and the "real" game is the endgame grind of PvP or raids. Still, I figure I'll stick with it for a while, probably to finish the storyline. I own the game and am not terribly tempted by the microtransaction stuff, so it's not like I feel I have make the "finish or drop" decision on a short timescale.

---Dave
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
Okay, ran into my first serious annoyance with the game.

When you're on your way to the third zone, Plot Happens and you crash-land on a zone you didn't know you were going to yet. A bunch of your stuff is lost in the crash, and you can no longer return to any previous zone until you beat this one.

Okay, that's a moderate annoyance, slightly more because of how long it takes to reach a place where you can restock your consumables.

Then the REAL annoyance kicks in. You're arrested at the gates of the city (someone's been impersonating you and Doing Crimes), all your stuff is taken away (presumably only until you finish the relevant chapter), and you get a new understrength squad of stuff that's local.

Yeah, the dreaded, "We can't be bothered to balance this next section for the variety of players and their skills and gear, so we're gonna make you play as Someone Else." Maybe not my absolute least liked part of any game, but definitely down in the basement. Yeah, yeah, this zone is full of stuff that's vulnerable to the elemental types you'd been picking up in the previous zones, but this kind of sledgehammer "balance" is such a pain. Oh, and one of the things they take from you is your mapping gear, so you get to run through the usual maze with no ability to see more than about 10 meters (at scale) in any direction.

Probably gonna open a cheat guide next time I play, because the game is cheating already.

---Dave
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
Okay, the "no gear" phase was almost over by the time I gave up the other night, I only had a couple of mandatory duels before I got most of my stuff back. The game is still withholding all my travel-related gear, because the next dojo is a pinball puzzle that requires the player not have the skates earned in the previous zone. Still kinda BS.

---Dave
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
I got back into it after a few months off, managed to get through two more zones and partway into the second-to-last one, but now I'm done for good. The NeoEdo dojo is total BS, it's a beam-dodging puzzle maze with teleports between rooms...which can drop you onto a beam because it's an MMO and the beams can't be synched to make sure your teleports always give you time to move. It's unskippable, you can't advance side quests without area locked until you finish it. Just repeatedly "die" to random beams until you give up (like I did) or finally find the dojo master and defeat them. This is no longer a puzzle, it's "we hate our players."

---Dave
 


Top Bottom