Happy Valentines Day Everyone in celebration of today I decided to talk about a game that everyone loved, but I personally hate. Anyone complaining about how Scarlet and Violet crash too often I challenge you to play this. Monster Crown at launch I am so sorry you were stable in comparison. This game has been out for almost three years and hasn’t really improved. If you ever look up monster taming games Temtem comes up as a game that is recommended and I can’t actually see why.

Gameplay is you capture creatures and monsters to build your team and use them to fight. It uses a stamina mechanic similar to other games in the genre like Nexomon, but does everything wrong. You can use your moves if you don’t have enough stamina at the cost of health which is fine and unique, but the game has a lot of forced damage as moves themselves need to be ready before you can use them. This means while you could beat an opponent first turn often you have to wait 2-4 turns while taking damage and being careful about stamina, type effectiveness, and your own health so you don’t accidently take yourself out. The fast travel mechanic is a joke as well you don’t unlock it till the end of the game and it costs in game money to use as well as at that point you’ve already seen everything the game has to offer and the game would actually benefit from giving it to you early instead.

The story has no real meaning as any point that could have some impact like a major and unlikeable characters death while it might be treated with some kind of respect is taken away by that character coming back. For the record Nexomon and Coromon have original stories and unlikeable characters don’t overstay their welcome. While you could argue this game is still darker than most a lot of those darker moments have their impact ruined later on making it just another monster taming game with nothing added. Monster Crown tells a darker story, Nexomon has better creature designs, and Coromon just had a story overhaul that improves both flow and pacing. Three indie games in the same genre better than this all available on the same device at half the price each.

Temtems main marketing was it was released at a time when Pokemon was at a low, while it could compete with Pokemon so could others and it honestly fails when put up against other indie games. It’s only thing setting it apart is it is a MMO, but aside from the raids being annoying and all legendary monsters as prizes I didn’t see much value in it. Player vs. environment was just the main story and a battle frontier and the Player vs. Player was never used by me normally I at least try to capture all the monsters in these games, but with irritating combat, uninteresting creatures, and raids I refuse to do since I can’t use my own team in them it wouldn’t be worth it. To write this review I actively avoided comparing this game to Pokemon and see if it could stand on its own against other indie games, but it really can’t without the comparison it has poor gameplay, a terrible fast travel mechanic, and the game isn’t stable at all. Maybe the PC version is more stable or better but I really doubt it.