Temtem released for Steam in January of 2020 and was very well-received by that community. It currently holds a very positive score and developer Crema continues to update; just last month Temtem added another large location in-game, Kisiwa Island, complete with more tems to catch. Despite all this hard work from the dev team, the game hasn't captured the lasting attention everyone was hoping (and expecting) a Pokemon-styled MMO would receive.
It's not the game's fault - by most accounts, it's fun, gorgeous, and has relatively few issues - but it's just not getting the attention it needs to fully realize the "MMO" part of its potential. That's where the 2021 next-gen console releases will come in: with a second shot at launch hype, this time as a complete game, could easily allow Temtem to jump up the charts in popularity.
The concept of Temtem is easy to get behind: an MMO-style critter-collector game where you battle, collect cute animals, and traverse cool regions. Aiding this easy-to-love premise is fantastic, colorful visual style and a combat system that might be considered a breath of fresh air for some longtime Pokemon fans. Combat in Temtem has largely removed RNG from the picture. That means attacks don't miss randomly, damage will be consistent, and the game will be that much more predictable for competitive theorycrafting. There's still a wealth of move combinations and passive traits that can be exploited for maximum impact, it just feels more... well, fair.
The available Tems are fun to look at and to battle with. At the time of writing this article, there's over 100 different types to gather up, consisting of 12 different types. And, unlike in Pokemon, they can sometimes have two different traits, allowing for more involved use of the passive abilities in strategy to compensate for a lack of RNG. They'll also follow you around almost everywhere in the game, instead of only on specific DLC islands like another game we could mention.
But to really make good on its MMO stylings, Temtem requires a bigger playerbase. That could be a blessing and a curse, of course - overcrowded servers probably wouldn't help much of anything - but the fact remains that the game wasn't designed to be single-player. It has a main storyline and can be, but the experience will be that much richer with other trainers wandering the wilds with you. Here's to hoping its second launch - on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch - will give Temtem the lasting praise it deserves.