Temtem

TLDR; Gameplay-wise Temtem is [u] amazing [/u] and [u] better than most [/u]. Story-wise TemTem is atrocious and should be skipped to play the game more. [h3] Gameplay [/h3] Almost everything about the gameplay is intricate and fresh. From battling, collecting, breeding, type match ups, end game, learning gameplay, customization, and especially the raids(lairs). Exploration was really the only thing that was just good. The creatures hit a whole variety of styles from cool, to cute, and from intricate to simple. I feel there is plenty of variety and everyone can find their own personal team. They absolutely knocked it out of the park with simplicity and fun, but also with complexity if you really dig into it. A bunch of quality of life improvements from other similar games for example the new/old moves of each temtem being interchangeable. Learning the game was also fun, not stupid easy to pick up but not requiring intensive thought either, everything felt natural. Incentive to collect all of the creatures they had a brilliant idea. Making the effects of the attack you are about to perform on an opponent show a green/red/white ring around the creature depending the effectiveness based only on if you have captured that temtem before, was a terrific idea. It incentivised collecting them all just to ease the burden of remembering what moves are effective against the opponent. This was also helpful for the more in-depth part of this game. The temtem may have dual typing, but may or may not share weakness' of one of those typing, so having that encyclopedia available because you have caught it before is just great synergy. Gorgeous environments, PvP, music, PvE. There is so much great stuff to talk about gameplay wise but it really boils down to, they did everything right when making the the fun part about this game. [h3] Story [/h3] Spoilers obviously I'll start of by saying, up until the half-way point I read every dialog and talked to every NPC I could meet. From beginning to end it started out meh and just got more horrible over time with one exception. That exception would be island 3 but I will get to that later. This game falls under the RPG trope of "small beginnings, then fight gods at the end", which is a trope I don't enjoy personally but so common everyone has to get over it. The game is broken up into several islands and you got through each one very linearly (far too linearly). You start off with your first temtem and go out into the world to do whatever the player wants but quickly get wrapped up in the stupidest military take over of these islands. You have a rival that starts the same time as you and that rival is made to be as annoying as possible with no redeeming qualities (this is important for certain cliffhangers). Pacing of the first island is a little slow but there is a lot to learn so I give it a pass. The second Island is paced a bit better but still leans to a bit slow with what the action is. The third island is paced amazingly. Action, story, environment, battles, puzzles, just everything is amazing about the third island. At this point I was probably 25 hours in to the game which I thought "Oh great they can wrap this up quickly then there will still be island to explore after". That would have been a far better outcome. The fourth island is where I just got bored with the game period. It is slow, it is long, and the story becomes down right ridiculous. I want to say it was at the end of this island that I started mashing through dialog because it just droned on forever and everything said was idiotic or overdramatic. The conclusion of the island had a "cliff hanger" which had zero emotional impact and had a very predictable outcome based on the tone of this game. Side note: this game could not make up its mind with the tone of this game, from what age the character was and was supposed to act, to the maturity of the game from childish to young adult, it was everywhere and it was very jarring. Islands 5 was way too long even with button mashing, and at this point the seriousness of the game started to decline as well. It is funny to have reference character here or there but when every other or every few characters can be recognized from an anime or show it get annoying. And that really shows it self in islands 5 and 6. And once the game didn't take itself seriously, I certainly didn't. As for that cliffhanger before [spoiler] the rival is supposed to be dead but miraculously lives and you really have no choice but to accept the rival back on to the good side. They explain it as you should take pity on him because he was groomed. But oh hey that whole part where he made you a terrorist in the eyes of the law and got you locked up from which you had to fight tooth and nail to prove your innocence, forget about it because he learned his lesson. This was my biggest gripe with the whole game is that even though they allow you to acknowledge the fact that the rival was trash, you are still forced to have him on your side. [/spoiler] Leading up to the end of the game there was a reveal that was supposed to be shocking but by that time I just didn't care nor would have cared even if I was invested because it really didn't have that great of build up. The big society ending thing at the end didn't do anything except hump the battlefield creating a time limit when there hasn't been one the whole game. And once everything is said and done, I was so relieved that I had finally finished the story and could play the game without pages of dialog to skip through. At the end of the story I had like 2 of the achievements. So even though I didn't want to play anymore, just playing the game and the additional end game to get the achievements was enough to give me a positive memory for this game. Enough that I would recommend to play it, but just skip anything that comes out of anyone's mouth.