I’m no stranger to Temtem. I have hundreds of hours spent in the game accumulated through both the Alpha test phase (when I was given access to it along with Mrs Stix,) and after the MMO officially launched on Steam. Recently, the developers, Crema Games revealed that they’ve fallen behind in terms of development.

They’d outlined a roadmap for 2020 and 2021 back in 2020, but due to circumstances that were out of their control – out of everyone’s, actually (thanks, COVID!) they’ve had to make certain delays on specific features and content. Which stands to reason, and is not at all their fault.
However, as of last week they went ahead and revealed they have plans on at the very least 2 additional large islands for players to explore in the final version of the game along with full endgame content; something many players have been concerned with after playing what the game has to offer currently. Admittedly, since Temtem is in Early Access still, what we do in fact have access to is fairly limited, and as such a lot of players have ceased playing the game while they wait for new Temtem to capture, new Dojo’s to conquer, and new regions to explore.

They also went on to confirm that they are in the process of working on getting PS5 compatibility functional, along with developing features specifically for the platform.

Mrs Stix and I played through Temtem back when the game was still in Alpha testing. It was good, it was really, really good. Much better than we had ever anticipated it being going in.
We’d invested over a hundred hours into exploring, into leveling, into training our Temtem to be the very best like no other Temtem ever was. However the game was still very limited, and they launched into Early Access with those very same limitations.
Which is fine – as I said there’s a lot to do, a lot of hours worth of content to consume, but I had no real intention of jumping back into the MMO until there was more content, as I didn’t want to have to be forced into repeating the same content so close to having already cleared it.
Now fast forward to today, when I see that the brand new Temtem update has been announced, bringing in the new Kisiwa island, the new Club function, and 23 new Temtem. Yup, color me excited.

As you can tell from the trailer, quite a few additions have been made to the game in our absence, and I’m incredibly excited to jump into the game again.
Being able to explore additional areas via new abilities like rock climbing is something I’ve been eagerly anticipating, and the new emotes actually look kinda cute.
Although the one thing I’m dreading is having to seek out and capture our Temtem all over again. I’m gonna miss my old team.

Temtem is an MMORPG that allows thousands, tens of thousands of players to all concurrently occupy a large, magical world filled with creatures you can go out and capture to do battle with.
It’s like a large-scale Pokemon MMO, something fans of the MMO and creature collection genres have been waiting for for years now. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been any form of legal issues concerning the game – I mean it’s even releasing onto the Switch!
Both of us are huge fans of the game and are excited to be able to jump back into it after our absence, and this definitely seems like the perfect opportunity to.
They have a lot of updates planned for the future, tons of new Temtem, additional islands, an extension to the story, dojos, more multiplayer features. Honestly, this is one of the few – if only Kickstarter funded MMOs I’ve seen actually release into a fully playable state like this.
I’m always surprised that the game is as good as it is.

Quick question for those of you still here: What is your favorite Temtem?

The last time I looked at this game the funding was at, what, $200,000? Now it’s at almost half a million – maybe more by the time this actually goes live. And it’s no wonder why. If Temtem didn’t fully satiate your Pokemon spin-off thirst, then this may be the game for you.
Kindred Fates is an open world action combat monster collecting RPG with online multiplayer functionality. The aim of the game, or the developers behind the game at least, is to provide players with an old-school experience they no longer get.
A game with a well developed storyline, with antagonists that players can relate to, actual compelling character development and consequences that affect the game.
That’ll be quite a game.. if they can pull it off.

From what’s been shown in the trailers thus far, there’s quite a lot of land to explore. Or, I guess that’s poor wording. There’s quite a lot of world to explore.
The monsters you’re capable of capturing in-game are referred to as “Kinfolk.” Land Kinfolk are capable of being ridden around the vast open world, while aquatic Kinfolk, like the Seadramon looking serpent allows for exploration via the ocean and furthermore, exploration via the skies through use of your aerial Kinfolk.
This is actually really, really awesome and the animations for all 3-types are surprisingly good considering this is an indie game.

There’s confirmed character creation, allowing for the customization of your character, however specifics pertaining to the amount of customization options has not been revealed.
Interestingly, there’s a housing feature in-game, I’m uncertain of exactly how fleshed out the feature is going to be but from what they’re revealed thus far, you’re capable of planting a garden, upgrading the size, interior, and are able to craft and upgrade items.
Additionally, your home acts as kind of like a “respawn point” where you end up if you bite off more than you can chew. You’re not limited to one single home though, with several homes, and varying styles of homes available for purchase across various towns spread across the region.
Yup – while the trailer itself doesn’t showcase much in the way of other characters, or the towns themselves, it is confirmed to have various towns to explore, buy items from and who knows what else.

Much like Pokemon and Temtem, Kindred Fates employs a Gym-like system, where players tackle Guilds – consisting of platoon members, tacticians, and the guild leader themself. While they act similarly to Gym leaders, it’s worth noting that you can actually join any of the Guilds around the world.
However, the price of admission is different for each Gym, with some requiring you beat certain enemies, and others requiring puzzle solving.
Since their stretch goal was met for Guilds, it seems as though at one point in the game you’re even going to be able to set up your own guild, recruit members and design the interior just like your house.
Speaking of recruiting members, in place of the breeding feature found in Pokemon games, Kindred Fates has opted for a more in-depth recruitment system.
After joining or creating your own guild, players can choose to have party members go off in search of other Kinfolk that might be interested in joining your team.
Upon successfully finding a Kinfolk, the current one will essentially “mentor” the new Kinfolk, in essence passing down base statistics and known moves to the new creature.

I mentioned earlier that your home acted like a “checkpoint” of sorts, but you’re also capable of setting up unique “campsites” around the world – anywhere, actually, provided you’re not in combat. This can be used in place of your home, which is useful if you’re quite a ways away.

Speaking of combat, I can’t believe I actually neglected to talk about it up ’til this point. My bad! So if the trailer didn’t already clue you in, the game is a real-time action game.
Combat puts players in direct control of their Kinfolk in a real-time third-person mode, allowing for players to dodge in real-time, aim, predict enemy movements and attacks, and use attacks on your own.
This is something I’ve been waiting for a Pokemon or Pokemon inspired game to do, and it looks incredible.
I’m unsure of exactly how many attacks your Kinfolk will have access to but the combat is going to require skill and planning, especially when it comes to fighting at a type disadvantage.
Yes, there are types in Kindred Fates, naturally. Each type has their own unique style of play and is countered by another type.
Unlike Pokemon though, if your Kinfolk dies during combat, instead of fainting, it ends up as a “soul.” You’re required to pick the soul up in time, otherwise the Kinfolk will die and be gone forever.
This adds a certain.. finite nature to the game, and means fighting enemies higher level than you could lead to disastrous results.

Currently, there are online features being worked on such as an online PvP mode, and the ability to trade Kinfolk amongst people in your Friends List.

And that’s it – that’s the game and everything that’s currently known about it. It looks.. really damn good. As a huge Pokemon fan, I’m going to be there to play this as soon as it launches – whenever it launches.
There’s no ETA on that yet, but I’ll definitely keep everyone updated when more info is revealed. Having invested over 60 hours in Temtem so far, I’m excited to try Kindred Fates out whenever they go into Alpha testing.
Here’s hoping they provide me a key so I can make a more detailed, dedicated video on the game ahead of its launch.

Alright, so I know a lot of you who follow me on Twitter, or generally just talk to me or have me come bother you in streams know that I will not shut up about Temtem, and you know what, I’m not sorry. And you probably clicked this video because you’re curious about it, so perfect, now we can talk about it. I’m going to show you as much about it as I can and talk about it from my own personal experience, because that’s all I got.

So I’d like to preface this by stating that before we dive into this, I come from a very limited Pokemon background and that’s just me being honest. I was more a Digimon girl, watched the Anime and played the MMO. The only fallback to Pokemon I can really compare this to is the new Pokemon Sword and Shield game and Pokemon Snap where you take pictures of different Pokemon, so yeah, that’s just where I’m coming from with this so don’t eat me alive for getting things incorrect with the Pokemon references.

With that said, from the outside looking in, a lot of people are seeing a Pokemon-esque game, and you’re not incorrect, but you’re not fully right either. For a generalizing overview, Temtem is a game where you, the tamer, go out with your Temtem’s into the world of the … Airborne Archipelago – six unique floating islands each having their own unique environments, Temtem to capture, and aesthetic feel. Your goal? To become the ultimate Temtem trainer. This particular game was created by Crema Games, which is an indie developer, and has some twists and turns to this take upon the Pokemon genre that give us players something most of us have been craving. This will be a game that people will be able to go in and actually play co-op in an MMO style game and tackle capturing, battling, and experiencing the well-developed story together. And to put this to the test, I brought along my guinea pig, Stix, for the alpha playthrough. He only died when the sacrifice was necessary. If you’re looking to play the game, then it will be launching January 21st into early access on Steam and the Humble Bumble Store. There are future plans to have this game move over to console, but for now, we have the PC!

So first things first, character creation. Right out the gate this game is establishing its own unique stamp on gaming. I was in the midst of creating my character and looking between body types when I suddenly discovered that my girl had a man’s chest. What? Ok, hold up, is this game really going 2020 on me this early? Yes, this game is extremely gender fluid. You can be a he, she, or them. And there are homosexual and heterosexual relationships placed about the game. I had no clue this was going to be coming at me, but I was pleasantly surprised that not only could I make my character cute, but it made an effort to include what others identify as. I feel like this is pretty unique of Temtem because not many MMOs or games will offer this choice. This gives people of this generation a way of identifying more personally with the character they’re playing. So after making my lovely girl, I also have to state that each new city you enter into will have a clothing store. Of the eight cities with dojos, you’ll be able to select from a plethora of outfits, hairstyles, and color options. They do come at quite a hefty cost though, as Stix will no doubt attest to as he may have been forced to trade me all the money he earned through Temtem battles to feed my insatiable thirst for fashion!

Beyond the creation factor, you’ll notice that the NPCs have fully scripted conversations with you but verbally don’t speak more than a sound much like in Zelda games. They’ll even drop life lessons on you if you’re actually paying attention and have different responses depending on your choice of conversation. I’ll let you guys find those funny little nuggets on your own though.

As for the Temtems themselves, each one has their own unique elemental affinities, and generally just by looking at them you can kind of get a rough gauge as to what type they are. The combat between them is more of a rock-paper-scissors combat system with one type being super effective against a specific type, and weak against another. You’ll also need to be aware that if you use up the stamina of your Temtem fighting, it will injure your Temtem and could cost you the battle. This makes for a much more strategic, tactical combat as it requires you to make plans to combat specific enemies in advance. Like Dojo’s, which generally have a single type of Temtem and therefore require specific combinations to combat them. Speaking of Dojo’s, each major city has a Dojo along with a Dojo Leader that gates progression behind defeating them. Each Dojo also has a fun mini-game you’re required to pass to make it to the Dojo leader, and I’ll admit, they were a fun little addition to the game. You’re presented with three types of Temtem at the beginning of your adventure, much like in main Pokemon games. You’ll need to choose your starter Temtem wisely though as your type will likely affect the overall difficulty of the game. From there, you’ll go out into the world, complete quests and capture more Temtem. You can also breed your Temtem much like in Pokemon. As far as I can tell, there are a maximum of three evolutions to a Temtem. You’ll have six Temtem for your main squad, however, if you pair up with a partner like I did, you’ll find that you’ll be faced with the difficult task of choosing what three you want in your squad. And let me tell you, Stix and I had literal debates on who’s cuter fire-type got to stay in the party and evolve. I, of course, reign champion still.

The co-op within the game itself is just utterly without a doubt, together. Most games advertise themselves as MMOs or co-op but you have so many solo instances that you travel into you wonder what’s the point. But within Temtem, you can experience the whole story together. And should one of you run into a wild Temtem while going through a bit of grass, you best bet you’re going to be dragged halfway across the map to experience that battle too whether you like it or not! The only frustrating thing I see about that is if you go into a shop to buy something real quick, your buddy is coming with you unless you decide to break party. So for better or for worse, if you’re in a party, you’re doing it all together. You can also heal one another’s Temtem or choose to send out your partner’s Temtem while in a fight. I’ll admit that initially I kept making this mistake as I’d send out Stix’s Temtem thinking it was mine and getting it damaged. As for the solo experience, by all means this is very doable and we saw a lot of alpha testers out there soloing it and having tons of fun just like we were.

As you’re running throughout the world, you’ll run into lots of other players, and you’ll also have the ability to fight them in a friendly spar of Temtem, no one would accept my requests, but alas, one day someone will be bold enough to fight me! And other things to do besides battle Temtem include a few things not yet added or I didn’t yet get to experience is the ability to build your own house, go to an auction house to trade Temtem, luma temtem which are similiar to shiny Pokemon, and ride a mount. So I think it’s safe to say that we will have plenty to do once this game releases in just a few weeks!

And on that note, I feel like since this game is an MMO, Temtem are gearing themselves up to last a long time. Pokemon have made each of their games rather finite, where as Temtem they’ll have the ability to expand on this particular game much like most MMOs do. And within just the Alpha itself, Stix and I probably spent 30 + hours just playing the game, and that only included four Dojo leaders out of the eight planned upon the full release of the game. So I’m thrilled to say, we’ll be going back in to play the game when it launches into Early Access because I could not get enough. I found this to be equally if not more addictive to play than Pokemon Sword and Shield, and one of us will likely do an updated video on the game as soon as it has a more complete version available.

Where do I even begin to open with this one? Man. I probably poured a solid eight hours straight into this because I was just having that much fun with it.
I love both Pokemon and Digimon so having an MMORPG made in the same vein left me ecstatic to play.
I’ve been following TemTem for a long time now and have been excited ever since it was announced. I’ve been watching it slowly grow into something I’m really anticipating.
So, me being me, I reached out to the team behind TemTem and asked if they’d be kind enough to hook me up with Alpha access – that way I can take a look at the game and see if it’s really as good as I’m expecting.
They were more than happy to oblige, and thus began my descent into the pit of madness. No eating, no drinking, no using the bathroom or even getting up to stretch. Not for a full eight hours straight.
MrsStix even came over periodically to check on me and make sure I hadn’t passed out, that’s how bad it had gotten.

TemTem is a very unique styled Kickstarter backed MMORPG that raised over half a million dollars in crowdfunding. That goes to show you exactly how many people are looking for a Pokemon alternative set in an MMO world, right?
In TemTem you capture.. well, TemTem with unique discs that you can summon and store them inside of, like a Pokeball.
You journey across a large, beautiful world to become the very best Tamer that there ever was, doing battle with other like-minded Tamers along the way.
The ultimate goal, however? Defeat the 8 Dojo leaders and make your way to becoming a.. well I don’t know what the TemTem equivalent of a Pokemon Master is. A TemTem Master? Let’s go with that.
The game, unlike Pokemon and Digimon however, if the MMO tag attached isn’t clear enough, is set in a complete MMO world.
You see hundreds of other Tamers running around, doing battle, playing through the story, trading, teaming up and tackling content together. I’m surprised it took an indie developer to make something like this, honestly.

It plays just like Pokemon does.
You can hold a maximum of 6 TemTem, fielding two at any given time. The enemy can be comprised of up to two NPCs or players as well and can field one TemTem each if grouped, or two if alone.
Combat is turn based, however unlike in Pokemon where the Pokemon with the higher speed stat goes first, in TemTem speed is a crucial factor, but you also have attack priority.
I’ve had my TemTem go earlier than an enemy TemTem purely because I used a skill with a higher priority than theirs. This makes combat much more complex, as does the introduction of different damage multipliers.
1/4 damage done, 2x damge done, 4x damage done, it’s a very interesting concept that is taking a while for me to fully grasp but I feel like I’m getting there.
Thankfully each and every attack has their own unique animation, skill description and.. well, there’s actually another interesting combat mechanic.
In Pokemon you have skills. Those skills have a limited number of usages before you need to heal up at a Pokemon Center.
TemTem is different in so that it employs a stamina system, where each skill consumes stamina and after you’ve consumed the resource completely, you begin to hurt yourself based off of the amount of stamina your skill would otherwise use.
That means that each and every skill requires you take a moment and decide if it’s really worth it to guarantee that kill or if it’d be better spent using something weaker and hoping for a kill.

There are almost 150 I believe thus far. 141 total? And from what I can tell, each and every single TemTem looks fairly unique. I was surprised.
There are twelve elemental types as of right now: Crystal, Digital, Earth, Electric, Fire, Melee, Mental, Nature, Neutral, Toxic, Water and Wind.
Every TemTem can have up to two types total and therefore can be countered by a variety of other types.
This makes customizing your party both difficult and easy: You find out the types you’re missing in your party and then proceed to search out and capture them, solidifying your team and limiting potential weakness.
But then some people prefer to just.. keep what they want. What looks cool, like I do. I always had a team composition of Dragonite, Blastoise, Gyarados, Alakazam, and.. 2 others I’d normally use as HM slaves.

Actually very impressive. It has a more detailed character creator than most Anime MMOs do so that’s saying something.
You have several face options, a sizable selection of hairstyles, colors, upper body, lower body and back outfits and accessories.
You continue to unlock customization options in-game and can freely customize yourself on-the-fly. Unfortunately I never had enough money in-game to purchase different attire, but I was working towards it.
I required to many damn potions to keep my TemTem alive I just couldn’t afford anything else even though I wanted to.

Whether TemTem will be a good MMORPG for you depends on whether you like monster-collectors.
I love them, personally, but then I grew up on Pokemon and Digimon. I played Digimon World – the first one for thousands of hours when I was a kid.
I replayed Pokemon Yellow and Gold over and over until my Gameboy color broke.
Monster-collectors are one of my favorite kinds of games and I never thought I’d see the day when GameFreak released a Pokemon MMO. I still haven’t, but TemTem is the next best thing.
It’s vibrant, has personality, has a pretty gripping story from what I’ve experienced thus far, has actual cutscenes that remind me a lot of Zelda and is pretty much everything I want in a game.
Well, except for PvP. I don’t know if PvP is a feature yet or if that’s something they’re actively working on. I guess we’ll have to wait and see as I progress further in the game.
If I’m correct, the max level is 39? 49 right now and as such I can’t make too much more progress than I already have, but with an expected release date of May 2020.. it’s just around the corner.
So if you enjoy Pokemon games, are looking for a beautiful new monster-collector to play with your partner of friends, then TemTem is where you wanna start looking.
You can currently secure Alpha packs via the Discord store, or you can wait until next year and get the game when it releases then.
I’m going to remain up-to-date with it and heck, I’ll probably be giving away beta keys and copies of the game completely free for people that follow my wife MrsStix and I on Twitter.

But that’s just my opinion – my first impression of the game. What do you guys think? Did you enjoy it? Do you enjoy it? Are you looking forward to eventually trying it out or do you even want to?