Collectable Creature Game – Pinkie's Paradise

Pinkie Played Monster Sanctuary : Pokémon ..but it’s a Metroidvania

My little lights! As you may have noticed.. or may not I have been using the term “Pinkie Plays” for my Let’s play style blogs! This one is titled Pinkie Played.. past tense! That is because this will be the format for my game reviews. I recently saw a let’s play of a game and I immediately fell in love with this game. It was a game called Monster Sanctuary. After completing the game… I am STILL in love with it. Oh Team 17 you made me one lucky moth.. I can destroy creatures and gather strength on my own! Happy days!

What is Monster Sanctuary?

Monster Sanctuary is a game published by Team 17, it was created by Moi Roi games and designer, Denis Sinner. If mister Sinner would fail as a game designer, he will always have a career in porn with a name like that. He might have to change the pronunciation of his first name a bit. Do I think he will ever need to go into porn?! Hell no! This game is whoops sitting meat. Scoring an 8.1 audience score and a 7.5 score on Metacritic with a very positive review rating on Steam, this game is sitting well. Myself would probably even rate it a smidge higher than the Audience score.. at an 8.6 or 8.7 or so. Monster collecting games in general review a bit lower than most of their peers because there is also a lot of hate for the genre. People who know this type of game isn’t for them to review it anyway in the hopes to burn it down and that is a shame. Because even if you aren’t a big Pokémon fan there is a lot to love here! With a 16 bit esthetic and the 2d exploratory platforming.. this is a monster collecting game like no other.

This game plays much more like Metroid than like Pokémon. Except there is no shooting. When you touch monsters, you engage in combat.. which is turn based and involves Monsters selecting their moves. These moves can either be magical or physical and belong to one of the four elements. (Air , Fire, Water and Earth). Some attacks can be neutral as well. Every enemy has a set of weaknesses and resistances you have to work around and explore. To a Pokémon fan it would feel as if 4 types aren’t enough but it is handled remarkably well.With very deep combat, that is also very easy and much more intuitive to grasp. Each monster can be examined before a combat round starts and weaknesses are always available to you.. so no need to learn all 101 monster’s typings and stats. This game makes collecting monsters more fun than in Pokémon. If you want to beat Pokémon you need to catch a decent team of 6, and while here you also battle with a squad of six, you are constantly encouraged to find the eggs of more monsters. That’s right, you do not capture monsters in this one.. you hatch them! You can gain eggs from random groups of monsters..by performing well in combat and using tactics and playing smart!

The reason why you need to capture more monsters is because there are plenty of monsters that offer you new ways to travel around the world. In the first area you might for example discover a small crevice you can’t fit through. Samus would use her Morphball to get through but since you do not have a fancy suit.. you will need to capture a Changeling that DOES morph you into a ball.. or cuter, a Rainbow Slime that can turn you into a slime. You might need a bird to hover to a treasure high above.. but your current bird can’t fly far enough. You might need to catch that derpy looking Dinosaur you saw flying in the other room.. but that one is hidden behind a switch with a lighting icon above it.. what monster do you need to activate THAT! While you can only train up 6 monsters at the same time you can travel with basically endless monsters so you can make sure you can use your favourite monsters to get past a certain obstacle. Wanna clean up . .you can always donate monsters to the army or bring some of the monsters you can not currently use to the farm. There are so many options!

What do you do in Monster Sanctuary?

In the game you take the role of a nameless Monster Keeper.. a Keeper is the word use for those who try to keep the Sanctuary safe by taming monsters. Humanity lives in a sheltered habitat that is called the Sanctuary and it’s many zones are inhabited by many monsters, that for the most part have been ..fairly friendly but recently the creatures have become a bit restless. As more Monsters of “Champion” Quality appear. It is the task of a Monster Keeper to defeat these Champion monsters before they can rile up the monster populus and make the area uninhabitable for humans. You play a boy or a girl, who is part of one of the four important bloodlines. There is the Bloodline of the Eagle, The Wolf, The Lion and the Toad. All belonging to a certain elemental bias. Such as the Eagle belonging to the Wind and Fire element. The Wolf of Water and Wind, the Lion of is Fire and Earth and the Toad is Earth and Water. I of course chose the toad.. why?! Well it’s a Toad that belongs to the grass element! That shall forever be my starter and my number 1.

The Journey starts with you traveling across the land , searching far and wide to find enough Champion monsters to increase your Keeper Rank so you can finally live up to your three rivals and your grandfather’s reputation. However you soon uncover that an evil organisation of Alchemists is trying to destroy the Monster Keepers. Performing all sorts of weird and unsanitary experiments with Alchemy. One name keeps popping up! Marduk, a leader of the Alchemist that supposedly has found a way to make himself immortal. Now he seems to have found a way to take away monsters that are bound to people and his motivations seem to be rooted deep in Monster Lore.. something evil is coming! You have to increase in rank faster than any Monster Keeper before you.. to stop whatever is hiding in the dark. Of course this is a retro style game so the story at times can feel a bit irrelevant.. but it is there and entertaining for those who choose to partake…but it is equally fun to go about and explore things on your own volition. Very little parts of the game are sealed behind linear progression, though you might wonder why you are hunting for a certain artifact in a new area if you do it all yourself.

The game counts 14 areas of which one works like a hub and safe house where you can shop, craft, get exposition and donate monsters to the army. Another one works as your post/game “bonus” content hub. Here you do things like challenging bosses you have defeated before to get greater rankings or fight against a series of challenging monster teams to see if you have truly mastered the game.. this area even has a room in which you can take your monster team online and battle other players. The other 12 areas are your basic Metroid like areas, in which you can find more monsters and sometimes items to explore terrain and overall find treasures and the likes. I only focussed on the story content part of the game and getting most of the monsters and I ended up putting about 30 hours in the game before reaching the end. I DID go out of my way to explore.. but I haven’t even scratched the surface off all the battle challenges, I have not done much of the postgame yet. This means the game for me is well worth it’s price of admission!

What is there to like about the game?

My response to the game is overwhelmingly positive. Let’s begin with the monster themselves. The games 101 monster count seems a bit lackluster at first, but when you realise that this game doesn’t really feature evolution that suddenly becomes a whole lot more impressive. Each monster is their unique thing.. except for the slimes there aren’t really any sprite swaps either. Only about 10 monsters evolve.. and in their cases it’s more like special ways to get a new monster, that require a specific monster and an item to create a new monster. Their designs can radically change so it really feels like there are 101 truly unique monsters. Later in the game you unlock the ability to swap monsters towards either the light or the dark. While it doesn’t change their ability a Dark Shifted Monk has significantly different stats than a Light Shifted Monk. So every monster has 3 slight variations. Unlike Pokémon their levelup path isn’t set either.. in this game you can choose skill trees.

Every monster in the game has four Skill trees, some with more abilities than others, but basically you choose how your Catzerker will develop. Do you let him focus on Neutral damage with a lot of points invested in getting more and more powerful critical hits? Or do you want him to use his Fire and Wind abilities to take advantage of enemies that are weak to that. Perhaps you want your Spirit Toad to be focussed on AoE Attacks with the chance to poison your enemies as you go.. or perhaps like me you want to build him like a completely support focussed tank, that can buff as he heals and heals as he buffs. Are these choices not working out for you? Resetting their skills costs next to nothing! Once a monster reaches the max level of 40, they get an ultimate and you can choose from three of them. This leads to one of this game’s greatests boons! All the monsters feel like YOUR unique monsters. Yes there are Meta’s you can look up, yes some builds will work better than others.. but you can build your own challenge level here and my Toad isn’t exactly like any other Toad.

This of course also leads to a lot of depth in combat,which is reflected by the many areas of the game. Each of the twelve zones tend to have about two subzones. For example in the great forest you first encounter a lot of woodland critters like monsters, bugs, bears and plant like creatures. More often than not they have a fire weakness, though there is some diversity, a bias can definitely be sensed. The second part of the woods is overrun by Goblins who all are strong against magic but weak against physical attacks. Since each combat sequence sends out three monsters, you find you’ll have to swap out members semi regularly if you want to make it far. Luckily the game offers an easy level up token, that allows you to add levels to weaker monsters, for almost no money.. the downside to this token, you can’t use it to level higher than one level below your highest rank monster. If your highest monster is max level.. and it gains enough experience.. that is not wasted.. instead that monster now produces level-up tokens to save you from grinding. The diversity in the world, the leveling and the biodiversity in this game all come together. Which makes everything feel unique.

The game is also very generous with rewards, there are lots of secrets for you to explore! Remember that one room you could not enter before because you had no monster that could activate a pressure Switch?! Now you can.. and the reward in the chest is better if you get it at this level then later on. However if you choose to press on that item you find can later be upgraded to still be a viable find! Everything in this game oozes freedom. There are completely optional areas, but going there offers you some of the best gear. There are even secrets upon secrets which for example lead you to unique monsters such as the Team 17 iconic Worms to be added to your team who have skill trees that mimic the feeling of the little crawlers. There are plenty of cool references to the material the game maker “borrowed” from as well to show that this is a game made out of love! And you can play it your way!

What is there to dislike?

Like any game this one doesn’t escape having a few downsides though. The most prominent one is the “loot chance” aspect of finding an egg. Say you discover a monster that can cut through vines.. by performing well you get a higher star rating.. the higher the star rating the higher the chance is to get a rare item. Eggs always fall in this slot.. but many monsters also drop something else. So unless you get a five star rating (which guarantees a rare drop) you getting a monster is already locked behind TWO RNG checks. To alleviate this a lot of monsters have overlapping abilities. Catzerker can cut the vines and destroy hidden walls, but Magmapillar can Burn the vines and light torches. So overall progress is never locked away to harshly behind RNG but later on you will encounter elemental switches at hard to reach places. While my Frost-Slime can activate Ice switches it might not be able to hit a remote one.. because you need a monster whose “activate ice switches” requires that trigger to be projectile based. There is no way to find out what variant a monster has until you catch it and if they don’t drop their egg due to RNG things can feel a bit frustrating.

A major grip I had with this game was not being able to put waymarkers on my map! It feels like the SNES metroid map, where you just have to remember that one room had no light and that the other room has a strange keyhole. On the one hand this really sells the classic vibe and in a way I like it but on the other hand.. since the map is so big that there is not a single screenshot of the entire explored map out there you can understand it might be kind of frustrating if you remember you encountered a room somewhere you can solve now.. but for the live of you , you can’t remember where. I have a good memory when it comes to those things, and since the areas look diverse enough it never feels atrocious but a quick reminder at times would have been nice. The game at times lacks those quality of life improvements modern games have.. I think just to be retro. For example the final boss is a two tiered fight.. if you lose the second you’ll have to repeat the first and since I work with a stall team that for me was a 20 minute fight I had to do over, I had no trouble beating it. It just took time.

Which brings me to the final gripe I have with this game and that is the level of Tedium at later levels. This game HAS to be played relying on buffs and debuffs, if you focus on assault alone the enemy will debuff the heck out of you and it will feel like you are taking down a dragon with a potato peeler. While I had debuffers in the Underworld my debuff removers were weak to the enemies typing so I could not use them all that much.. which means in some fights my damage was reduced by 25% six times over or so.. When I got that specific monster (a spider that ensnares you with web) he became a staple in my team as well and I debuffed the heck out of enemies.. but combat can feel really slow. The game has a combo system.. the third attacker deals the most damage, and the first two build up your multiplier.. however if you have to switch because you are debuffed into infinity you also nerf your non impaired team members. While the game doesn’t punish you with DEATH too often, it does with a lot of delays.

So is it good?!

Overall it didn’t really kill my joy for playing this game, I loved it in the end and already want a sequel! This game is very dear to me! I really enjoyed the time I spent with my monsters and have formed a bond with them. The combination of Pokémon and Meteoroid works super well and I would love to see more things in this universe. There is a lot of lore about every monster, like every “pokédex” entry is four or so pages long filled with much more text than in Pokémon, you can learn about their history and their current day use.. these monsters are very concrete and well balanced out.. every monster feels different and you can make it stand out from its peers! Adding platformer gameplay to that just made it more fun to me.

It does make the mistake of going retro, just a bit to much in parts but for me as a retro gamer that is more of a minor annoyance something I have to do to get to the good stuff.. but the good stuff is worth it several times over, even if a sequel would not improve anything I would still buy it without a second thought.. and retro games all had that tedium or that sense of annoyance about them as well. It is just a shame that I do see this game take a lot quality of life improvements then skimping out on others. Perhaps if they had more static save points and leaned more into the retro I would be less upset.. which is kind of weird.. I would be less vexxed if the game was less good. Maybe I am just kind of sad I nearly got my perfect game.. and it JUST missed out on that. Kind of like getting that perfect gift for christmas.. the watch you want but there is this one tiny scratch you barely notice yet it gets under your skin! Regardless of that scratch though you should most certainly pick this game up!

Thank you for taking your time to read about me playing with monsters again! I do that a lot huh! If you want to help me get more monster games, consider supporting me on Kofi or Patreon! Of course you can also just tell how much you like Monster Games and I will probably be coaxed into it anyway.

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs: Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs Review

So I have some very big news! Probably! It is not official yet but it looks like I might be moving soon! it This past Saturday I did something else other than watching anime! I went to view a new place I could rent! Less drug trades on the parking lot, less illegal racing or violence! More tolerance and an appartement with some actual space! It looks like I got it! Though I haven’t signed a contract yet, all parties were in agreement! So yay! Better times ahead. I will stick by my rules though and not watch the anime later that day as I was well worn and had a nice dream buzz! No instead we will finish catch up week by taking the Cat from catch-up and adding some nice clothes to them!

Kittens and Puppies

So normally I am not into mobile gaming. I played some Dragon Ball Legends, I played some Dokkan Battle, but usually whenever I am done with a Story Mode I am done with a game. Sure they get updates every now and again and I might come back.. but I don’t stick to Mobile games all that much. I still play Dragon Ball Legends and Pokémon Go and very loosely but other than that I rarely play a mobile game. So when Summer of Foovay’s Cauldron told me this game was good I thought… I’ll probably try it out for a day and dump it on the second..I am however been pretty dedicated for over a week now and I want more! Well at least of Castle Cats!

Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs are both Idle Hero games developed by Pocapp Studios.
In Castle Cat you make a Guild Master of a Heroes Guild and collect cats to make them go on quests in the hopes of defeating the evil Pugomancer. In Dungeon Dogs you make a Rebel Captain Dog.. and collect dogs to let them do missions for the resistance against the evil cats. Both are essentially the same game with a different story and different flavouring but the exact same mechanics. It’s up to you whether Dogs or Cats are more your thing. Where Dungeon Dogs is only a recent game though Cats has the more impressive library of collectables With about 260 cats where currently you can collect 60 ish dogs. Guess I got suckered into two more collectable creature games huh!

As an Idle game the gameplay consists of making Gacha-pulls if you have the right resources and clicking on a few spaces to gather these resources or allocate cats to get them for you. Each mission has a timer but the player can join in a battle and tap on a boss to reduce their health while charging up their heroes powers until they can unleash a super attack. With the resources gained you can upgrade your furry friends with new outfits, powers and make them eligible for more quests. Other options involve upgrading your base to gather your three main resources faster or your main building which allows you to send more allies on a mission at the same time. Other than that you can craft some items with an alchemy station for aid when you do battle, or a bigger reward payout. Yet there are also special crafts depending on events you got going on. Which usually leads to super unique heroes being collected. It doesn’t do anything special gameplay wise but everything happens in a very non intrusive way. You can choose to just toss your phone aside and let the troops do the work or actively take part in the fights. I prefer to keep my paws clean and just let my darlings gather resources while I blog! Each day I collect a few kittens and puppies and I just smile.

Mi’wow

While Dungeon Dogs doesn’t impress me as much as Castle Cats does I must comment both for their lovely presentation. The Joy on your cats and dogs as they complete a mission, or walk through your field is amazing. The design of creatures, especially the higher rarity ones is incredible! There is so much personality in them.The colours are vibrant and both your main story heroes as well as those rare finds oftenly look good enough in design to be in an actual cartoon of sorts. This is these games greatests plus. Oftenly mobile collectable creature games on mobile can look really unique but there is nothing to bind you to them. Say some Fakemon shows it and it looks mighty cute, I am still not tempted to drop some money in as it would be nice to have.. but there is no NEED to have it. A game using an existing IP thus makes a better Gacha! I want the new Majin Vegeta in Legends so I might drop some cash or do missions to get him.. as I recognise him.. he becomes something to pursue. Pocapp Studios manages a way to balance this greatly.

Most of the cats and dogs to collect have a reference, they are something else from another source of media. So for example my first Mystical was a cat called Howard, who when evolved turned into the Eldritch Cthulhu. Howard of course being the H in HP Lovecraft. But I also got Bunny! A cat who was chosen by the moon to be a guardian. When you evolve her she gets a sailor outfit and blonde buns.Usagi is the Japanese word for Bunny.. so you really know who you just collected. All of them have dialogue too! Scarlett really makes me laugh! It is a cat who wants to be a Blobmon trainer. He really wants to ride a bike.. but he knows now is not the time and place and HE is always watching. Scarlett indeed is Red from Pokémon. Because these games take a deep dive into Geekdom there is more reason to collect the creatures other than their cute look! You want to find out who they all are! My best friend Bean for example got a cat named Edward..He doesn’t like to be called small and his brother is an armor. I really want him!

What is also very impressive about these games is that you seem to get “fair deals” for spending money. You don’t need to spend money and by watching adds you can unlock a whole bunch of extra goodies as well so there is no real need to put money into it.. but the bundles and deals you get seem actually cool! Where Dokkan Battle for example only really has sweet deals when it comes to summonable stones in these games some creatures are strictly for sale. Yet some of them have powers to spawn resources you might need like Embers used to upgrade your creatures, or crafting resources. So while you get a cute cat, you also get some usability out of it. Package deals can refill your resources, can offer your embers, cats and skins summon tickets all for a bundle deal so there is always something nice in the store for you. You can say.. I do not care about that..but let’s be honest a game needs to make money and it needs to work with these deals.. that’s how they work so I wont judge them for it! These deals feel unique and rewarding and not like a complete rip-off. So while I will not become a money investing whale here.. they very much know what they are doing.

That confidence is shown in just about everything. The Story lines of the games are both cute, though I again vastly prefer the story of Castle Cats as it has that cuter atmosphere that just fits better with the aesthetics and the genre. Dungeon Dogs focussing on rebellion just feels a bit forced somehow. Mostly because their size seems to exist in the universe so I would assume they have the upper hand.It just doesn’t feel as magical! Castle Cats story however is surprisingly entertaining for a mobile game. Again it has a bit that saturday morning cartoon vibe with each story mission being a cartoon episode. While we only get a few lines of dialogue it is easy to imagine how that adventure will go. Both games feature three protagonist that all are very fun. Lyra the Golden Retriever dog is not my favourite as I find her a bit bland. Poppy the Barbarian Dog is probably one of my favourite characters though! For Castle Cats, Catniss ,(which indeed IS a reference) Conan and Frederique are all pretty good. It’s funny to see Catniss volunteer for every suicide mission because.. she is Katniss. It might not be fully original but these games just ooze with charm. Making it really something you want to play.

A Bark Worse than It’s Bite

The games are not flawless though, especially not if you choose to play both. Both games promote playing both through a quest line but because of it you see they are a bit TOO samesey. It makes sense from either a dog person or a cat person perspective but since both games push you to play both..chances are you will experience how same everything is. The base is a sprite swap with everything at the exact same location, the mini games are the same between the games, even the resources don’t look THAT different. Instead of Iron Ore, dogs gets bones and some stuff is swapped around but essentially it is the same and you can craft the same things with it.. it’s all just sprite swaps. It also leads you to compare items. Avatar items for example are WAAAAY better in Dungeon Dogs, the items are so much more detailed and ornate. Yet Cats have so much more felines to collect.

However the worst part about these games being so linked! Your VIP status is NOT linked. I spent 7 dollars now on Castle Cats which was enough to get me to VIP1 and I feel I should have shared that level between both games. That way I could buy dogs I want when I already have the cat from the monthly bundle or vice versa and still keep my VIP level up! But no alas.. it is seen as a different game any money spend is counted for that game alone. If those get linked I might go deeper but for now it means I shall invest 0 money in Dogs.

I honestly suggest you stick to one game and for me it would be Cats. The references are a bit sharper, although the dogs have more intricate designs. There is not really a bad side here. During my time playing I experience a few glitches in Castle Cats. For example my Adds for extra rewards or skipping missions will sometimes refuse to play unless I reset the game. Other times my screen would go unresponsive during the minigames. I haven’t had these issues with Dungeon Dogs yet.. but that one plays a lot more additional commercials which you can spend a pass on to have them disabled. I dislike that choice which puts me off Dogs a bit more than Cats.. I have control over what I watch in Cats and more control over my spending. In the end these games are made for you to pay for a creature or two. I am not going to hold that against them. It doesn’t HAVE to be fully playable for free. You can have your fun with it for free but like a real Gashapon vending machine.. it is cute to stare at for free but a lot more fun if you toss a few coins at it. That is fine and no one is gonna convince me otherwise, this is a type of game now, deal with it!

The biggest gripe I had with my gameplay so far is that the game at one point bottlenecks you in story mode. IF you haven’t chosen to keep up your main three heroes. I got a lot of Cats that can generate embers.. so I prefer to send those on missions instead. Yet later you need to send a cat with two skills on a mission. Usually the only ones who fit are the main heroes. I have been stuck for two days now being forced to grind embers and levels for Conan, draining my resource pools for a cat I did not really want to level. Of course I could spend money on it to make it go by easier..as you can both by level boosters and embers but thats not how I like to do things. However it makes story progress slightly more unappealing as it limits you very much! I can’t say how much of these missions will come as of yet as I am stuck at this one so much but if you play these games do level up your main heroes! Regardless if I progress in the main story or not though I still have lots of fun with this game so the positives really outweigh the negatives.

Positikitty

These are wonderful games for you to play on the side or whatever else you are doing that day! Mind you .. Emphasis on the side. The gameplay is monotone so it would not entertain you through the day. It has the stamina thing most Free to Start games have so gameplay is not unlimited either. Yet if you play it casual this is one super fun game! I got two friends addicted in a short time. Cute sweet innocent fun, with a amazing design time behind it and witty yet also very clear cut references. These are games that reward you from dropping money, but hardly ever punish you for going free to play and that for me is the ideal mix. I don’t think Free to Play needs to be equally rewarding. It has fun enough gameplay an amazing store and even if you don’t use it a very fun libarary of creatures to collect so if you want something fun feel free to try it out! If you REALLY want to try it out though give a shout out to me in the comments! I could send you an invite and get stuff as a reward… I am all about those rewards now.. because I am hooked enough to at least put in an effort. That is more than most mobile games can make me say.

As for what flavour to reward it with..I feel that is rather relative for this one. For me personally this is a Gacha Idle Game done right. I feel the need to collect and the urge to pay and I would happily splash a few dollar for it here and there. It gives me satisfaction without the need to feel to purchase everything. I can take this journey like I take this game. One step at a time. I’ll get there when I get there. Meanwhile I stare at cute cats a grin widely! This is fun, it does more for me than Dragon Ball Legends does.. which is a fine game but I can still see myself getting frustrated with it within a few week so it won’t receive the highest of my praise. In the end I find this game Berry Good…now I want a cat named Berry Good! I might be more addicted than I think!

Pinkie Becomes A Temtem Tamer (Part 2): Journey to the first Dojo

Last time we saw Pinkie Paradise pick up her first Temtem and venture out in the big world. She caught a few new friends and went to study at a town with a weird squigly in the name. As she had and still has no idea how to make a squiggly c , we shall just name this town Brical de Mar… just imagine the squiggly. In the first leg of the journey we just made it there so let’s see what adventures await her in this episode…

Taking on sidequests

I made plenty of progress with my Temtem and was already getting to know the battle system when suddenly a few question marks showed up on my map. Temtem unlike it’s big inspiration has an active main quest and plenty of side quests. Yet first we had to meet the professor. This time he was accompanied by Sophia. She was beautiful, her skin coloured like chocolate milk…. well more like a gentle serving of nesquik in a glass.Her hair long and waving starting as a sort of fading anthracite colour…like garden furniture that has been left in the sun for to long flowing over into a deep cyan.. with the intensity of printing press ink that had just exploded in her hair.

Her clothes looked like a lovely breezy jacket that looks really hard to put on.. because this bra-like mini top is part of it’s design so I guess you pull it over your head like a shirt.. but the shape doesn’t really cooperate. She must spend a lot of time getting ready. She wears one of those aladdin belts.. you know what I mean those cloth band belt things that are very shiny and smooth. She also wears some across her arms so she accessories very well. She tells me I can visit her in Arissola, temtem tamers take on dojo’s to proof their worth and get rewards from it to further their journey! She also tells me I should study at the school first…. *la sigh*

(*Why does the principal have a Schoolboard in her office with a drawing like that? .. She is up to something!)*

So it’s back to school with me, but what is this.. a guy lost the key to his locker… well gotta help him find his key first! The poor thing! So even though the school bell just rang I do the noble thing and start to help him first. Through a few quick dialogues with people I find out he dropped the key at the Temporium… that’s like a pokecenter…but…there is no nurse just a heal computer where you can do it yourself…. that’s about all the differences.

I bring the key back and get some junk items. Higher up in the school I found the head mistress, who thinks two boys are skipping school. She asks me if I can go find them… so I head out and find those students. It quickly turns out I need a surfboard to find them which I can find out in the next town…so I decide to skip school. to get a surfboard to find these boys . It’s amazing how real this game feels!

Temtem Up

Having left the town, heading north I quickly got into some more interesting Tem-battles then before. I noticed that even if my temtem had quite a few levels on my opponent I simply was unable to oneshot them. Even killing them in two hits proved a challenge with my starter moves. The two versus two battle system of temtem doesn’t make this any easier. I am completely unable to avoid all damage on my temtem.

My super effective moves are not able to oneshot and because I have a fairly diverse party so it’s not that uncommon that something I have gets hit super effective as well. Three battles down the road my Temtem are not looking healthy. So I head back to the Temporium to heal them up and walk over to the guy who has a store in the place of healing to buy some balm’s to heal my temtem and some antidotes and stuff. After getting to the store.. I decide not to buy any at all and just get some temcards. Those items are EXPENSIVE! Besides I already beat six trainers ( you fight them in pairs) how long can the road to the next town really be?!

***(La Sigh I never get notifications)***

Temtem is a lot more difficult than pokémon. While battles themselves aren’t THAT challenging, being a Temtem trainer is. You want to level up your tems so want to make sure everyone gets a turn.. but that means taking hits. You’ll want a team as full as possible because even a few levels ahead killing temtem in one hit rarely happens or you’ll run out of stamina before you can do that to all. Temtem is very much about managing your team. Limiting the damage you get and maximising your experience gains wherever possible.

Running away from random battles I also found a bit harder than in Pokémon. Normally you will lead with the two temtem you want to level the most. Those can’t run as easily.. and failing means two free hits from your opponent. So I figured I best just soldier it out, fight my heart out run back to the temporium and little by little make progress. Of course I could just ask a friend to travel with me… but I don’t have any friends yet! While it does sound really grindy.. and in a way it also is.. I really like the challenge. It gives you a chance to experiment with several Temtem and since this is an MMO you could have expected some grinding.

Showing my Sass

I catch a Ganki , a air and electric type Tem to help me deal with all the air type temtem I find on this route! Plus the first Dojo is claimed to use air and water temtem so I need an ace! I realise however that Ganki by now is almost 16 levels behind so I do need to grind a bit. I head back to the squiggly c town and head back to the school. Maybe I missed something. One teacher asks my name and I tell him “My Name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die” . He looks at me like I am an idiot and continues to tell me stuff about Temtem.. like synergy attacks!

Some moves of temtem have a little plus icon at their name, if you put a temtem of the right element next to it, it will gain a boosted effect. For example if a Temtem of the same type is next some moves will raise in attack powers. If you put a toxic type next to the water type.. water moves might inflict poison. Such a nice idea and it makes having doubles of a type or certain team strategies compilations more interesting.
Soon after that I head back and Fight Sara and Lara twins who can;t figure out of them who is Sara and who is Lara… so I claim to be Sara instead.. which triggers the fight. I win so I guess I am Sara now! It’s hilarious to find all these dialogue options.

When facing a Temtem trainer you can steer talks the way you want them, either for a quick battle or to find some hidden dialogue. Some are amazingly geeky fun. Like that one where I mimic the princess diaries.. or later on where a guy keeps talking about a thing hidden under a truck on a deserted island. There is plenty of references to be found towards how much they are like Pokémon. For example there is a temtem naimed Saipat in this game. It’s a duck.. who fights with sais.. A Sai Duck! Unlike Psyduck .. who much to the fans dismay never got the psychic typing that makes part of his name.. the Sai .. of Sai pat is taken into it’s typing. It’s a dual fighting and water type. That’s pretty cheeky humor by the monkey’s at Crema. To add insult to injury they also gave Saipat an ability that allows it to use toxic type moves as if it was it’s typing.

The main character can make fun of dialogue tropes and can even recognise the game is still in early access, stating that it is weird that so many buildings are closed. I encountered a guy who thought he was better than me because he was from the city and I got the option to respect him or make fun of him! Even after battle I got the option to kick him when he is down! That is great it makes battling so much more fun! However this one comes with a downside! Dialogue is missable! Where in pokémon you can loop a conversation endlessly, once you chosen to commit to a certain line of dialogue here that is it. After that they will only ask you to leave or stay for dinner, which you never get. So careful you might sass yourself away from a juicy piece of gossip or lore! Not that I care.. I never finished school anyway some ignorance is to be expected.

Shopping for clothes

After a fair while I finally made it to the town of Arissola , I am ready to fight that first Dojo now! My temtem are all about level 20 ish now. Yet the Dojo Leader sophia seems to have vanished after visiting the wind fortress. Which lies past the gifted bridges a long route filled with Temtem trainers. “Ah I see, more training required huh” message received! My body is ready! So I start to prepare for my new leg of the journey. I pretend to be a tour guide, lying about my knowledge of the region.. luckily I loved dialogue so I actually KNOW what to pick! That’s kind of clever. I found these facts trough random dialogue and thinking logically about places I visited before.

People travel across this world like you do , to either see the sights or further their science. You can tell by their clothes or their temtem if people are from different areas which is kind of neat. There is a very vivid form of world building in these towns and the continents and trough side quests the game gently asks you to explore more. Sometimes you’ll have to catch a very rare spawning temtem, or find a specific chain of npc’s sometimes on description only. It sounds very simple but Pokémon always kind of lacked this.. it’s just random people everywhere without a connection.. here we see pop idols.. and people worshipping her, a ferryman and it’s passengers, a perfume seller and her material suppliers. There is is a bigger connection random people know each other.. the world is more alive…… omg there is a clothing store in Arissola!

Temtem has a lot of customisation options, plenty towns hold clothing stores which all have very unique items based on the region and local styles. You can buy dye sets to recolour your clothes in the ways you want as well which is like a big heart eyes emoji from me! I love gear systems like these and since your temtem trainer only wears vanity gear you can do what you want without jumping through numerous hoops. Heart Eyes Emoji Heart Eyes Emoji Heart Eyes Emoji! However the gear is incredibly expensive and I have not found a way to find easy money yet! If you know good ways to make money in Temtem let me know!

***(these thinks combined will form my dream outfit)***

Because shopping always makes me a happy Pinkie! While I did not make a lot of progress with Temtem in this leg of the journey I again really like that I can take it slow, there is some stuff to explore, there is a lot of fun stuff to try and there is plenty temtem to catch. Temtem do not level up a a certain level but after gaining certain levels so I have to spend a lot of time with all of them. With my eyes on the first dojo and my goal and the wind fortress I know my journey is only just beginning and I am sure it will only get better.

More Temtem Posts

~~-Road to Temtem (Outdated)~~
-First Steps

Pinkie becomes a Temtem Tamer (Part 1): First Steps

Oh goodie, joy joy, Oh happy day! I am a happy Pinkie. This week the early access ( version 0.5.5) of Temtem became available on Steam. In this game you capture mysterious but powerful creatures using Temcards to fill your Tempedia. You use up to six of these creatures to battle your opponents, like random tamers but also an evil team and 8 dojo masters to become the very best. However this time it is an MMO, sometimes you will need to make friends to traverse a dungeon, there are plenty of quests to do (admittedly with very weak rewards usually) and tons of fun to be had. So I decided to spend a lot of time into becoming a Temtem tamer. I will update you regularly on my journey and maybe talk about these creatures a bit as well.

Creating my Tamer

Temtem is a game made by Crema. A self proclaimed group of five monkey’s developing games. What a sweet one these five monkey’s made now. This collectable creature game of course has obvious similarities towards my beloved Pokémon games and in many ways can feel as much as a clone as Mighty Number 9 was to Mega Man and how A Hat in Time is basically Super Mario Sunshine with hats instead of a douche. Unorginal? Maybe.. but I am tremendously happy with it. It really looks likes this game is one that can push the collectable creature game to be more of a defined genre. Very few of these games have been successful and just like how the Soulsborn genre has very similar feelings throughout all games I think the Pokétem subgenre of collectable creature games could really boost the quality of all games.

*Pink Squeeels*

While I was extremely happy with Sword and Shield and am very welcoming of a rival that can push them and itself to greater heights. It did not take me longer than a few steps to realise that these five monkeys clearly know Pokémon and the community very well which is shown throughout the game , playfully dealing with many issues most fans have with the pokémon series. At some elements for more social interaction and I might hold a gem right here.

My journey starts with a que , after waiting for about four minutes I get trough and can finally make my tamer. I start out by making her an outfit of white shorts and a pink long sleeve. She also wears pink shoes. Her backpack is a adorable small one.. not one of those bulky ones with all sorts of things sticking out.

I pick out a face (so many ugly ones here) and dye my hair in a pink two tone. With a lighter base colour and a more saturated pink in the points. It’s not very noticable but my hair feels quite lively and I do like it. The graphical style of Temtem is something that really agrees with me anyway. There is a simplicity to it that I find really charming. It’s kind of like the current generation of saturday morning cartoons.

It isn’t exactly mindblowing at first glance but it allows you to do so much more with it. By choosing a style like this we may not be blown out of our seats by spectacular designs but we also get a lot less of the same. Random Tamers are designed with the same tool so everyone you battle feels much more unique opposed to this game’s bigger more famous cousin. Because assets are kept simple there is more they can use. Colours seem more exaggerated with a focussed on a combination on very saturated colours with plenty of pastels as well. This makes every building feel more unique and less “tileset like” than in pokémon. Custom Tamers are very diverse from the start and I haven’t encountered a look alike yet. Enough about the looksies though! I named my character Pinkie Paradise (as Pinkie was already taken of course.. MMO issues) and I could begin my journey. Oh I also could choose my preferred pronoun but as per this version of the game, dialogue isn’t fixed for it yet. Yet I have not a single doubt that it will.

Picking my Starter

I was immediately happy when the game did not begin with a professor giving a monologue. Instead i was awoken from my bed, just like how any game rpg should start in my opinion by a woman named Aina. I think she adopted me cause she keeps using my last name as well! Of course I do know it’s because I just picked surnamed character, so I just imagine I play a bit of a Lolita (the dress wearing kind) youtuber that is addressed by her handle. My character doesn’t call Aina mother but just calls her Aina .. so adopted it is! Even if characters later tell me I am Aina’s kid.

I am told it’s the evening where I become a tamer and get my starter. After which I go study Temtem in Briçal de mar. Thanks for choosing that c with a squiggly below it by the way Crema, it’s such a hassle to make that appear! I have to find your wiki, copy page, delete background colour etc. Anyway the whole town is there to wish me luck, I can press F to chat with them, I have to admit I spend a lot of time trying to interact with my tv and bookcases trying to see if there was a movie with four boys on a railroad on tv. I can’t interact yet with objects maybe I never will. There was a trash can later on though! When I obtained a surfboard upon beating the first Dojo there was also a truck on a hidden piece of land I could interact with…but I am getting ahead of myself.

After messing about for a bit , I make my way to the Temtem lab of Professor Konstantinos. Luckily his name has no weird squigglies. He’s pretty old but he is rather jovial. He doesn’t wear a labcoat either, which is kind of stupid to begin with. Why would a field researcher or someone who interacts with living creatures a lot ..in a friendly non cage-like way wear a white lab coat anyway?! The guy is nice and notices that my rival called Max already has a Temtem. So he doesn’t need a starter and I get to pick one of three.

My choices are Crystle, a green crystal type turtle/pig like quadruped. Then we have Smazee, it’s a melee type shaggy monkey with a huge smile and the potential power of friendship. Finally there is Houchic the mental temtem. This one is a special attack focussed temtem that kind of looks like a levitating baby with tentacles on its head and white hair. It’s body is purple and it is a big tail. Given that my OC in one of my roleplay campaigns is a flying eldritch baby with tentacles on her head and the power to control minds I choose Houchic and name it Luma, after my character. Luma Temtem however also exist in this world. They are alternatively coloured temtem who have some short of shine to them. Unfortunately for me Luma is not luma.

Catching Temtem

After I put Luma in a card , which are the capturing devices in this world, Max begins to whine and moan about not getting one. However his Oree is the rare and elusive Digital type, which the professor says ..is already powerful enough. So In pokémon terms I guess the rival begins with a dragon type. Nice that means I am going to beat the shit out of the bratty kid during our first battle. The rival battle does indeed happen. Here we are introduced to a few mechanics in Temtem that I really like. There is no limited uses on moves, Instead they all draw from your stamina pool. A finite number that very slowly increases again over time. You can regain it faster by ordering a temtem to rest. It is possible to overspend (once) when your stamina is to low, but the remainder of the cost comes from your health points and after the temtem has to take breather.

Moves have all sorts of priority brackets, depending on how they are used. All moves have arrows >> like these that show what priority it has. Most moves fall in the >> category. However a simple kick, scratch or peck for example all belong in the >>>+ category. Attacks that require a large charge up usually fall in the > category. This means battling in Temtem already has a lot more depth. You have to manage your resources well, there is no need to finish a opponent of with a move that costs 23 stamina if you could finish it off with a weaker move that only costs 8. You can’t just slap ultra destructive moves on your creatures either. You have to take speed , stamina and typings into consideration.

Yet there is more! All moves either have one or two elemental coloured blocks at their name. If there is two, your temtem can only use such a move every other turn and never in the first either. They are oftenly light on stamina and high on damage..but they risk your temtem taking some extra damage. So Luma can only kick on her first turn and misses.. just my luck! “Oh well next turn I will hit him with my mental…..NANI! I got oneshotted?!” CRAB CAKES! FROWNEY STORMY CLOUD! Max is a grade A Meanie-Bo-Beanie. Blue/Gary Oak would look at the guy and think… eh that the guy scores a little high on the Handsome Jack scale. In fact Handsome Jack would probably look at this kid and think… I should use protection more, before shooting Max in the face of course.

Luckily I get a price for losing. Professor Konstantinos gives me a Tuwai, a wind Temtem that looks like Toucan Sam’s kid. I named it Nuggets. In the campaign that features Luma, Nuggets is a Chicken Bard..who sings ,steals and has a blow dart to toss feathers at his opponents. I also get five temtem cards. Which I can use to catch Temtem. Now I have to make my way to that town with the squiggly c in its name to study at the accademia. Meanwhile I should catch me some temtem. Now that we have two Temtem the real gameplay of the game is beginning to show. You Temtem up (basically It’s time to D-D-D-Duel of this world) by tossing not one but two temtem into battle. This for the biggest part also applies to wild encounters, though on occasion you might encounter a single temtem. It adds a lot more depth in battle, but more on that the next time. It is basically like the Pokémon Coliseum games, but instead of just stealing shadow creatures from your opponent this time you can capture anything in any wild encounter. So it’s sort of those gamecube games finally done right.

You never get a capture tutorial, it works exactly like it does in Pokémon..the lower the health the bigger the capture chance. Status will most likely help as well , but on my first steps I never had a status inflicter which could try this for me. Nor did I encounter situations up until this point where captures are very difficult. What is new with statuses though is that they only last a limited amount of turns and there are quite a few more of them…but again this is something for the next post. Any temtem can hold up to two statuses , so catching will get a new depth as well. If you weakened the other temtem enough you throw your card..which then will spin around them rapidly scanning and digitising them in. This scanning has three stages. If it makes it past all three the temtem is captured and now in your card.

From here you can nickname it (do so right away because there right now is no way to change it ..even though this will be added soon). Unlike with Pokémon, temtem trainers aren’t complete bumbling fools when there is more than one target on the field. If two different temtem appear you haven’t caught yet..you can catch them both in a single encounter. Such an improvement from pokémon. In old games when you encountered a double battle you had to knock out one pokémon first because otherwise “i’d be impossible to aim….herpaderp”. I felt the system worked nicely, the digitising sequence feels more rewarding than a pokeball rolling about, as you literally see your soon to be partner slowly be pixelated into your card. It really feels great.

While at least in the current build we do not have THAT much temtem to catch yet and some patches of tall grass (yes you encounter them in tall grass, bodies of water or cave floors) kind of feel barren in terms of diversity, it all feels great for grinding and luma hunting. You can adapt your team to grind against the wild encounters of your choosing (to an extend) and you do not have to click through loads of encounters to catch special ones. Everything seems quite well thought out. While I made my way to Briçal de mar I captured everything I would find and added them to the Tempedia. I only added a Sawli and a Tateru to my team though. Respectivly a cocoon that looks like it skinnend an Umbreon but stares at your really cutely so you forgive it of the nature element (Swali) and a tall panda bunny pig thing that likes to dance. (Tateru) After a fairy long travel I reached the second town..ready to increase my knowledge… but that is a story for next time!

More posts on Temtem

From Trainer to Tamer: Road to Temtem (Outdated)

From Trainer to Tamer: The Road to Temtem

Do you know that feeling? The feeling that something is to good to be true. Yet maybe , it might be true. Like that feeling when they told you that you won a big price and have to come get it at the tv studio. Did you win a nice check? They certainly make it sound like you did but maybe you just won one of those posh looking toasters that looks like if that new xbox had a child with a car from the 50’s. Temtem is a new upcoming MMO that gives me these feelings. Am I a millionaire, getting everything I ever wanted? Or will it sit on my steam shelve without ever being used. It’s to soon to find out..but it’s the perfect time to dream.

What is Temtem?

So let’s begin with what Temtem actually is.The game is being described as A massively multiplayer creature collection adventure. In this adventure you take on the role of a customisable youth who catches magical creatures named Temtem. Then as their tamer it’s your duty to make them stronger as you travel across the six island of the airborne archipelago. On these islands you find many other tamers who are eager to battle you but your true challenge is to defeat eight champions of so called Dojo’s .As you can carry up to six Temtem at a time you battle your way up the ladder to fame and glory. Things aren’t as easy as they seem though! An Evil organisation named Clan Belsoto looms in the shadows, no one knows who their leader is but they are most certainly up to no good. Lucikly there are around 141 (currently) Temtem to collect and you need them because temtem can have various typings like Neutral, Fire, Water, Electric and Digital and you have to use them to your advantage if you wish to be the very best…… wait a minute…. this is a pokémon MMO.

Ditto

When you look at Temtem it’s not that hard to see the comparisons with the pokémon franchise. In fact it looks A LOT like pokémon. It looks like pokémon so much that there was a point where I felt Nintendo pull it off the internet. Now they have a Switch release planned. That’s a good sign right? I have tried so much clones but they all felt so cheap, they all felt like they tried to be to different or to “korean” .. yes sorry that is a thing for me. This feels like pokémon, in fact it oozes so much pokémon atmosphere that I think it was a Ditto that started the kickstarter campaign for this and I absolutely mean this in a positive way. Whats better than one pokémon? Two Pokémon! What’s better than two pokémon? Pokémon and a game that is just different enough that it feels you are in a different world but your still doing that exact same thing you love. I love Hat in Time and that is very much a love letter to Mario Sunshine, I love Shovel Knight which is the child of megaman and ducktales. So how could I possibly dislike a game that follows the style of my most beloved franchise? That’s right I can’t. Even if it’s a clone it’s DNA is still different enough to turn this into something different enough! I mean for one it’s an MMO experience. This is what soooooooo many people asked for. Well minus the 896 pokemon but with the 141 or so Temtem. Talk about one hell of a dexit.

Going Airborne

So why should we trade in Galar for the Airborne Archipelago? Does this game have anything to offer, that pokémon doesn’t? Well Crema , the company making Temtem hasn’t discovered my blog yet and hasn’t offered me a chance to play it yet. I missed the kickstarter so I haven’t gotten access to early versions so I can’t really tell. Good girl that I am I have done some research though. It seems that Temtem tackles the biggest problem of the pokémon franchise of it being to easy and just be about slapping a stronger move on your pokémon. Temtem battles are always two on two, and for any who played the two Pokémon Coliseum series games knows that two on two battles are very different. It’s harder already. Temtem will also have a nuzlocke mode, meaning you have the option to activate permadeath on your Temtem. That’s an extra challenge right there!

My research shows there are some modifier that can stack how effective moves are, in other ways then pokémon but the most and by me beloved idea is that moves do not have PP. A temtem has a stamina bar, each skill it learns consumes that stamina bar. When the stamina is empty you can still use those moves but it will eat at your HP due to fatigue. This means a VERY big change. Now you have to balance out your strong and weak attacks. Defence is a good option now, choosing to wear a stronger opponent out with weak attacks can actually do something in your favor now. Add the constant double battles too it you are already tasked with a lot more resource management. The speed of your temtem also seems to play a more important part in the games. As I haven’t played the game myself I can’t really explain this but there seems a lot of tweaks and extra layers in the combat that seem to make it just a bit more challenging. That alone is a reason to pay this new game a visit.

Little Monsters, Little Things

Based on first looks this game has so much charm and potential. It’s a bit more cartoony and MMO’ish than Pokémon is. With extremely colourful locations with a bit more of a fantasy vbibe than pokémon I seriously think these two games can co-exist quite easily. Temtem distinguish themselves from pokémon because they seem more like fantastical creatures.

Where pokémon seem to resemble real life creatures, Temtem are more out there. Instead of a random bird we get a horned smiling thingy that hovers by flapping its lower leafs . Instead of a electric mouse, we ge a blue hopping helicopter head like thing with skinny legs. Oh we also have smiling maniacal blue guy. Their mascot is a Temtem called Pigpic he’s a flying pig that looks like he is covered in jam. He is adorable and had I known they gave away a pigpic plushie with a 60 dollar crowdfund of this game I would have happily spend that money. Unfortunately that time has passed so I will just have to capture it in the game and take it back to my house at Atoll Row! Yes that is right this game will feature player housing. Decorate and make your own little home , like a secret base but better. This means our young tamer’s will probably be older than a 10 year old as well! So yay for that! Player housing as well as player customisation looks fairly expansive for an anime style MMO so far. and I saw a lot of pink options in there! Mean I will be a happy tamer. Unique little creatures, lots of customizables, already things to collect for my endgame and a whole lot of new friends in the making to play collectable creature games with. Temtem isn’t your run of the mill pokéclone. Crema clearly has love for the source material and it can be seen in everything. Veering away from the formula in what seems to be just the right places and adding some classics staples. Indeed they copy most of their example but it’s in the little things that makes this game so attractive. I have no doubt this game will be good.
The only thing that worries me is that I check Crema’s kickstarter page they say the company consists out of five little monkeys! If monkeys can make this good of a game it will not be long before our world will turn into a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!!!!