There is something incredibly infatuating about the idea of going on an adventure all alone, with nary a penny to your name, and then collecting, battling and evolving all manner of wondrous, fantastical creatures to battle on your side and help you find the glory you so deserve. After all, that's why the Pokemon franchise is as huge as it is - it holds a special quality in its core philosophy; something that appeals to a great number of us. That's also why there's a niche for games that make an attempt at doing something similar on non-portable platforms, not least of which is Temtem.
Temtem is a now fully-funded Kickstarter project that makes no attempts at hiding what it is trying to do, and that is to try and emulate the core Pokemon games on PC, albeit at a higher resolution.
Indeed, what the developers of Temtem promise to do is allow PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One and - yes - Switch players do all those things we've come to know and love and expect out of a Pokemon game, but upscaled and likely with less charming creature designs.
The game itself was launched on Kickstarter with a rather low goal of $70 000 to fulfil, only for the backers to go nuts and more than quadruple the required amount of money in a short amount of time.
Promised features include but are not limited to the game being an MMO-lite, in essence. This means lots of visible players running around, huge amounts of customisation, a healthy competitive spirit, player housing and lots more, with the developers swearing up and down that they are, in fact, not biting off more than they can chew.
Six islands, a cooperative story and many different bosses to beat, as well as at least 141 of the titular Temtem to capture, evolve and train as you go along.
While it remains to be seen whether the developer can truly bring this game to life and fill up the monster-catching niche where Nintendo and Gamefreak have seemingly failed to do so, if the amount of showcased material is anything to go by, and the developer's previous track record (Immortal Redneck) there may well be room for careful optimism here.
Temtem is currently slated for release sometime in 2019.
