So you like the idea of playing a Pokemon MMO. Good stuff. But while Temtem draws plenty of inspiration from the pocket monster franchise, there’s also lots of important changes that’ll affect your team and how you progress through the game. Here’s everything you need to know.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/01/temtem-pokemon-pc-mmo-pretty-adorable/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/01/temtem-early-access-4-410×231.jpg” title=”Temtem Is Pretty Damn Adorable” excerpt=”The actual launch for Temtem, the closest PC players have had to an official Pokemon MMO, was not great. But as the lag started to vanish and the disconnects became less frequent, I was able to enjoy what Temtem has to offer – and it’s off to a great start.”]
Know which Temtem beats which
Similar to Pokemon, your Temtem will have a particular type. There’s 12 types in total, and Temtem can have up to two types. Most are pretty standard if you’ve played Pokemon at any point – there’s no Poison Temtem, but there are Toxic Temtem, for instance.
Here’s all the different types of Temtem you can find, and their weaknesses. You can see the type of your Temtem via the small icon at the top of their character sheet.
- Neutral Type, ineffective vs. Mental
- Fire Type, strong vs. Nature and Crystal, weak against Water and Earth, resistant vs. Crystal, Nature, Fire, ineffective vs. Earth, Water, Fire
- Nature Type, strong vs. Water and Earth, weak against Fire and Toxic, resistant to Water, Nature, Electric, Earth, ineffective vs. Toxic, Nature, Fire
- Water Type, strong vs. Fire, Earth, Digital, weak against Nature, Electric, Toxic, resistant to Fire, Earth, ineffective vs. Toxic, Nature, Water
- Electric Type, strong vs. Water, Mental, Wind, Digital, weak against Earth, Crystal, resistant vs. Electric, Wind, ineffective vs. Nature, Electric, Earth, Crystal
- Mental Type, strong vs. Neutral, Melee, weak vs Electric, Digital, Crystal, resistant vs Neutral, Melee, ineffective vs. Crystal
- Earth Type, strong vs. Fire, Electric, Crystal, weak vs. Water, Melee, Nature, resistant vs. Crystal, Electric, Fire, ineffective vs. Water, Wind, Nature
- Wind Type, strong vs. Toxic, weak vs. Electric, resistant vs. Earth, ineffective vs. Electric, Wind
- Crystal Type, strong vs. Mental, Electric, weak vs. Fire, Earth, Melee, resistant vs. Electric, Mental, Toxic, ineffective vs. Earth, Fire
- Digital Type, strong vs. Mental, Digital, Melee, weak vs. Electric, Digital, Water, resistant vs. Toxic
- Melee Type, strong vs. Crystal, Earth, weak vs. Digital, Mental, resistant vs. Melee, ineffective vs. Melee, Mental
- Toxic Type, strong vs. Nature, Water, weak vs. Wind, resistant vs. Toxic, Nature, Water, ineffective vs. Digital, Toxic, Crystal, Earth
For a type chart that’s easier to visually parse, users DoctorMetalio and Zaivinx put one together, which you can find on the official Steam forums:
Most of the above is pretty self-explanatory: you’ll do double damage for types your Temtem is strong against, and you’ll take double damage from Temtems exploiting your weakness. Resistance means your Temtem will only take half damage from attacks of that type, while ineffective attacks of a certain type only do half damage.
Understand each of the three starters
Like all classic Pokemon games, you’ll choose one of three Temtem as your starter. The Professor will give you a second Temtem, but you’ve got no choice in that matter.
The three Temtem available are:
Houchic
A Mental Temtem that evolves into Tental at level 29, Houchic is weak against Crystal, Digital and Electrical Temtem. You’ll get Psywave early on with Houchic, but there’s a catch: it’s a move that’s never available from the first turn of battle, so you’ll have to account for that in tougher fights.
Smazee
A Melee Temtem that evolves into Baboong, Smazee has high speed and damage output – Uppercut does 80 damage, which is extraordinarily high in the early game. But Smazee doesn’t have any type advantages that you can exploit in the first few hours, since you won’t run into many digital or mental Temtem in the starter islands.
Crystle
A Crystal starter that’s strong vs Mental and Electric, with weaknesses to Melee, Earth and Fire. Crystle is the safe option of the three starters: despite the weaknesses that are more prevalent in early on, the Temtem has the best defence and HP stats out of the three starters, and the two physical techniques you start with ensure you’ll be able to do plenty of damage early on.
Understand your Temtem’s stamina
The main difference with Temtem’s battle system, beyond the 2v2 setup and the affinities and complexities that offers, is stamina. Rather than having a set amount of PP for each attack or move, every Temtem’s move takes up a certain amount of stamina.
You can use as much stamina as you want, but if a move causes the Temtem to go into deficit, then they’ll take damage and be stunned on the next turn. When you hover over a move, it’ll show you how much stamina you’ll have left (and whether you’ll go past your Temtem’s limit), as you can see in the screenshot above.
Most of the better moves will taking up close to half, if not more, of your stamina. Coupled with the fact that not all your strongest moves can be used out of the gate – you’ll have to wait a turn before they can be used – it means you’ll want to consider having a starter team that can protect each other through the first turn. Alternatively, having one Temtem act as a support act to a second who can attack both of the enemy’s Temtem at once is another option.
Pay attention to Single Values
Most of the stats that make sense if you’ve played Pokemon: HP is HP, special attack and defence affect damage given and received when using special techniques, and so on. But when you look at a Temtem’s stats, or capture one for the first time, you’ll see a second row of stats next to their current values called SVs:
SVs indicate the potential of your Temtem, and they range from 1 to 50 with higher numbers being better. Your starting Temtem’s potential is fixed, so there’s no point re-rolling your character every time. But when you’re catching Temtem in the wild, keeping an eye on the SVs will let you know whether the Temtem’s worth investing in, or putting to one side for gold farming.
Know what’s coming
Temtem is scheduled for a full release in Q2/Q3 2021, and so there’s a ton of features that are missing from the initial early access release. The game only features 80 out of the 161 initially planned Temtem, and only three of the game’s six islands are currently available.
There’s trading, PvP and co-op play, but developers Crema are planning to add housing, mythical (read: legendary) Temtem, in-game tournaments, a new game mode, ranked matchmaking, Clubs with weekly events, an Arcade Bar and an auction/trading house over the next year.
At the time of writing, the developers estimate there’s “over 20 hours of gameplay with the current campaign content”.
Leave a Reply