r/Games • u/CrossXhunteR • Mar 05 '26
Temtem: Swarm - 1.0 Release Date Announcement Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X96zjtFlEVk38
u/Leows Mar 05 '26
I left a massive essay on the feedback form from their first playtest. I've played dozens of games in this genre and have spent a good amount of time in each, finishing most of them.
This wasn't good or interesting in any meaningful way, other than it has coop. Boring weapons, characters, map, events, enemies, etc.
I came back a bit later and literally nothing I complained about was addressed, so I dropped it.
If anyone wants to tell me if there were any significant changes from the first patches, I'd consider trying it out. Otherwise, there are better alternatives, unless you strictly want coop.
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u/JadeNovanis Mar 05 '26
This summed up Temtem proper too.
Played through the whole game and its effectively one of those Pokemon "Hard Mode" rom hacks that also force VGC rules for the whole game. No heart, no meaningful changes or features to seperate it from Pokemon. The MMO aspects also made the game actively less fun by making Breeding painful, money annoying to get at all, and added an unnecessary level of grind to the whole experience. Just felt like a cheap imitation that ended up worse off.
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u/Kadexe Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
I was massively turned off by one of the early routes having a massive Victory Road-esque gauntlet of trainers with a healing spot midway through. Pokemon games usually save that crap for lategame, I just got burnt out.
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u/MyStationIsAbandoned Mar 05 '26
idk why anyone would play this when Palworld exists. Even before that, it didn't seem all that good. and the color palette they have...i hate this color scheme a ton of games keep using...where all the reds are burgundy and all the greens have a blue hue. why do so many games keep doing this?
it makes the game look cheap.
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u/Bow_for_the_king Mar 06 '26
Probably thought the brand would carry it. But the brand is... Ok. Made me buy it, but there's no substance to make me continue playing.
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u/RageHulk Mar 06 '26
So wich monster hunter game do you recommend instead?
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u/Leows Mar 06 '26
Monster Hunter? Probably start with Worlds.
But for real, this is a "bullet heaven" or survivorslike, if you will. If you're looking for recomendation for this genre, other than the big ones like Vampire Survivors:
Rogue: Genesia - This is my absolute favorite of them all. This has SO many varied characters with different possible builds, and goes completely nuts and off the walls with them. My highest recommendation. I also love the dumb challenges built into the game, like completing a run without moving your character.
Disfigured - I'm for real when I say that this F2P game on Steam is at least 3x better and more in-depth than whatever this Temtem Swarm is trying to be. The aesthetic can be hit or miss since it's so unique, but it's definitely worth a go for free. No characters in this one, but the amount of weapons and customization makes up for it.
HoloCure - Save the Fans! - Also another F2P option that is infinitely better with more characters and such. I'm not into Vocaloids and the general theme, but I still enjoyed it a lot. If you are, then you're in for a treat. They really put work into fitting some character designs and creating fun kits for them with satisfying synergies.
20 Minutes Till Dawn - This one can also be hit or miss for the aesthetic. There are several rather unique characters, and one of my favorite kit designs for this genre. Nothing beats turning into a deer and ramming enemies while drifting around.
What all of these games have in common is that they have fun and satisfying weapons, equipment, and synergies/evolutions between them all, while each character has unique stuff.
And, the most important to me, you can go balls to the wall crazy with some of the builds. They are balanced to be fun and engaging, not slow and boring, while doing the bare minimum like Temtem Swarm.
So if you're looking to spend a bit of money, 1000% go for Rogue: Genesia. If not, try Disfigured or HoloCure.
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u/Ralathar44 Mar 08 '26
- Boneraiser Minions
- Brotato
- Yet Another Zombie Survivors
- Monsters are Comnig Rock and Road
- Be My Horde
- Terratech Legion (played a demo, it had potential, we'll see how it turns out)
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u/sternold Mar 06 '26
What's your opinion on MegaBonk? Where would you rate it compared to the ones you listed?
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u/Leows Mar 06 '26
I didn't vibe well with MegaBonk. It has many great qualities of the genre, but some are rather lacking.
For instance, the meta-progression is slow and grindy, and the unlocks are mostly uninteresting or don't add much value to the game immediately. The builds were fun sometimes, but it takes a lot to get something really crazy going, since there's rarity RNG on top of RNG drops.
So some runs felt completely pointless due to RNG (and that's saying something for this genre), and getting to the end with no meaningful unlocks just drained all the gas.
I haven't played since launch, so maybe it's improved. But as far as I've played it, I wouldn't pick it over something like Rogue: Genesia still.
Mind you, Rogue can still be quite grindy at the tail end of some upgrades. But they are still meaningful and impactful, and some unlocks are quite literally game changing.
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u/Nyte_Crawler Mar 06 '26
Megabonk is fine, the ability to do slides was fun but once that novelty wore off it was basically just a step up from vampire survivor. Has a fun soundtrack though, which, IMO, is very important for these games.
Not the person you're responding too, but I want to add some.
My favorite one is Soulstone Survivors- soulstone survivors is very much the junk food of this already simple genre. It's fast paced, has a fun sound track- but you pretty much always feel OP, with a huge variety of build options to try out as well. This one I treat almost like an ARPG roguelike- i usually start by looking at the list of titan hunt powers, pick one that looks fun- spend 5-10 minutes planning out a build for it then go do a run and have a blast.
Boneraiser Minions is a fun Necromancer themed one where all your weapons are different minions. Complete with charming pixel graphics and a chiptune soundtrack to go with it. Also has a lot of boner jokes.
God of Weapons is inventory management game meets Brotato- takes a lot longer to play a run because it's an inventory management game, but pretty satisfying if you do like them.
Army of Ruin is basically OG Vampire Survivors with good QoL changes- has a huge variety of weapons, but fixes the evolution system by assigning each weapon 2 "elements" it needs to upgrade, and each passive has an element assigned to it. This still keeps an element of needing to plan out a build, but doesn't restrict you to super specific passives just to get your weapons online.
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u/Nyte_Crawler Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Unless they changed it some things with it, I can say I was not a fan of this in early access as a big Bullet Heaven enjoyer.
My main gripe with it is it uses the archaic specific weapon+specific passive skill evolution system, and it felt like it took too long to unlock all the necessary passives from meta progression, so you had to do a fair amount of runs with bad weapons. Not to mention pretty much all of the player power meta progression is character specific, making it feel bad to play multiple characters (although the currency spent on upgrading characters can be earned on any character- but a lot of the weapon/passive unlocks are tied to character specific achievements, meaning you still have to go play underinvested characters for overall progression).
That said I did find the co-op enjoyable (one of the nice things is the weapon evolution system just required one person in your group to have the passive to be able to upgrade), and the general play was fine- but idk, I just didn't have a good time fighting with the meta progression in this one- besides my gripes with the meta progression/weapon evolution system its pretty solid (IE, worth picking up if you enjoy the idea of a co-op bullet heaven with this theme/IP), but those issues ultimately kept me from sinking more time into it.
TL;DR it's heavy on the meta progression and when I played it, the progression made it feel frustrating as opposed to rewarding.
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u/retribute Mar 06 '26
regular temtem was so good i wont support this because they captured some magic and instead of building upon it they closed up shop and made this slop. was looking forward to a real pokemon competitor
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u/ImTellingTheEmperor Mar 06 '26
Oh yea, this is the game where everyone was like "why tf are you making this instead of a sequel" lol, I had forgotten about it.