Recent reviews by Umaril

This game is genuinely my favorite one I have played in years, it brought me back to when I discovered the original Binding of Isaac years ago and how every single run was captivating and rewarding. Taking time to read stuff properly and think your build through can lead to some amazing runs and it feels so good when everything starts working together and leads you to think "This is so stupid I love it", which is to me one of the mark of a great roguelike.

It combines elements from a lot of different games that end up working very well together. From Hades for example, you find both the "Heat" system (here called Cinder) that lets you make the game harder but is fully optional and only if you want to challenge yourself in fun ways, but also the "Clear Room > Choose from two paths" that makes it always dynamic with no backtracking. You'll also recognize some terms from Path of Exiles (pretty confident that the dev is a big fan) or enemies and items from other games which is always fun to see.

The visuals are really nice, there has been a ton of work put into the UI and it's quite clean pixel art which I personally love with that optional scanlines effect giving it a nice retro vibe while keeping the modern feel of playing and navigating the game. The music is also a banger, I've played a lot and haven't wanted to cut it to put my own yet which is a big deal for games like this.

The developper is doing a splendid job at making sure there's a lot of build variety, listening and communicating and at adding new things regularly. The game already has a ton of content and unlockables for being still in Early Access, for such a low price (around 10 bucks at the moment of writting this review) it is absolutely a steal.

If you have ever enjoyed any kind of roguelikes, please give it a go because to me this is a masterpiece of this genre.

Honestly a pretty good mix of a gacha and MMO, been having lots of fun and the events are generous enough that I don't feel pressured to put a lot of money into it while still being able to do all the content and rank high on the PvP ladder.

Being a Pokemon fan, I've been waiting years to play a game that could scratch that itch on PC outside of fan-made or emulators.

Temtem has filled that role for me. The game is still early in developement and lacking in some departments, but what is available right now along with the roadmap shows that there is a great future ahead for Temtem.

First of all, the whole game is playable in co-op. This is amazingly fun, and I would truly recommend playing the campaign with a friend. Talking about the main campaign. It is difficult enough that you will need to think about who you are bringing with you and will need to buy and use items along the way. This is for me a very good thing about this game, compared to a Pokemon game where everything is easy from start to finish.

At the time of writing this review, the game only has ~50% of the main campaign, which would take around 30h on your first pass I believe. This to me makes it worth it already, even if you just play the campaign right now, and even better if you consider future content.

Temtem designs are varied, and while it is hard to compete with the Pokemon IP, you'll grow attached to these new designs who, to me, feel on par in terms of quality. It will be weird at first, but through playing you do get used to the new designs and learn to love them.

The biggest difference though is the 2v2 battle system. It opens up a lot of possible options, and some abilities have synergies depending on which type your second Temtem is. Overall a breath of fresh air much needed in the genre.

As for replayability, Temtem does feature similar options to Pokémon, including :

- Luma Hunting, similarly to Shiny Hunting, you can play the RNG game to look for rare recolors of existing Temtems. Speaking about that, Lumas are amazing looking and the sparkly aura and trail really makes it feel special.

- Breeding. Inspirated by Pokemon's SV and EV system, Temtem has a very similar thing going on. Breeding is integrated into the economy by having a fertility system and having a certain cost, making it a good way to spend and make money. It is time consuming, but breeding definitely is something that will fit the needs of PvP and competitive players.

- Every week, you can get a new reward through catching Temtems, and you have access to an area with boosted Temtems either for breeding or Luma Hunting. This makes it worthwhile to play regularly, even after finishing the campaign.

Overall, I would recommend giving it a try. Just don't expect it to look like a fully-fleshed Pokémon Game, it's a bit less accessible but, to me, have a brighter and more interesting future ahead.
It looks like a Pokémon-clone, and does re-use a lot of what made said license successful, but it stands out enough on his own to be worth investing time into.

I bought this game since I am a huge fan of McMillen's previous games. I spent a lot of time playing and completing everything in Super Meat Boy, so when I heard about a new platformer I got really excited, and I think a lot of people will be in the same situation.

It's important to understand that while they both are hardcore platformers, they are quite different. The End is Nigh is set in a semi-open world and each "level" is connected with another, compared to the "world-by-world" setup of Super Meat Boy. Sometimes you'll have to go back to another level to access a secret or another path, which make it really interesting.

Also interesting that there isn't any bosses, which to me was both a pro and con. Meat Boy had some great bosses ideas, but most of them could be rendered trivial due to the limited options related to being a two-button platformer, so not having those kind of fights between worlds felt like a good idea to keep the rythme of the game.

The level-design is rich, and you never really get to grow tired of a specific mechanic as new ones are introduced regularly. Since you don't get any "upgrade", the level-design will dictate your possibilities, and I feel like you get a linear progression that is extremely rewarding.

Lots of different worlds will help with the basic story-telling of the game, but don't expect too much bare a couple cinematics and some hidden text. It's a gameplay-first kind of game.
Talking about that, it's pleasing graphically and the animations are really fluid, which should be no surprise to those who played Super Meat Boy. They know how to make a platformer feel great.

I personally finished the main-levels but still have a lot to discover, which again is kind of the trademark of McMillen's games.
All in all, get this game if you want a challenging but rewarding experience that feels good to play, and have the patience to accept thousands of deaths. It's a steal for this price and one of the best platformer I ever played.