WARNING: This is an online-only game. You need a constant internet connection to play.
Did you ever wish Pokémon had better multiplayer and customizable features like buying and decorating your own house? Then let me introduce Temtem! This creature-collecting adventure will take you across six beautiful and diverse islands in a sprawling campaign in a fully online world. Yes, this means you will see every other person around you at the same time! With the game being fully co-op friendly in and out of battle, you can also buy and decorate your own house, customize your character with clothing and hats...or cosplaying as a Temtem of your choice, and even hardcore competitive modes. Temtem has got something for everyone, but does it have what it takes for Steam Deck gamers? Let's find out.
Temtem doesn't really have advanced graphical settings. It only has 4 options there and really only 2 control actual graphical quality, "Quality" and "Texture quality". When the game is set to ultra on both with no caps at all, the framerate goes all over the place around 30-40 while battery drain is 23W and temps reach as high as 90c. For a game like this, it makes no sense and we can do SO much better.
Even just standing still brings drain and temps way higher than they should be.
Due to the lack of graphical options, Temtem was super easy to optimize. I wanted to initially find a good balance, keep a stable framerate that was high enough to be smooth, but still felt great to play. I went back and forth on it though, but I decided that even though you NEED a constant internet connection to play, the stability of 60 FPS was not consistent in all parts of the game, so 50 FPS felt the way to go.
I tried initially setting the graphics quality to "Ultra" and seeing if I could mesh the 2 together, but honestly, the game looked almost exactly the same to me from "Ultra" and "Medium" quality settings, so keeping at Medium felt right at home. Otherwise, I was able to keep Texture quality at "Ultra" the entire time, which was pretty nice.
The 50 FPS compromise build held the framerate stable at all times with cool temps below 72c and a 3 hour battery life. With this, you are getting a fluid framerate that feels smooth, but saving a lot on battery in the case you are playing away from an outlet, like just on your couch in the living room.
Even in battle, Temtem stood strong and stable with those sweet cool temps.
More screengrabs from the recommended build. Still holding strong!
I then proceeded to create 2 other builds, a Battery Saver build and a 60 FPS build. Both of these use the same quality settings as the recommended, due to it being the highest while looking incredible, and really only needed some TDP changes to cap the battery drain, especially for the 60 FPS build. With those, the Battery Saver build has around 4 hours of battery life, while the 60 FPS tends to hover between 2 and 2.5 hours.
I actually didn't find any bugs or controller issues when playing the game. Everything seems to be running quite well and has earned that Platinum badge from ProtonDB. But again, I must warn that this is an ONLINE ONLY game. This means that, without an internet connection, this game can't be played at all. You could use a cellular hotspot if you have to, but otherwise, it won't work. Otherwise, it should work perfectly fine!
I will admit, the online-only aspect of the game does turn me off slightly, but I have always dreamt of a Pokémon game where I could play fully with friends and have more in-depth customization. This feels like the closest to that dream and it does a damn good job. The game is really enjoyable and even better with friends and, with the right settings, runs fantastic. If I was only going based on performance, it would be a 5/5, but the online-only aspect makes it hard to fully recommend this on a portable device.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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