![]() Each stage has a death counter of sorts, which requires you to rescue most of the civilians trapped within a level, as well as actually seek out and defeat most of the enemy forces. In order to progress past certain stages, you need to kill a certain amount of enemies. Now, here’s where my big holdup is with Tembo - gating. ![]() Tembo has 17 stages, which last a few hours - if you play very well, that is. Game Freak keeps things exciting with hazards, well-placed enemies, and lots of explosions, which will keep you on your toes constantly. There’s many more instances of timing and running than fighting, which is something you mostly happen to do while jumping around. Mini-bosses and a few full-on Big Bads are peppered into progression, but I would consider it more of a traditional platformer than a real action game - especially with how muted and easy these encounters are. The level design is fairly open-ended, tasking you with finding hidden civilizations scattered across the map, and killing as many enemies as possible - both of which have separate goals that are tracked. It’s pretty much the perfect amount of depth, allowing newcomers to pick up and play Tembo while giving hardcore platforming fans room to experiment a bit. ![]() There’s even a modified charge that you can utilize by holding down the water button, which can put out flames while running. There are no real explicit puzzles, but it sure feels puzzle-esque if you’re going for flawless runs.įor instance, select levels can be completed without losing any momentum whatsoever, and it’s a blast to dash, dive-kick, and slide your way through the entire thing. As you progress you’ll start to learn more nuances, almost like you’re fitting Tembo through various keyholes with your moveset. More advanced moves involve uppercuts, slides, butt stomps, and a cannonball dive spin with a bounce. The basic gist is that you’ll be able to jump, dash, and float in the air momentarily like Yoshi, with the added ability to shoot water from your trunk. It even has effects like a literal “BADA BADA” phrase appearing while dashing about, and despite the low key setup it’s a very bright and loud game, mostly in an endearing way. It sports a charming little visual style that reminds me of Regular Show and a few other Cartoon Network properties. What you see is what you get in essence, which is a Rambo-inspired elephant laying waste to an enemy dictator, who controls the Phantom Force army. Tembo has a rather short little setup, and from there, doesn’t really give you any further exposition until the very end. Tembo the Badass Elephant (PC, PS4, Xbox One) While a few of the design choices are a bit odd, they don’t overshadow the sum of its parts. When someone told me that the developer of Pokemon was creating an action platformer called Tembo the Badass Elephant, I knew I had to give it a shot.
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