2026
Temtem: Swarm
I have yet to play regular Temtem. I haven't sunk too many hours into this so far, but it definitely seems like something easy to just kind of play as background noise. I like that one of the first available creatures has a poison skill. Was not expecting the massive skill tree orb.
Date Everything!
Sooo if I'm being honest I did try and use this game to help me work out some feelings I have surrounding relationships of all kinds, because, well... there's a lot of different characters (as you may imagine) and they all have different ways of interacting with you, and things they like and don't like. Ironically, I found Eddie and Volt's route to be the most natural-feeling to me, which is funny because people online love to complain about how picky and specific they are. Not going to take that personally at all (I'm actually not, but like.... noted, I suppose). Sometimes the dialogue trees stress me out because like, for example with Ben Hwa's... messier encounter, like, your only options are kind of to say it's the best thing you've ever experienced or like, be really mean for no reason (maybe "I'm only doing this for you, you know" isn't necessarily supposed to come off as rude, but like, it sure feels like it to me! Just a reminder, I hate this thing you're curious about and I think it sucks, but I'm doing it for you, I guess!). But at a certain point I'm reminded it is, after all, a game with essentially three options. Nonetheless, I'm glad for what information about myself I was able to glean from it. And, it's one of few games I can talk to one of my longer-time friends about, which has been nice.