Temtem: Swarm

Played around five games of this genre and watched many others. Dmd, Vampire-/Soulstone/Crafty- Survivors, Holocure, etc. In its current state this is by far the worst I have played. 1. Build variety. Every character has a few skill which basically all are summed up as deal DMG in an AOE with the damage and the area values varying. That's it. Crafty Survivors went great length to give each character a unique feel and encourages builds by making the abilities interact with each other. Most interesting ability in this game was a DMG-AOE which does not appear randomly on the map, but behind your temtem this time, revolutionary. 2. Skill trees are unimaginative. CTRL+C and CTRL+V skill trees. Increase Armor, Health, Damage, Elemental Damage or other attributes for each temtem. Even though the skilltree is the same for each temtem you need to upgrade each individually, discouraging you from trying different temtem. While Soulstone-Survivors has a similar system lategame every personal skilltree has global effects, making the investment worth it. Besides soulstone survivors skill tree having unique mechanics in the tree not just +5% stat A. 3. Punishing players by unlocking new temtem. The entire enticing factor of these games is the progression, you getting stronger. This game forces you to go back the beginner level upon unlocking a new character to do its quests so you can get the skills and techniques you want on the temtem you actually put your resources into. Effect: You don't look foward to unlocking new content. 4. There are multiple stats for characters. All of them besides offensive and especially movement speed are useless. If you are not faster than even the most baby beginner enemy it walks on top of you and you die to it in one second, dealing 10% of your health every 0.1 second. There is however the heavy tank character having around 4-5 times as much armor as the rest, he only dies in 2 seconds with no chance to escape. All in all this game is very basic for its genre. If you asked an AI to extract the elements common in every Vampire-Survivor like game, the resulting mechanics would be 98% this game has to offer. Looking at their roadmap I do not really see a lot of changes to the build variety and the problems I felt this game has. Can personally only recommend this for temtem fans that want to check out the vampire survivors genre. Otherwise there are more polished and unique games out there.

Devs are not doing a good job during the Early Access period despite having plenty of feedback. This review was written as of Patch 0.7. in Early Access. I've played many bullet Hell/Heaven & Roguelite/Roguelike games so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this genre. The game has so much potential to be great but the constant horrible decisions by the Devs shows that they do not have experience in developing a game of this genre. So many good ideas and games to take inspiration from yet they simply fail to deliver or listen to feedback. Below will be a few of the major issues with the game: 1. Techs are unbalanced. Certain techs are simply so far better than others that if you get the synergy for them you basically automatically win the game and nothing else matters, this means that you just aim for that 1 broken tech from each element and ignore everything else. (E.g. Wave+; Wind Blade+; Tentacle Slash+) 2. Some techs are better when NOT upgraded. The synergy or "+" version of some techniques like for example (Water Blade+; Glass Blade+) are legit worse than the normal version, this is due to the fact that some techs are completely changed from that their base version does, they become something entirely different instead of expanding on the concept or the concept remains but certain quirks like number of projectiles do not scale anymore. When confronted with some techs not scaling with number of projectiles when upgraded the Devs simply said that it was "intended" and not a bug; good talk. [They have improved some of the underperforming + versions so hopefully they keep doing that and accepting feedback better] 3. Gears do not have that much impact and the game feels very similar between runs. There's basically nothing that really makes each run feel unique, the gears do not influence your techs that much as the % is usually very little even at max level and there's a plethora of gears that do not work on techniques making it very unsatisfaying when a gear doesn't impact a tech. 4. Similar to point number 3, there's a weird RNG system in the game that I can't even describe but if you look through the community posts or the Discord some people have reported the same issue. No matter the amount of rerolls, some gears would simply just not appear during a run, it's almost as if when you start a run there's a certain amount of things that you can encounter and rerolling would never give you different stuff. 5. On top of point 4; we simply do not have enough rerolls or blocks in the game; it's very hard to make a specific build you want. 6. Tem balance is ridiculous. Some tems have access to Projectile Amount on the Skill Tree (MASSIVE POWER SPIKE for each point) or higher Damage% for their Techs compared to other Tems. Some of them have higher pick-up range/luck/EXP gain upgrades compared to others. Some have higher BLOCKS AND REROLLS??? There's just no design philosophy or anything that could possibly explain why some Tems have more rerolls and blocks than others, it's just a completely arbritrary skill tree that doesn't make any sense and simply makes some Tem much stronger or weaker than others. 7. Insane grind needed to upgrade each Tem. Because they don't have universal trees whatsoever and the prices are ridiculous you have to do an insane amount of runs just to get a few upgrades on each Tem, multiply that by the number of Tems available and it's just laughable how much they disrespect your time. They simply do not give you enough currency for all the things they want you to upgrade in order to progress normally. 8. Certain bosses are completely unbalanced. I'm mostly bringing up the Dash/Rush attacks that some Bosses will do where they will run at you and if you don't have enough Speed you simply CANNOT run away from them and you'll stay taking damage for 10s straight until you die. You're basically stunlocked until you die because they are faster than you and even if you use your Dash correctly there's situations where they will just outspeed you no matter what you do and you will die. When provided with feedback regarding these type of Bosses & attacks the Devs simply said "looks like you can still become more powerful or increase your skill tree further", no Speed% was available on the skill tree. It was simply not playtested that a Boss can stay on top of you for 10s straight doing infinite damage, how is that any fun. 9. They introduced a Hacking system that basically acts as modifiers to make your runs harder. The problem is that not only do you need to beat the final boss of each stage in 40s in order to unlock it for that specific stage but when you do unlock it you have to beat the same stage multiple times in order to gain rewards from further increasing the hacking level. What I mean by this is that you get 1.2x multiplier on your currency but even if you add more modifiers you won't be able to gain 1.4x/1.6x/1.8x until you beat the stage multiple times over and over each time increase the hacking level further. It's honestly just a joke that you can't skip straight into the difficulty you want and gain the rewards, why do I have to do the stage so many times. Simply mocking player's time. 10. They tried to introduce an Endless mode and when you enter Endless for the first time you are greeted with a TREMENDOUS POWER SPIKE of +300% MOB HP +30% MOB DMG +15% ENEMY SPEED +20% BOSS ATTACK SPEED; and this DOUBLES every 10 minutes. Instead of having a harsh scaling method and increasing the scaling say for example every 1 minute, they simply put crazy roadblockers at each 10 minute mark which completely defeats the purpose of endless, I honestly don't even know what to say. I'm just confused if the Devs have ever played any game on this genre and where they're taking these ideas from. TLDR; Devs had the chance to apply a lot of feedback that has been provided during the EA and have not been doing a good job, some of the decisions have been atrocious and stuff that has been requested since the very first day such as universal skill trees and others have never been added. It's a chill game and it has some positives but the lack of direction is so infuriating that I can't support it any longer.

It's alright, but I can't recommend it. After a short time every enemy is a sponge and it's just dodging forever. The upgrades are laughably linear. It's not fun. I almost fell asleep playing it.

this game is fun but it has so many bugs it becomes not fun to play. every patch has a different bug, this patch for example i cant see the time or my gear and Technic bar, so i play the whole game without knowing what are my tech or gear , last patch me or my friend stop gaining exp so one of us will be at level 10 the whole game, till they fix theses major bugs i dont recommend buying it

Temtem Swarm is what happens when you take a charming creature-collection MMO, toss out everything that made it interesting, and slap the leftover art onto a bland, half-baked auto-shooter roguelike. It's like someone looked at Vampire Survivors and said, “Hey, what if we did this… but worse?” This is even before getting into the specifics such as the multiple game breaking bugs that occur every second session.

good game fun to play but Lots of network lag in multiplayer every 5 run in co op 1 might work

Terrible boring game gated by repetitive grind and rng that shamelessly copies and brings nothing new, the difficult in each stage is crazy while each character needs their own extremely expensive upgrades so you need to grind the same level over and over to progress. You like brain dead grinding then buy this terrible game!!!

Fantastic survivor-like. Smooth animations, bright colors. Fun for others to watch you play. Lots of unlockables. Synergies! Evolutions!!! I waited as long as I could for it to cook as long as possible, but the Summer sale did me in. And damn, it was totally worth it. This is a great game. Well done, devs. So glad to see you persevere on your baby here, because it's beautiful. Can't wait to see what else is to come! (P.S. Pleaase consider adding local co-op at some point! Playing this with my partner on the couch would be amazing.)

Temtem Swarm distils the best bits of survivors-likes—hypnotic escalation, bite-sized runs, crunchy meta-progression—and spices them with creature-catcher charm. A few Early-Access rough edges remain, yet the core loop is already so moreish it’s hard to set the pad down. Rating: 8 / 10 I queue up my favourite Tem and the arena blooms into a kaleidoscope of projectiles—that’s Temtem Swarm in a nutshell: a monster-tamer’s day-dream grafted onto the “bullet-heaven” playbook. Think Vampire Survivors with extra personality: every run is a brisk power fantasy where you hoover up experience orbs, unlock ever-louder abilities, and watch the screen dissolve into elemental fireworks. Crema keeps the controls lean. Movement is WASD-smooth, abilities auto-fire, and cooldown ticks are short enough to encourage risk-reward weaving rather than corner-camping. Each Tem functions like a class: crystal casters, melee bruisers, rapid-fire wind types—pick the one whose kit sings to you, then nudge its branching skill tree mid-run for heftier crits or wider arcs. Stack a few gear drops and the synergies start to spiral in that delicious “just one more wave” way. Between runs you spend currency on permanent node unlocks, gradually turning former glass cannons into walking storms. Crucially, these meta-upgrades remain optional; a skilful fresh account can still clear maps, but veterans will appreciate the extra headroom for theory-crafting. Toss in online co-op for up to three friends and suddenly the buildcraft feels collaborative—combo your Tem’s wind cutter with a mate’s poison cloud and the numbers balloon satisfyingly. The art wears a Saturday-morning palette: chunky outlines, readable effects, and enough ooze to remind you these creatures bite. Performance is surprisingly robust—even Steam Decks hold steady at 60 fps barring the occasional late-wave hitch—and the soundtrack mixes bright synth hooks with the series’ trademark pan flutes, keeping the tempo jaunty rather than frantic. Swarm currently sits in Early Access, so content breadth is still growing: a handful of maps, boss types and Tem roster gaps hint at more to come. Ultra-wide UI scaling is jury-rigged for now, and balance patches occasionally turn favourite builds into yesterday’s news—but if you enjoy surf-riding the patch notes, that’s half the fun.

Meh game. A reskin of vampire survivors in Temtem style, but gets boring faster.

This has to be, truly, one of the worst games I have ever played. Sometimes your chest gets stuck in terrain and just becomes unobtainable, the level ups freeze and do not let you level up for the rest of the game (which obviously leads to you being under geared and dying), etc. Mind you, they know about these issues and claim to fix them in every update...doesn't happen. On top of that, half of them don't even have decent designs...Why is the toxic Tem a bird that only wind skills...exciting! Overall, of this category, this game falls incredibly short of every single thing it tries to do. Not worth your time.

would like more more gameplay mechanics less mob rush and more tricky mobs that require skill

Hello, Review coming from an Action Roguelike Bullet Hell/Heaven enthusiast. (Titles played includes: Hades, Vampire Survivor, Soulstone Survivor, Halls of Torment, Deep Rock Survivor, Rogue Genesia, Death Must Die, God of Weapons, Conquest Dark, Holo Cure, 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Apocalypse Party, Hordes of Hel, Binding of Isaac, etc) And also Brotato. 😊 - Enjoyable at around 1 to 3 stages, starts to feel like a slog to through after a while - No Invulnerability window after getting hit (Enemies can gangbang you) - Enemy mobs has no pattern, they'll rush at you all at once leaving no shimmying spaces (No circle of death pattern like how mobs are in Vampire Survivors or other rougelike games) - After completing 4 stages, every run will feel the same. Even if you choose a different Temtem. - To unlock a new Temtem, you have to incubate their egg while on a run in a new area. The egg is being dragged behind you, which requires you to avoid or dispose of the incoming mobs and protect the egg. Rinse and repeat for all unlockable Temtem. - The unlocked Temtems looks cute and different, but their skills have little to no variation from the previously unlocked Temtems - All Temtem skill effects are copy pasted on different Temtems. (Push, damage, slow, trap, etc) - The skill tree PER TEMTEM requires you to grind (in estimate) a stage 3 to 4 times just so you can progress a few skill or stat increase. Rinse and repeat. - Each run has a 20-minute timer, but feels like an hour to go through As always, these are my thoughts. I'm just a human being working from Monday to Friday so I can support my family, while having enough funds to continue purchasing new games like you. I just wrote these streams of consciousness as my own opinions. I'm not a professional being paid to review and manipulate you into agreeing with me. These are just my own thoughts in which I'm aware of, is probably just wrong or a bad take. Nothing I've said here invalidates your own opinions of the game. Thanks. :)

Great game, wife and I enjoy it quite a bit. Took us a few tries first level to get the hang of it but its quite simple to play.

The best bullet heaven game since Vampire Survivors! The new update adds tons of fun content. Definitely give it a try, even if you’ve never played Temtem.

until they fix the fallowing things i can't Recommend the game 1) The Kudos/Achievements/Unlocks menu is a mess. and some nodes won't even tell you what you're supposed to do when you cursor over them. (the detector is tiny and in a weird spot) and despite being a large board. the game only shows 1 section at a time. rather then just making the divides more pronounced. 2) about 1/3 of the Tem upgrades are unfinished. because they are for some reason Prioritising Horizontal Progression. rather then Vertical 3) people are already expressing issues with the Diluted drop table.

[b]An okay game[/b] Decent game for beginners and completionists, there are much more interesting options in this genre It's pretty generic, doesn't have much depth to it and doesn't feel very rewarding when it comes to skills or upgrades you get [b]Good[/b] [list] [*] The graphics are great [*] The gameplay is simple and very accessible [*] Online capabilities in this genre are very welcomed [/list] [b]Bad[/b] [list] [*] The upgrades are way too simple, the majority of it is just +5 armor, +5% damage etc, nothing really fun or game changing [*] Build variety doesn't seem very interesting [*] Seemingly too much grind, you have to upgrade every single temtem individually [*] Evolutions seems to just be reskins that up your basic stats, it doesn't actually change the way you play or change your techniques in a unique way or anything [/list]

Great game from the world of Temtem and I love that it has online co-op matchmaking

Relaxing vampire survivor with TemTem characters. My only issue is that it is 3 players instead of 4.

Temtem: Swarm nails that "one more run" appeal with creature-collector flair. It takes the addictive wave-clear loop of survivors-style games and spices it up with evolving Tem creatures, gear synergies, and mini-boss battles. Co-op with friends only amplifies the chaos—and the fun

I don't know anything about this universe, but I like Bullet Hell games. I decided to buy it after the 0.7 and I'm not disappointed, don't trust the too negative reviews, I've rarely seen a game in EA so well polished. In addition, it runs perfectly on Steamdeck and the game is FUN. (I play solo )

One of the most fun of these kind of games! It is fun to try out all the Temtems and improving them! I highly recommend this game!

Very fun game and it's nice going back into the world of Temtem. I hope the updates keep on coming!

The graphics, the soundrack, the gameplay and the multiplayer are great.

I've only played this game for 10 hours and I can say already that I love it so much ^__^ I'll probably farm all the challenges and max everything up ! Can't wait for more content/temtem !! :)

It isn't breaking any new ground and having meta progression unlocks applied per character is very grindy but its a serviceable offering with unique critter designs to boot. There isn't as much variety in gear and play experience as there is some other offerings though so unless the creature gimmick grabs your attention, you may not find grinding through the levels for meta progression engaging enough.

[b] [Very important disclaimer that I'm making after the review, I didn't even know TemTem (as in the RPG) was a thing, I thought this was a standalone game] [/b] [h2] I really wanted to like the game, but it just doesn't feel good. [/h2] The idea of a "survivors" game mixed with a pokemon thematic is really cool, and the visuals are really polished and good looking, but there are many major flaws that make it not fulfill its potential, at least as of right now, and I'll gladly change this review if it improves, as I don't like leaving negative reviews on indie games. [h2] The main problems I found were these: [/h2] [h3]1:[/h3] The main premise of it being the "pokemon survivors" feels like just a visual flair, there are no changes for evolving you TemTem, just a bland level up that gives you stats, there should be something like changing the TemTem's passive or it being the trigger to evolve the attacks instead of just copying Vampire Survivor's way of evolving weapons (which btw, why do attacks even evolve? the pokemon theme should give way for some more innovative way of getting stronger in a run) [h3]2:[/h3] The typing aparently doesn't mean anything, it's basically just the "weapon type" your TemTem has access to, which by the way has a really small selection of attacks for each type initially, forcing you to play a new TemTem with basically just the 4 attacks you can use at once, having 0 options, and after playing a whole run with them, you unlock new ones alongside the evolutions of the attacks you used, which feels bad because you want to both see their evolution and try the new attacks which will not have evolutions right away... [h3]3:[/h3] I already touched on it on 2, but the progression really doesn't feel good. In adition to the problems with unlocking attacks, the individual passive trees for each TemTem makes so you have to pick a single TemTem and grind with it to be able to go to new stages, your newly acquired TemTems will just not be able to survive on the stage you just played to get them. Also, the menu for the "Kudos", the unlocks, is extremely overengineered for what it should be, being really convoluted, having horrible controls and even being the laggiest part of a game with dozens of enemies and projectiles on the screen at once (which btw the game itself runs great, no complains on that front) To finish, just let me say that I'm not saying all this to "slander" the game or anything like that, I just got disappointed because from concept alone this should be one of the best games of its genre, and because the "front end"; visuals, sound, music and game-feel are really good, but the core systems have some flaws that made me not able to enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

Go from Monkee to Wukong, Platypus to Perry the Platypus, and a Robot to a Deadlier Robot!

Silly little game make my brain happy

Silly critters! I love them.

i like that it has updates very offten

Lots of fun co-op

Game is mindless and so much fun!

so many unlocks

Highly addictive!!!

Very good.

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