Game Freak, the original creators of Pokémon have taken up a new challenger and have ventured onto a 2D/3D platformer that revolves around a peanut loving Elephant. I have said to friends and fellow gamers that this generation of gaming has had a lacklustre library of 2D/3D platformers (I miss the 90’s). Tembo the Baddass Elephant is a nostalgia trip back to the early 90’s when platforming titles were at their prime. Tembo has one of the easiest and self explanatory story’s to follow. Bad aliens invade; the army needs your help. Bish bash bosh, Tembo is in action. Game Freak have put a nice touch on taking the pi** out of their simple story, which is presented in a comic strip cut fashion.
The animation is perfect and shows off Tembo’s expressions and also the enemies showing true fear when they see this mammoth of an elephant ruin their day. The game has a lot of charm and animated with character, it really is an enjoyable experience. The overall objective of the game is to rescue as many captives around the levels, if you manage to find the captives they will hop onto Tembo’s back and ride with you whilst you destroy your way through the level. Levels are unlockable and depend on how many bad guys you kill. The game is fairly easy in regards to killing enough bad guys and I never had to back-track through a level to proceed. This leads onto the downfall of Tembo, its way too short.
There are only three main areas that offer something new for players to play, once you complete these areas, all that are left for replay value is literally saving all the captives and killing all of the enemies. A tedious function in my opinion and personally to me it’s a cheap way to go for replay value. The overall difficulty of the game is fairly easy with some puzzle elements thrown into the mix and impressive boss battles make it worthwhile, not forgetting the beautiful level design and varied levels. There is however an unbalancing issue with the bosses towards the end of the game causing more frustration than enjoyment.
The negatives aside, Tembo is a fantastic character that deserves a sequel for sure. Tembo offers a nice wide variety of gameplay and that’s probably due to the fact that Tembo can do lots of different moves. Tembo can charge, stomp and spray water while also being able to spin around in midair, float, slide and more. The variety is great and I love the combat and the platforming, but there may be too many moves for some players stepping into the platformer genre for the very first time. The slide/down attacks can cause some issues if used in a situation that it’s not needed. Expect a lot of unnecessary deaths. This can also be caused by some of the level designs where platforms may look visible, but actually they are not. This is minor and probably happened once or twice, but it’s just a heads up.
Overall, Tembo the Badass Elephant is an excellent platformer with fantastic characteristics and charm. It’s very fun and overall offers an enjoyable platforming experience. However, it is too short in my opinion and as a result, can be completed in a couple of hours. Even though it is a great game and is a must have for platform lovers, there are certainly faults and frustrations that will occur probably due player input than anything else, thankfully it is filled full of imagination and humour that makes it worthwhile.