Steam review: Tembo the Badass Elephant

You might know Game Freak for their work with the Pokemon franchise. But did you know that they also collaborated with SEGA and put out Tembo the Badass Elephant for Steam? In fact, Game Freak developed Tembo while SEGA published the game.

Initially released on July 21, 2015, Tembo the Badass Elephant was released for Microsoft Windows, XBox One, and the PlayStation 4. It takes you on a journey as Tembo (a play on Sylvester Stallone's character, Rambo) as you try and stop an evil syndicate known as "Phantom" from invading Shell City. Throughout the game, you have to take out a certain number of Phantom members to advance. You also save citizens along the way, which counts towards your total.

For me, Tembo was an innovative game to play. Most games surprisingly don't place a heavy emphasis on defeating enemies. However, Tembo makes it imperative that you take out as many enemies as possible. The platforming is also unique, requiring you to backtrack to beat your high score and advance.

While this sounds nice, it can be a pain in the ass to advance. I fell one Phantom enemy short of making it to the second Phantom Dome, which says to how absurd the unlock goals are in this game. You have to be at least 85% efficient in clearing Phantom enemies and saving civilians, which can be a pain. This is especially true since Tembo just respawns enemies and doesn't indicate which enemies you've beaten and a random Phantom guy will fall out of a machine after it's been destroyed.

Everything else in Tembo is nice. Everything controls well and the levels are well-designed. I would've preferred to see less of the Phantom Dome, but Tembo still has creative level design. Placing an emphasis on access certain parts of the level through using water or destroying objects is a good touch.

Overall, Tembo is a nice game to play for a bit. The main thing I would caution you about is trying to defeat as many Phantom enemies as you can. If you don't get fatigued from this aspect of the game, then you will love Tembo the Badass Elephant.