Live for nothing, or die for…Peanuts? Tembo the Badass Elephant is an absolutely gorgeous game to simply look at, let alone play as its’ comic like art style draws not only for it’s visionary aspects but its’ pretty far fetched story too. You play as Tembo, and he is indeed a Badass Elephant. He has been brought out of retirement for one last mission as Shell city is under threat from PHANTOM, a terrifying force who leave a trail of destruction in their wake as they tear through with their armed forces and war machines. It is Tembo’s job to come to the towns salvation and butt stomp his way through the town… I mean you can also jump, smash, punch and swing through the hordes…but it’s not every day that you get to butt stomp as an elephant and save the day.
You are faced with 17 levels, each with their own puzzles and traps to keep you constantly on your big misshapen elephant toes. You run through causing as much destruction as possible (which is odd because you’re there to save the peanuts?….sorry, I meant people of the city) in order to rid PHANTOM from the city and save the city folk who have been encapsulated within tanks throughout. There are 10 people within each level, and they’re not all so easy to find. But it’s not as simple as that as some levels are locked until you have a certain amount of points, you are scored also on the destruction you wreck and the villains you stomp, you will find yourself sometimes replaying levels.
The first few levels of this game are highly enjoyable and perfectly get you used to the controls, and the many aspects of the game you’ll come to encounter. Once you get used to the controls, you’ll find it is quite a breeze to run through in an almost speed run fashion, slowly watching those Jumbo roasted peanuts transfigure into a nutty blur, until the game reminds you it’s a platformer and hit’s you with its obstacles and reminds you that this isn’t going to be a breeze. During the times you can speed run and chain together moves to slay the PHANTOM forces, it is highly enjoyable, although there are times it slows down and the controls don’t feel so fluid or indeed as responsive as they had been about five minutes ago and it sees you careening very quickly to your death; Mistiming oddly spaced jumps and jumping into flame skulls you extinguished not 5 seconds before, because the timer on their re-ignition catches you off guard.
This game perfectly encapsulates the essence of bringing the comic theme to life, the beautiful level design and animated backgrounds lavishly adorn the side scrolling
action pinning the intent to entertain and leave you wanting more. The destruction level in this game is chaotically fulfilling and as a game which does not dress itself in a serious story line or deep thought provoking concepts, it manages to master each of it’s elements from puzzle solving to nailing the speed play in which sonic so desperately tries and stumbles on within its games. A not so serious concept, mastered with serious intent to impress.
The boss levels are also well handled, they are challenging and require you to work out a strategy in which to best it. They appear after you have completed the four stages beforehand. Skill is required to evade the ominous waves of projectiles and find a way to deliver the fatal blows to the mechanical giant.
This game works in a lot of areas, it is fun, addictive and intuitive without any doubt. But this game can get beyond frustrating. Speed runs can be cut down short by enemy fire which can catch you off screen, climbing buildings and working around obstacles can slow down the play, and quite often leave very little room for error, which can be costly considering health drops are not all that common.
There are some pretty inspired aspects of this game (did i mention the butt stomp?) such as a trunk which transforms into a hammer which delivers a deadly strike to all who oppose it. To add to the destruction you can cause in this game, some levels have a huge bowling ball which you can push to reduce building to piles of rubble and strip monstrous tanks to their nuts and bolts. Tembo can also defy gravity in which can save you if you mistime a jump.
Tembo left me wanting more, compared to a lot of it’s side scrolling, platformer counterparts. Tembo is quite a short game but it does have a reason to return to it afterwards to either complete it or get a new high score/ completion time. You can probably complete your first play through of this game in just around 6/7 hours, but that doesn’t mean you won’t spend more time, trying to get 100% completion. Although it falls short in some areas, and some changes would definitely improve the title it is an overall enjoyable game.
This game was initially released on July 21st 2015. It was developed by Game freak and published by Sega. The game is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.
This week Chris Becker (@SuperNintendad) from RoguesPortal.com and ;@GetIndiesPants joins Mike (@AssaultSuit), Tiny (@Tiny415) and Aaron (@Ind1fference) to talk about social events, video games, folding phones, board games, movies and more video games.
Dtoid:
2015 was a tremendous year for me. I've now been an official contributor at Destructoid for just about a full year, since I started last January. I may not have had the time to write as much as I would have liked, but I had a ton of fun putting together all of the features, reviews, and news pieces that I contributed over the past year, and I look forward to continuing to do so in 2016.
GT:
Precision control and creative level design define these fundamental action games, but which platformer is the best this year?
Ori and Mario seem to bee the ones that are most talked about and critically acclaimed.
17 levels in 6-7 hours for a $15 action-platformer doesn't seem short to me, but I guess I'm old-fashioned. Thanks for the review, I might get it. I never finished the demo though.