The game is good, I almost feel bad having only paid 35$ honestly. It's an alpha but incredibly polished, the foundation of the game is practically complete and all that remains to be done are some additional features like co-op battles/story and the rest of the content (islands, temtem). I believe I froze up before a battle once but other than that it was smooth sailing. I'm not a temtem master yet but I played about 8~12 hours a day for 3 or 4 days and I'm pretty close to completing all of the content available in this particular alpha. (I think lol)
I guess I'll lay out what I think here, It'll be from the top of my head and not very organized but here we go;
Artwork and designs are fantastic, most of the animations work well enough. There's definitely some that are balanced weird, in a visual way. Blizzard doesn't look very blizzard-like more like an aoe smack but Root looks like you would expect it to. So there's some attacks that just look underwhelming compared to others. Overall I'd say it's fine since TBH it's similar to pokemon in that respect. I'm a big fan of the evolution animation, feels more like digivolving and it's satisfying.
The battles are fun, I enjoyed them and pretty much everything done with the temtem is just superior to pokemon IMO. Learned moves are never overwritten, instead each temtem has a sort of side deck that holds every move they have ever learned. You still work with 4 moves but outside of battle you can swap the moves out for whatever that temtem knows. There's no HMs so no need for a slave, everything to do with this is done with objects like a surf board to surf or climbing gear to climb climbable walls.
The battles feel better in the sense of no RNG. You can't miss and if your move inflicts a status effect it will always inflict it unless specified, some moves have secondary effects if it's fighting alongside certain types of temtem, like nature/wind type Suka can get an ability that just strikes the opponent but if it's paired with a Toxic type that attack will also inflict the poison status. There's buffs like this as well, like Smazee a melee type that gets Show Off, which provides additional buffs if it's next to another melee type. There's many interesting mechanics like this that revolve around the 2v2 setup, even having 2 tems of the same type out will boost their damage but of course that leaves you double exposed with their weaknesses.
There's no PP but stamina instead, which has its ups and downs but ultimately I enjoy it. Temtem recover to full stamina after combat so you can stay out on the field for awhile so long as you keep them healthy. Now here comes the strategy in swapping, if you skip that temtems turn or swap them out they will regenerate some stamina for as long as they aren't using it. You can also throw caution to the wind and continue to push the temtem, without stamina they will use their HP instead.
Breeding isn't in yet but I think it will be fun. Temtem have stats, growth potential in each stat and the stats you get from knocking out temtem. I'm pretty sure this is very similar to pokemon and I can't tell you what exactly is different about it since I never got into pokemon on a competitive level. I just know you can see these things with the games interface and that should really help me understand without having to dig up a bunch of stuff that's kept hidden. With that said, take this bit with a grain of salt since I haven't paid a lot of attention to this aspect.
Interestingly temtem evolve based on the amount of levels they have gained with you rather than static milestones. For example my starter evolved at level 32? 34? but technically evolves after 29 levels, but the starter was already level 4 or something like that when I obtained it so it took until 30+ so some people might dislike that but I'm pretty indifferent to it.
The maps are lovely and there's already something like 4 or 5 boutique kind of shops scattered across the 2 available islands offering all kinds of cosmetics and dyes. These are bought with the standard in-game currency, by the way. Reminds me a little of City of Heroes/Villains in the sense everyone seems to have their own style going on and I really don't see any clones. I'm actually kind of excited to see player controlled Dojos when they release, mostly because people will probably come up with their own uniforms and that kind of clone amuses me.
The online is nice, I'll admit I'm antisocial AF though. It was great seeing other people run around, but I haven't really spoken with anyone or battled an actual person yet. From what I know you can trade anything you want (except for quest items and such I'm assuming) as well. The co-op will definitely add another layer of zest, especially since there's a lot of teamwork options available for temtem to really flesh out the 2v2.
The game can be grindy, I guess. I've always inadvertently grinded in any form of RPG anyway since I explore every nook and cranny so I haven't noticed. Though in theory, with co-op 2 people would only have to raise 3 temtem each for a full roster and alleviate grind by splitting it between yourself and a pal, or just endure it together simultaneously while shooting the shit. I think the rest of the grindy perception is the fact that it's a little bit more difficult dealing with trainers and if you underestimate your trip to the next location you may have to do some premature back tracking to restock on items.
I'm probably missing quite a few things about the game so feel free to ask and I'll try to give an answer to the best of my ability. I don't think there's an NDA but if there is well, RIP me LOL.
My IGN is Ueki if anyone is playing, just do note what I said previously about being antisocial AF so expect an unending fountain of awkward if you do attempt communication.
EDIT: I just wanted to throw this out there, I haven't really played any of the recent pokemon so some of my comparisons might be out of date
