“Hedgehogs are kinda 90s, what if we used a giant elephant in army gear and a bandana instead?”
“Jenkins, you’re a genius!” is how I imagine the conversation at Sega went when the decision to publish Tembo The Badass Elephant was made. It’s a sidescrolling platformer where Tembo (you) throws his weight around (literally) to defend Shell City and defeat PHANTOM (the bad guys). Buildings, tanks, giant robot wasps – all the usual suspects are ran into/through on your quest. Here’s the launch trailer:
It’s made by
Game Freak, who aren’t exactly a PC focused developer but you may know from a minorly successful series called Pokémon. It’s not clear if this is made by the same team or how they graduated from adorable monster battles to a commando elephant that destroys tanks by rolling a bowling ball into them, but that’s the gaming world we inhabit. Not sure I’d change it.
As for the game itself, it’s a clear attempt to capture that same humour and style as the mascot games of old but with the art capabilities and game design chops of the new. No final judgement on if its successful yet but I certainly likelooking at it, which is a good start.
Tembo’s for pre-sale on Steam at 10% off for £8.99 and is also launching on your various now-gen console boxes.