I’ve never heard of TemTem before and plugging it into Google Trends, it looks like it’s not even comparable to Palworld. It’s still somewhat big, looks like 500,000 copies sold. But still doesn’t really compare to what appears to be nearly 20 million Palworld players.
Companies lose rights to protect their IP if they don’t protect it themselves, so it may be in their best interest to go after the big competitors and pretend they’ve never heard of TemTem.
I’m with you on the Gamecube controls, tank controls are awkward but Wii pointing is more awkward. Although the best control scheme I used was a Steam controller on Dolphin (for the Wii version).
Phantom Hourglass was my first but Spirit Tracks is my favorite. I actually really like the stylus DS controls (and it’s not even that bad using a mouse on an emulator either) but the main thing I like is the music and story. Music and story I would say are both better in Spirit Tracks than any other game in the series. It also is one of the few games in the series that you can really call a legend of Zelda. She’s there the whole time and the main story focuses on her character arc.
Just overall an amazing experience with some really dramatic moments, if I had to summarize what I like about it more than the other games in the series I’d say it’s the most “cinematic & dramatic”
The first game goes on sale pretty often (it’s about $5 right now on Steam and GOG) so you could also try the first game if you’re interested enough (on PC).
I’ve stopped using the word “roguelite” because most people who play roguelites just call them “roguelikes” and adding “lite” to the end makes it feel like those games are “lite” versions of roguelikes.
When I play Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Cogmind, Brogue, etc. I call them “classic roguelikes” or “traditional roguelikes” which feels a lot more precise than having a distinction between “like” and “lite” and it also feels a lot less combative to “roguelites”. It feels like the term roguelite exists mostly to just correct people who incorrectly use “roguelike” and be like “unm, actually that’s not a roguelike 🧐 only my game is a roguelike 🤣”
Most people call roguelite games “roguelikes”; it should be on the fewer people who play traditional roguelikes to change what they call their oddly specific genre.
Also, for those who have never played a traditional roguelike, I highly recommend Brogue. It’s free and has much easier controls than most other old roguelikes, and the graphics are also pretty good for ASCII.
Golden Sun is probably one of my favorite RPGs, very deep combat system where in the lategame you will be modifying your character class in the middle of battles to change your movesets and other cool mechanics. Fairly interesting story as well. It has great GBA pixel art and it does have random encounters.
Persona 5 is a turn-based RPG that lots of people who aren’t usually into turn-based RPGs tend to like. Simple but satisfying battles, and a story that would have seemed mediocre if it wasn’t for great music and some cool moments which make it really stand out. No pixel art and also no random encounters.
OMORI is pretty good and has a really good art style. The story is also very good with some very memorable characters and moments, and pretty good music. The combat is simple and probably best described as “not bad”. The biggest downside of the game imo is that despite not being very long (<20 hours) it felt like it dragged on close to the end. It might have random encounters? I don’t really remember.
Overall I recommend Golden Sun if you are able to emulate it or something (not on steam or switch)