Tembo the Badass Elephant

It’s not perfect then, but Tembo The Badass Elephant is about as close to the modern Sonic game that we’ve all wanted as we are ever likely to get. With its great level design, fantastic visuals and brilliant move-set, this is old school gaming done right.

The variety of challenges makes Tembo fun and exciting, though the high-pressure, instant-death sections can become irritating because they tend to eat through your limited stock of lives much faster than any other parts of the game, throwing the otherwise solid pacing off.

Tembo the Badass Elephant has an awesome name, and the game play to match. The only drawback is the archaic progression system. Those looking for a quick romp with hints of masochism for perfect runs should definitely check it out. The charm and pitch-perfect game play are more than worth the price of admission.

No one would expect that an elephant would manage to be an ideal character for precision platforming but Game Freak manages to pull it off. If only there were more than 18 stages.

Overall, Tembo the Badass Elephant may be short and a bit cumbersome but it is also a fair amount of fun and keeps players interested by introducing new things at regular intervals.

Tembo has an arsenal of flashy and destructive moves at his disposal, but he's a bit too stubborn to be considered a badass of the absolute highest order.

Tembo is a nice character in an amazing world, but when he starts to move he shows he can be as clumsy as a real elephant.

Playing the first levels in SEGA's new platformer makes us hope for a finally solid and funny Sonic successor, but our hopes get shattered when the difficulty rises, with serious control and level design problems that make it more a frustrating experience than challenging one. A real pity: Tembo is a real charmer, and he deserved a better game for its debut.

Tembo is especially a most talked about subject because of its developer Game Freak. The makers of the Pokémon games should be able to come up with something fun? Think again, because this elephant does not offer more than standard platform action with a fun cartoon theme.

Fun in doses and has a great presentation, sadly, Tembo falters as Game Freak looked to increase the game length in the most obnoxious way possible. [Issue#128, p.81]

At worst frustrating, usually just reminiscent of better, more innovative platformers. [Sept 2015, p.99]