Terraria? What’s that? Terraria is a land of adventure! A land of mystery! A land that’s yours to shape, to defend and to enjoy. Your options in Terraria are limitless, are you an action gamer with an itchy trigger finger? A master builder? A collector? An explorer? There’s something for everyone here. Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game.
The world is your canvas and the ground itself is your paint. Grab your tools and go! Make weapons to fight off a variety of enemies in numerous biomes. Dig deep underground to find accessories, money, and other useful things. Gather resources to create everything you need to make the world your own.
Build a house, a fort, or even a castle. People will move in to live there and perhaps even sell you different wares to assist you on your journey. But beware, there are even more challenges awaiting you… Are you up to the task?
They say copying is the sincerest form of flattery. If true, then it’s no surprise the games industry is becoming so devoid of original ideas: it’s an incessant love-nest. Nowadays, it seems, we turn to the humble indie developer for real innovation.
With careful planning, you can even build huge trees complete with vines as decoration.
Unless, of course, we look toward Terraria’s direction. As an out and proud Minecraft-clone, Terraria seemingly offers nothing original on top of Mojang’s smash classic formula.
The most striking difference is the change of perspective, from the 3D world of Minecraft to the 2D plane of Terraria all packaged neatly with some charming, and albeit simple, SNES-era visuals.
Much like Minecraft, the game begins by planting a player-created avatar into a randomly generated landscape and handing out a pickaxe and an axe to dig and chop respectively. And, much like Minecraft, you’re free to do as you please, all the while collecting the necessary materials.
It’s SNES generation RPG visuals is well suited to the gameplay.
We’re not about to list through the similarities to Minecraft though since, honestly, we don’t have the time or space to relay that amount of information. Instead, it’s probably wiser to point out the things it improves upon.
Terraria provides a more streamlined, action focused system, and as such feels much more akin to dungeon crawlers than the construct-‘em-up it so closely follows.
Exploration – whether above ground or under it – will regularly throw a plethora of enemies at you, from varying levels of slimes to skeletons, floating eyes and even vicious burrowing worms. So your sword will be //very// useful.
The further you travel from your initial spawn point the more difficult the world becomes. Delve deeper beneath the surface and swathes of evil enemies lurk – a necessary challenge to overcome to collect those valuable materials and items.
Meanwhile, travelling above ground leads to lands scattered with corruption, a plague that not only creates some of the tougher enemies but prevents any kind of mining without the necessary powder bought from the dryad NPC.
This is where Terraria really excels over Minecraft. Construct a home using the basic rules (a door, a light source, a bed) and an NPC will move in, providing your fulfil one of the hidden criteria.
The dryad, for example, will only appear after defeating one of the games three bosses, demanding encounters that will only turn up after hours of digging, collection and – if you’re lucky – finding the necessary demon shrines or dungeons.
Others include merchants, nurses and mercenaries, each of who provide a unique service for the player. Eventually this leads to a populated village of your own construction, eliminating that lonely solace that often permeates Minecraft.
Searching underground is key to building up your arsenal of equipment, searching for concealed chests or rare loot just like any good dungeon crawler. There are a number of weapons and tools to find, as well as ones you can craft yourself.
Unlike Minecraft, all it takes to build anything in game is the required materials and the necessary workbench or station to hand. Unfortunately this can be confusing affair, requiring you to scroll through a long list of items and choose the object you need.
This is an problem for the game, too, since there is little in the way of advice or explanation. This is a double-edged sword, rewarding you with a personal victory for each new discovery but confusing those unable to filter through the UI.
“Terraria: Metroidvania Mania Meets Minecraft”
So, in the beginning, there was this relatively popular game about mining that a lot of people enjoyed.
Countless hours could be spent digging deep into the earth hoping to find rare ores and avoid hot magma death, all the while defending yourself from endless hordes of monsters. I am speaking, of course, about Dwarf Fortress. Future games like Minecraft would draw inspiration from this game, in much the way that future games are free to be inspired by minecraft. We are here to discuss one such inspiration: a little game called Terraria.
Gameplay:
You start out stranded in the middle of nowhere with just a few basic tools: A copper pickaxe and a copper axe. The day is just beginning, and your only friend in the world is a guide who offers sage advice to you if you are just starting out, like what constitutes a house and what hammers do (it is more complex than you might think).
Your basic task is to explore the world, chopping down trees with your axe for wood, and digging holes with your pickaxe for dirt, clay, sand, stone, ore, mud, gems, and bricks. Guess which tool you’ll be using more often? Once you get some wood, you might decide to make a little wooden house and make a workbench in it to create more complex things like doors, tables, chairs, and walls. The next logical step is to get some stone for a furnace to smelt ore, and some iron for a forge to create better weapons and armor.
Exploration isn’t without its dangers though, as caves are full of monsters that get harder with each new layer you reach. Topside, there is also something known as ‘corruption’ that manifests itself as purple-blue grass and a change in sky color. Terrible monsters lurk there. Enemies are certainly not shy about spawning either, and it can be frustrating when you have your mind set on a task to have to pause to deal with them, but often the arc you swing with is enough to keep them off you until you are finished, so it is not a huge issue (eventually you will get powerful enough that this becomes a non-issue entirely).
The rewards of all this are well worth it though, as you will find unique weapons and accessories that will enable such things as double jumping, health regeneration, negating fall damage, etc.
Your house will expand to include new npcs like a nurse or merchant once conditions are met. Enemies can kill them too, so making sure your house is well built is crucial, but if your npcs do die, all is not lost as they will come back in time.
All in all, the gameplay is reminiscent of metroid or castlevania and has a strong emphasis on character improvement and combat. I can’t do anything but rate this a 10/10
Story:
There isn’t one. The game is pretty much an open ended sandbox. Feel free to make up your own though! I rate this /10
Graphics/Sound:
Remember those days spent playing on your SNES? This is a lot like that. There was some sprite changes between the initial build of the game and the released version, as the initial sprites made people think of certain Final Fantasy characters. If you are easily bothered by sprites, this might not be the game for you. On the bright side, such a graphical choice means that most computers should be able to handle the game without much issue. As for the sound, it has all the beeps and boops you might expect from this style of game. It is pleasant enough to listen to, though a bit repetitive after awhile. After a nighttime of slaying zombies and floating eyeballs though, the daytime music sounds like sweet sweet salvation. 8/10
Replayability:
Yes. Very.
The game has a simple concept: Dig, explore, build. It is fueled by creativity and desire. The need to be stronger and the inspiration to build a towering castle, or whatever you want to make that can be made with little blocks. Perhaps not quiiiite as varied in this respect as certain other games, but there is still ample opportunity to tinker around. The game as it is now can easily entertain for many many hours, but there is still much that the developers plan to add in the future. Throw in the multiplayer aspect and character items transferring over between worlds, and there is a LOT of entertainment potential here. 10/10
Final recommendations:
Buy. It is out on Steam now for only $9.99. For everything the game offers, that is a stellar price, even if the game is not everything you hoped it would be. The game is still being worked on, and FAST. Given a month or two, and who knows what might be added. As it stands now, the game is still a solid experience. So, you owe it to yourself to give it a try….the Eye of Cthulhu will be watching you!
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