Minecraft is the best selling video game of all time, its mix of building, crafting and survival elements having brought in massive audiences and profits which, naturally, inspired a whole lot of developers to make games like it. Most of those games had little to offer other than a surface level resemblance and shallow mechanics, and at a glance, you might think Terraria would be in that category. You would be so wrong.
Terraria takes place in a sidescrolling, procedurally generated tile-based world. You begin your adventure in the middle of nowhere, and as soon as you can, you should gather some wood and build a house that you can hole in for the night while you craft equipment. As soon as night falls, all manner of monsters will come for your hide. If you survive, come the next morning, you're off to explore, mine and get progressively better materials.
That's as far as the similarities go. Minecraft's 3D space allows for building elaborate buildings, and had Terraria banked on that, it would likely have been a far less interesting game, as in 2D, construction is not that endearing. Terraria instead banks on the strengths of the 2D sidescrolling perspective: despite its innocent looks, it is an intense action game about slaying Eldritch horrors.
A few nights in, once you get your bearings, Terraria becomes less about survival and more about arming yourself to the teeth, then kicking down the door of evil's den, if not summoning it to you in a ritualistic fashion, and bringing them down. There is a laundry list of bosses to battle, each with different requirements, fight mechanics, and most importantly, rewards: their loot will allow you make better equipment and fight stronger foes.
There is a wide variety of equipment to obtain, and it never gets dull, as new sets of gear always represent a vast increase in power and often allow for a variety of branching playstyles. You begin the game with a sword in hand, but you might finish with a shark-shaped machine gun or as a summoner of magical dragons. And it's not just about combat, either: accessories dramatically change your play, with the slow movement speed of a new character soon giving place to running and dashing, then to hovering and flying, and a myriad of other tricks.
And you need to be at your best, because the world is out to kill you. There are several types of biomes within a Terraria world, each with its own enemies and characteristics. The craziest part, and what's probably my favorite thing about the game, is that as you defeat more bosses, the world itself begins to transform: new biomes appear and expand, new materials and enemies spawn in zones you may have thought were beneath your character level. The unexpected twists and turns are what keep the game fresh for dozens and dozens of hours.
Of course, a game that keeps changing so much is a complex beast, and in that comes what I'd say is Terraria only noteworthy downside: there's a huge barrier to entry, as figuring out what to do next is almost never obvious, and the sheer amount of items and interactions will have you constantly alt-tabbing into the wiki, losing sight of the amount of tabs open in your browser. It's one of those games where you need to not be ashamed of looking up stuff.
Honestly, though, it's a small wrinkle in a fantastic experience. Terraria is such a gem, a game with so much fun packed into it and that is still getting updates to this day. Those willing to put the time into it will find a constantly rewarding experience.
Now if only I can find the time to play the 1.4 update...
Terraria takes place in a sidescrolling, procedurally generated tile-based world. You begin your adventure in the middle of nowhere, and as soon as you can, you should gather some wood and build a house that you can hole in for the night while you craft equipment. As soon as night falls, all manner of monsters will come for your hide. If you survive, come the next morning, you're off to explore, mine and get progressively better materials.
That's as far as the similarities go. Minecraft's 3D space allows for building elaborate buildings, and had Terraria banked on that, it would likely have been a far less interesting game, as in 2D, construction is not that endearing. Terraria instead banks on the strengths of the 2D sidescrolling perspective: despite its innocent looks, it is an intense action game about slaying Eldritch horrors.
A few nights in, once you get your bearings, Terraria becomes less about survival and more about arming yourself to the teeth, then kicking down the door of evil's den, if not summoning it to you in a ritualistic fashion, and bringing them down. There is a laundry list of bosses to battle, each with different requirements, fight mechanics, and most importantly, rewards: their loot will allow you make better equipment and fight stronger foes.
There is a wide variety of equipment to obtain, and it never gets dull, as new sets of gear always represent a vast increase in power and often allow for a variety of branching playstyles. You begin the game with a sword in hand, but you might finish with a shark-shaped machine gun or as a summoner of magical dragons. And it's not just about combat, either: accessories dramatically change your play, with the slow movement speed of a new character soon giving place to running and dashing, then to hovering and flying, and a myriad of other tricks.
And you need to be at your best, because the world is out to kill you. There are several types of biomes within a Terraria world, each with its own enemies and characteristics. The craziest part, and what's probably my favorite thing about the game, is that as you defeat more bosses, the world itself begins to transform: new biomes appear and expand, new materials and enemies spawn in zones you may have thought were beneath your character level. The unexpected twists and turns are what keep the game fresh for dozens and dozens of hours.
Of course, a game that keeps changing so much is a complex beast, and in that comes what I'd say is Terraria only noteworthy downside: there's a huge barrier to entry, as figuring out what to do next is almost never obvious, and the sheer amount of items and interactions will have you constantly alt-tabbing into the wiki, losing sight of the amount of tabs open in your browser. It's one of those games where you need to not be ashamed of looking up stuff.
Honestly, though, it's a small wrinkle in a fantastic experience. Terraria is such a gem, a game with so much fun packed into it and that is still getting updates to this day. Those willing to put the time into it will find a constantly rewarding experience.
Now if only I can find the time to play the 1.4 update...