Above poster source: http://www.terraria.org/

Gameplay pictures at the courtesy of: http://www.terraria.org/

Ok... Terraria is an action/adventure/RPG side scrolling game that is developed and distributed by an indie game studio known as Re-Logic. The game is focused on exploration, crafting, building structures and combat with a variety of monsters and huge ass bosses. I want this review to be as serious and accurate as possible and don't want to give to much away at the beginning of this post, but believe me... THIS GAME IS AWESOME!!!

Terraria gets criticised for its similarity's to Minecraft and its gameplay mechanics similar to classic exploration/adventure titles such as Metroid, however it manages to blend all these features together in a fantastic way and provide a completely unique and new experience that certainly got me hooked for multiple days until I managed to gather the best items ect...

Basically the gameplay consists of day/night cycles, aggressive nocturnal attackers such as zombies and floating eyeballs, world-building from the most random and most unexpected objects, character advancement based on increasing health/mana and equipment found while exploring or can be personally created. The game has a tile-based graphical style similar to the 16-bit era of video games released for the SNES.

Terraria throws players into a colorful surface of a randomly generated pixel world with nothing more than a handful of tools and the basic sense that you're purpose is meant to build stuff, explore the terrain, and battle monsters. Figuring out exactly how that's done is a little complicated at first.

There's a guide wandering around the surface, however in my opinion he's useless and the lack of a tutorial meant I had to use the game's Wiki page on the web to get a better sense of how things operate and how they can be built. Even so, it didn't take long to get the basics sorted.

 

There aren't any real story elements or epic quests to follow, the strong fantasy settings create a desire to adventure nonetheless. There's magic, monsters, and mayhem waiting on the surface, sky and in the dark caverns below. Uncovering unexpected new prizes is a big part of the game's awesomeness.

 

Random events may occur in the course of play, such as the Blood Moon, which increases the number of monsters out at night and allows some to enter the player's structures, and the goblin invasion, which sends a goblin army to march and lay siege to the players home. Also meteorites can fall randomly during gameplay, allowing the player to mine meteorite ore and create armor and weapons. Events can also be caused by destroying shadow orbs in corrupted map areas and creating certain items near demon altars.

 

Players may also summon powerful boss monsters, such as the Eye of Cthulhu or the Eater of Worlds. Independently of summoned bosses, each map has a dungeon that contains rare items and unusual enemies, and can only be safely entered after defeating the Skeletron boss guarding the dungeon on that map.

Come to think of it my only problems with the game are the graphics, colour slider for character colour customization because I can never get my character to have blonde hair or a white shirt because I need to sequence that shit.

 

Though on the surface it looks like just another indie game seeking to ride the coattails of Minecraft's success, Terraria expands on the familiar sandbox gameplay with a greater emphasis on combat and adventure that proves very satisfying.

 

It's actually very funny that games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (A game that I dislike, but that's another topic) require millions of dollars to develop/publish and advertise, and here we have a small studio with a lot of talent create a simple yet entertaining experience that provided me with much more fun and gaming hours then a game like MW2.

 

If you like Minecraft I highly recommend you buy this game and support the developers.

 

FULL PRICE!!!