Terraria

Terraria Review

By, Huy Luong

Many first impressions of Terraria usually follow along the lines of: “Oh man, its just another Minecraft wannabe!”, however this is definitely not the case. Terraria presents itself as a colorful indie side-scrolling adventure game where players can build and craft to their hearts’ content. The graphics may look a little boring and basic to some, but the deep rich colors of the environment make up for this. Since its release in 2011, Terraria has come a long way with loads of new content and updates, creating a never-ending game for players to indulge in.

People always compare Terraria to Minecraft, and of course so did I. They both feature gameplay that involves making use of your surroundings by mining, harvesting, and crafting. They also contain somewhat of a storyline that features boss fights. But most importantly, the two games offer open world sandbox exploration. At a glimpse, the games may appear very similar, but after a sinking a couple hours into Terraria, it is clear that they have their stark differences. Minecraft leans more toward the survival aspect, as players have to obtain food and eat to survive. Terraria lacks a hunger bar, and food provides buffs to stats. However there is still a survival aspect to Terraria, being players must defend themselves from spooky monsters, and that appeals to me.

Beginning your adventure

Before players venture into the realm of Terraria, a character must first be created. Character creation is lackluster and minimalistic, and that is because these superficial features become covered by armors and accessories later on. Yet that doesn’t prevent people from making their characters look as silly as possible. Anyone can easily look like Gandalf in this game! However, the only important parts of character creation is name selection, since this will appear in the game, and on ‘teams’ if players choose to participate in PvP play, and the difficulty option. There are categories for difficulty that are found in both character modes, and world modes. Character modes include Softcore, Mediumcore and Hardcore. Softcore is the recommendation for new players, as the only penalty for death is dropping money and you respawn immediately at your spawn point. In Mediumcore, players drop all of their items in addition to losing their money, yet are still able to respawn. Hardcore, as the name suggests, is for the most daring of players that risk everything on the line in one life. Once players die in Hardcore mode, everything is lost and they become ghosts that can continue to observe the world and talk to players, but can not interact and affect it. These characters are permanently deleted upon logging out.

There are also two world mode options, normal and expert. Normal is self explanatory, and there is no special changes in this mode. Expert mode ups the ante by basically making everything in the game harder. But with high risk comes high rewards and some items are exclusive to expert mode. There are more powerful enemies meaning better and higher chances of rare loot.

A Whole New World

Like any other planet, Terraria’s worlds consist of several biomes. Different worlds offer different combinations of biomes, meaning some will have the Crimson Biome while other have the Corruption Biome. This, in turn, changes certain resource availability since some are only acquired in specific biomes. Some biomes are much harder to travel through than others, so it is always suggested that players obtain better gear to make traversing areas easier and safer. While the surface has its own dangers, beneath the ground contains hell. Sorry, there's no heaven. What’s the quickest way from point A to point B? A straight line! Many players build something called a Hellevator, which is basically a straight line down until you reach hell. It’s the quickest, but definitely not safest way to reach hell. Game worlds vary in size with 3 options available: small, medium and large. After a size is selected, worlds are procedurally generated, much like the world in Rust, Lego Worlds, and other sandbox games.

Gameplay - Starting out

Starting out in Terraria, I quickly became overwhelmed because the game just throws you right into the world with only a copper shortsword, log axe, and pickaxe. There's no dialogue, no tutorial, or even those cool cutscenes that smoothly blend into the gameplay. Starting to realize how alone I was, I was only able to find solace in an NPC the game provides you with called ‘The Guide’. The Guide, as his name suggests serves as a reference for crafting and basic hints. He also tells me about the state of the world, which is helpful in checking on your progression in the game. Any attempt at making conversation with him was futile as it abruptly ended in silence or he repeats his same lines over and over.

What shall I do now?

From this point on, players are free to do whatever they want. I personally went around and killed everything in sight, ranging from slimes to squirrels and rabbits. Like many other games, night time was approaching and stronger mobs started to appear, such as zombies. Knowing my copper shortsword was no match for these ferocious beasts, I quickly mined a couple blocks of dirt and built me an enclosure to help me survive through the night. I sang spirituals to pass the time and to keep myself from being too lonely. As you sink more and more hours into Terraria, you’ll find most of your time is spent collecting resources, crafting, and trying to find new and better gear. Gear definitely elevates this game, literally, because players can obtain accessories such as grapple hooks and wings. These items help players traverse the landscapes much easier instead of having to hop all the way up a mountain. My personal, and what I consider a must have item, is the Hermes boots that increase your running speed drastically.

Progression: You’re the best, around!

Aside from exploring, finding and crafting new gear, Terraria does have multiple states that the game enters upon completing events and killing end bosses. Worlds begin in the default mode (“Normal Mode”) that contains lower tiers of monsters, biomes, mineral deposits, and so forth. Once players have prepared and defeated the final Normal boss, the Wall of Flesh, the world automatically and immediately enters Hard mode. This unlocks new resources, NPCs, bosses, and biomes, such as the Corruption biome and the Hallow. However, when players defeat the final Hard mode boss, Plantera, the world remains the same but players are able to summon even more powerful bosses. Terraria also contains special holiday related events such as the Frost Moon, where players basically slaughter a bunch of elves.

As the world evolves, NPC’s start to appear around the player. Players have the choice of building a house, which the NPC will inhabit thus, the creation of huge NPC towns can be created. This allows for the convenient accessibility of items and supplies to be bought. I’m not very architectural, so my NPC town looked like a ghetto minimum wage apartment complex. They are capable of dying but will revive after some time.

Terrarians, unite!

While single-player is very much fun and time consuming on its own, multiplayer is where Terraria shines. Exploring a vast world with hazards left and right with a buddy definitely lowers the boredom as well as the loneliness. Some bosses and underground dungeons were nearly impossible for me alone, so I called upon the help of my friends and not only did it make it easier, but much more enjoyable.

For the more bloodthirsty players, the PvP aspect of Terraria is merely a toggle on or off. The developers seemed to have implemented PvP just to say Terraria has one. Players who have PvP toggled on can fight and kill each other, however depending on the gears they have, it can be a very one-sided match.

The Good and the Bad?

I have very little issues with Terraria. For a $10 game, Terraria offers players a wonderfully colorful multiplayer experience. You and your friends will spend countless nights staying up to finish crafting a set of gear, build a town worthy of praise, or even work towards summoning a boss to get destroyed by. The customization the game offers is unlike any other. Paired with Terraria’s ever growing list of updates that implement new items and features, there are so many items with unique features and functions, players can be assured that they’ll always find something new. My only gripe may be with the combat. Sometimes it can be clunky, and players with high latency will find themselves missing, being hit by an invisible force, and rubberbanding IF they are playing multiplayer.

Final Verdict - Great

Know this now: Terraria is not a spin-off of Minecraft, or vice-versa. Terraria does well to shine in its own light, being 2D instead of Minecraft’s 3D world. I feel Terraria has a lot more customization and things to explore than Minecraft. Whether you want to become the slayer of all things or the Terrarian Picasso, the game lets you become all of these things at the same time. Terraria boasts a strong single-player, an entertaining multiplayer, cool bosses, and most importantly, content that is continuously updated. Terraria will continue to grow, and so will your love for this game once you try it. As always, it’s more fun with friends.

Terraria Screenshots

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Terraria Videos

Terraria Links

Terraria Official Site
Terraria Steam
Terraria Wikipedia
Terraria Gamepedia (Database / Guides)
Terraria Wikia (Database / Guides)
Terraria Subreddit

Terraria System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
CPU: 1.6+ GHz or better
RAM: 2 GB RAM
Video Card: Any 128 MB Video RAM GPU with Shader Model 1.1+
Hard Disk Space: 200 MB

Terraria only lists minimum system requirements.

Terraria Music & Soundtrack

Terraria Additional Information

Developer(s): Re-Logic
Publisher(s): Re-Logic

Composer(s): Scott Lloyd Shelly
Game Engine: Microsoft XNA

Platforms: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Playstation Vita, Windows Phone, Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One

Development History / Background:

Terraria was developed by the indy game studio Re-Logic based out of Indiana, USA. The game's development is led by Andrew “Redigit” Spinks, who founded Re-Logic back in 2011 and build the game using Microsoft XNA. Terraria first launched on the PC on May 16, 2011, but later launched on numerous consoles (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and others) as well as mobile devices (iOS, Android, and even Windows Phone). Terraria is widely considered one of the most successful indie games ever developed, as it sold over 12 million copies since its initial release. Since launching in 2011, Terraria has enjoyed numerous free content updates which vastly increased the amount of content in the game.