Monday 5 March 2012

Review ► Terraria


It was about November 10th when I learned about Terraria, I was doing a magazine project at school and was looking for games to actually review and stumbled across a tweet by Notch saying that Terraria looked like it could turn out to be a great game.

I continued onto the unofficial forum (at the time) of Terraria and did some research on the core game mechanics, what the main elements are and basically what you're going to be able to do.

Before I even finished looking at everything; I was hooked. I was rounding up countless friends to follow this game and making threads on every forum I participate in in hope to get the game some more fans. At the time there was only about 2000~ people following the game, including me and it still looked like an amazing idea at the time.

For anyone who doesn't know what Terraria is, and I hate to say it like this - but it's basically a game inspired by Minecraft in some sense but has a huge emphasis on the exploring/bosses while Minecraft is more about building.

Wait, you looked at Minecraft and Terraria and they barely look the same?! - That's because of one big point, Terraria is a 2D sidescroller! It possibly was what many people were looking for, combining an amazing developing team, elements of games that everybody has loved in the past such as Minecraft, Zelda and old RPG's and put it into a polished and finished product!

For the art, I give the game a 9/10. You're probably wondering WHY it would get a 9/10 for me because it's 2D, right? Well, the art was obviously MEANT to be 2D and for what they had in mind they did an amazing job. Everything is amazingly polished including the character sprites, environment and interactive content.

Replay value is a huge part in games and it's what makes people stay dedicated to the game and continue to follow and play it. For Terraria, unfortunately, it's a little lacking. You complete all the bosses, get all the items and what happens? You find yourself getting bored with nothing to do. HOWEVER, even though the replay value is low, the developers are constantly releasing weekly updates to the game ranging from new mobs, bosses, zones, items and sometimes even graphics/physics updates and updates to the interface. Despite the huge stream of updates always coming in, I give the replay value a 6/10 because it leaves you with more or less nothing to do at what you call "end game".

Unless you listen to music that deafens most while playing Terraria, the audio is a big part of your experience. First of all, the actual soundtrack and background music that plays is gorgeous - it's not only pleasing the first time you hear it but I found myself actually opening Terraria and having the music playing in the background while I'm doing other things. Aside from the breathtaking music that you'll be hearing, all the noises that your swords, bows and spells make are just perfect. Everything from hearing your pickaxe hit a piece of stone to slashing into a giant eyeball with your sword is, in one word - perfect. I give it a 10/10 in the audio department because there's nothing I really can pick out that they haven't fixed through updates.

For the final verdict I give the game a score of 8/10.

It's TRULY an amazing game and I suggest anyone to pick it up as it's at a very low price for what you're paying for. It ranged from 10-15$ on steam and you can even find it for 5$ or under on sale. There's so much content and new things that you'll be able to enjoy and the developers that made this game are some of the best I've ever seen at releasing content, connecting with the community and actually responding to support questions. The only thing that lowers the score is the replay value - they can't really do anything about that though due to the type of game it is but you can always  hop online to try and spice things up and get a different feeling! At one point, however, you WILL get bored and find that you'll have nothing to due but wait for the next content patch.

Cheers,
GamingPubs.


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