Game Review: Terraria (PC/MAC OS)

At first glance, Terraria may seem like a shallow side-scrolling Minecraft ripoff.  While it is certainly a Minecraft ripoff, it is not a shallow gaming experience in the slightest.

Premise:

Create a home for yourself to survive the onslaught of monsters, then dig deep into the depths to discover what lays in store for you, and fly high into the sky to discover unique treasures.

Conquer challenging bosses, discover and craft powerful new equipment, and build anything you desire.  In 2-D of course.

Visuals:

Terraria goes old-school in the visual department.  Terraria uses sprites and pulls it off well.

Trapping my friend at spawn

Lots of colors and contrast between backgrounds, materials, and characters makes it easy to spot important objectives and enemies in-game.

Terraria gets moody environments down perfectly.  Dark underground caverns with only lava for lighting are terrifying to traverse, strange caves with blue grass for lighting are fascinating and somewhat wondrous to discover, and when there is scary stuff going down, you know it.  The sky will often darken, or turn a blood red to signify an eclipse or blood moon respectively, where difficult monsters spawn like crazy and try to destroy you.

Flickering lanterns and lighting effects also provide a certain amount of mood to areas.

Sound:

Sounds are a little corny at times, but this seems to fit in nicely with the colorful old-school graphics.

Music changes with each environment, boss battle, or random event, providing a strong unique mood for each.

Menus/Interface:

Menus are well laid out and self explanatory.

The inventory and HUD are little confusing.  After a little exploration though, these controls do end up making sense.

Gameplay/Controls:

The controls are nothing special per se.  It is a somewhat generic point-to-attack sidescroller.

With that said though, where Terraria really shines is the different items you find in-game.  There are many unique types of weapons that add an extremely fun element to the game.  Items like wings, which allow limited flight, swords that shoot powerful beams, and death exacting yo-yos bring a large amount of variation onto the battlefield.

One shortcoming of combat is that the game involves a lot of what I call 'cheap combat.'  Attacks that you have literally no chance of dodging seem very cheap.

The creative aspect of this game is present, but I never found it nearly as exciting as digging down into the depths to find powerful monsters and even more powerful equipment.  Perhaps you like that kind of thing, and Terraria certainly provides many aesthetic blocks for your creations.

Summary:

A visually pleasing game.  Not the most incredible graphics ever, but that is part of the charm.  Very moody at times

A large variety of items gives you a multitude of ways to experiment with combat.  Find your preferred style!

Craft and build a house, or a gigantic palace.  The possibilities are endless!

Overall a strong game, and with just a little more care, it could be an amazing game.

SCORE:  8.5/10