Retrospective - Terraria - It's The Journey Not The End

 

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Hello dear readers, welcome to the most complex review of the blog at least for now, because of the nature of the game and it's development, they runned more than 10 big updates (and a lot of minor ones).

All the way to "Journey's end" the final big goodbye for this game, as a prank or a big thank you for the fans, later they updated with "Journey's actual end" and then some minor updates so we have more to expect.

This game is a sandbox, a 2D one with thousands of items, at least 5k, lots of events, bosses, Npcs, in fact the hours that you can play getting new content are immense.

The trick are the luck of not getting the same items on previous worlds or treasure hunting run.

This bad boy was my X360 character, look how good it is.

The game don't have a story, some things are told on dialogues with Npcs, some objects have more informative descriptions and the bosses symbolize different aspects like the corruption eating away the world (in-game mechanic)

In resume the game gives some bits of context to know more about the Terraria universe but nothing to central to be taken seriously.

The gameplay:

We are in a 2d side-scroller with platforming aspects, building, mining and Rpg touches, these are little aspects that compose a very complex game but the curve of learning is so good because feels organic.

It's essential to go to caves and seek treasure chests for useful items

You have your life representative by heart containers but they work as numbers and mana that works the same with star-like blue crystals.

You don't have experience or skill points, your character can get more health and mana by certain items and that's it, anything else is because your gear makes you more powerful or you used potions, the character power by itself is the same all the way.

You can play this on multiplayer with the selection of Pvp or only Pve on a coop mode with a limit of 8 players on a world, a giant number for the chaos that you can cause but worth the fun.

The hud is simple and informative

You have your gear inventory where you can equip armors and trinkets to help you with stats or special moves like a double jump, more reach for putting blocks, the capacity to climb, etc... 

They're a lot and worth seeking them because you can craft unions of these trinkets with the help of a special crafting table

The guide will help you learn recipes when you show him ingredients to know how to use them

We start in a world on the surface, accompanied by the guide and some bronze tools to start working around, you can get some wood, some minerals near the surface or go around killing enemies to see what they drop by you can talk to the guide to see some diverse tips or little spoilers of some bosses or Npcs that you can meet later.

The course of the game makes the experience very smooth,  the guide suggest building a refuge for the night but the most common player runs to explore all of the world before even talking to him and that's not a fault.

It's the freedom that the game gives, also don't worry, any Npc that dies will spawn again the next day.

The routine the game creates makes the hours fly, you are exploring the giant caves or the surface, finding the diverse biomas like the corruption or crimson and straight up run because the spiders kills you in two hits or entering the jungle and fall on the deepest pit to fight for your survival on a escape attempt.

Maybe this will be some of the first experiences that the game will give you and you probably will be dead a lot of times because you wandered where you didn't have to, I know for sure because that was my first couple of deaths.

These caves and the enemies that crawls the walls gave me a jump scare that I will never forget

So let's explain the cycle, you must explore the world, know your surroundings fight the enemies and get new materials, and at the same time be upgrading your gear accordingly to the necessity, you will be constantly building your character and making a build that more ahead will be useful as an prototype for your end game gear.

The cycle seems fairly easy and to a certain point may be seen as boring, that's when the diversity of all the enemies, items and biomes enter into place, the cycle it's so addictive (in a good way).

You will always find yourself doing better armors, weapons, finding new trinkets, building new houses, learning new recipes, finding new locations, bosses, enemies, events.

If you are not improving your character good enough the game will constantly test you, in the form of invasions or bosses that you didn't summon.

If you're easily beaten then you're doing something wrong, you don't work in small times between these "tests" you have a lot of time to prepare accordingly so these things are also tools to constantly surprise the player and works wonders.

Imagine doing your own business and then a thousand of goblins come to kill you and all your Npcs, a giant slime or something worse, you will have no choice, be killed time after time or kill the invasor

The game looks fairly simply and enjoyable, that's the point, the game will never overcharge you with things to do or to take care of, the point is that you're free to do whatever you want but always having this almost imperceptible order of events.

You must survive some in game days to get to the next milestone and keep improving at the same time, for example you will be fighting the eye as the first boss almost always.

This is the first milestone, then you probably will fight one of the secret bosses that spawn randomly sometimes

Then the corruption/crimson one, the game will never tell you that, the guide will say some tips now and then for the future events that the game holds but the order are what determines how powerful are you, if the first boss kills you and the dawn comes he will despawn and come again some time in the near future (a note to add is that almost all the boss fights happen on the night).

You can make arenas specifically for every boss or brew potions that gives you the edge to win more easily, make traps to do more damage, etc...

The point are that you have options to handle the situations any way you like, maybe you want to be a tank with a giant sword or a archer, or maybe a mage, or something more unusual as a summoner of different monsters to help you, maybe a fire arms expert and go guns blazing, that is one of the strongest points of the game.

After you play some hours maybe ten or maybe less, it's very relative, but you will reach the peak of the game, you will have the strongest weaponry, armor and trinkets, being almost imposible to be killed and then it's time to get to the next milestone, "the final boss".

Not everyone goes to hell and come back

You must fight the hell boss in order to beat the normal mode, you have to get a special item and then throw it to the lava to summon this boss.

 Only available in hell, and when you summon him your guide will be taken as sacrifice (I always took this as metaphor of saying goodbye to the tutorial)

Don't worry, the next day will appear a new one, when you win then the world will suffer various changes, and the corruption/crimson will start to spread like a disease at a small rate.

A lot of new enemies, much harder than the previous ones, more dangerous versions of the previous biomes and new ones, new materials, recipes, minerals, bosses, new Npcs and a lot of changes will happen, this is almost a new game and all that you learned on the normal mode will be necessary but this mode is more unforgiving.

I don't want to talk much more about this because the surprises that the game has and all the new stuff makes for very good material to continue playing and finding new content of quality, also I didn't talk a lot about the normal mode, things as the different Npcs or the crimson/corruption altars, the different biomes because they hold suprises that I think the player will easily find and will be more satisfying

The game actually has a final boss and the fight is epic but the game doesn't exactly end and actually drops some interesting items so grinding the fight is something very common to do, not as easy as it sounds.

The Conclusions:

This review don't make justice to the game I must write thousands of words to explain the combinations that you can do or the different enemies and suprises the biomes hold but I want to keep the surprise.

In the time I started playing it the analysts compared him like a 2D Minecraft and that personally makes me mad because the gameplay is so different and the only aspects that they share are that you can build and craft, they didn't say that was a bad game but the game was put as another one of those Minecraft like on that day and the players took him out and made him the justice he deserved putting him on the spotlight.

One of the most famous trees on this industry.

What I want to explain is that this game is more giant and unique that a comparison to Minecraft, they're visualized to different public, there's a lot of things that you can do and the game as a lot of meat to maintain the things interesting.

The bosses and Npcs are very unique and the zones that you can explore are diverse, the different treasures that you can find on the special structures, in resume it's almost impossible to explain everything without a giant book to write on.

This is one of those games that I keep playing constantly and always get new experiences, also the final update was on with a giant implementation of things but to this day on 2023 there are another update on the way and not a long of time ago there was another one so enjoy it or play it if you never had the chance.

Thanks for reaching the end, hope that you liked it and see you on the next one!

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