One game that has been on my mind and screen recently has been Terraria. Many say that Terraria closely resembles Minecraft, but in my opinion the similarity ends at blocks being the primary unit of material. One of the things that defines Terraria is that it is two-dimensional. I must say that Terraria is among the stranger games that I have played. It is entertaining nonetheless.

 

Terrariais a sandbox game with no story. You awaken on a sunny day with a person nearby who is known as the guide. The guide will give you tips and can tell you what a given material can be used to craft. From this point on, it's all up to you; instead of a story, the objective is to acquire better equipment by mining, surviving the attacks of monsters, and fighting bosses. You can do this with friends or alone; however it is far more dangerous to work alone.

 

The gameplay of Terraria is very addictive and is quite satisfying when you are successful. The game only ever really gets boring if you let it get boring because there is just so much to do and so many items to craft. There are literally thousands of craftable items.

 

Some are structures such as walls and crafting stations, some are weapons and armor, and yet others are consumables or other miscellaneous items. Some items must be found in chests or dropped by monsters. There are over 300 distinct enemies that exist to make your life difficult.

 

These monsters come in all shapes in sizes, from zombies to slimes to flying eyes to strange mutants. All of them are deadly in their own right. Speaking of your life, your character can be customized quite a bit from the start with things like different hair styles and colors for eyes, hair, and clothing. Your character has no needs such as food or water; however, these things can be consumed to regain health faster. Your maximum health can be upgraded by finding special heart crystals underground. You can also gain mana to cast spells by collecting fallen stars at night.

 

Sometimes, your efforts to be better than your opponents do not succeed, but fear not, death is not the end unless your difficulty is on hardcore. On the easy difficulty, you drop half of your coins on death, and on normal you drop all your items. You also leave behind a tombstone to mark where and how you died.

 

As was mentioned before, you are not alone in the world of Terraria. You can play with friends, but you are also kept company by non-player characters (NPCs). These NPCs will arrive at your house and move in when you have built a house with some kind of walls, light source, door, chair, and table. These NPCs are very useful; each one provides a different service. Most of them have shops, and some of them, such as the nurse and the guide can assist you in other ways.

 

Assistance often comes for a price in the copper, silver, gold, and platinum coins used as currency that most enemies carry. Some items can only be obtained by trading. Each NPC requires a different condition to spawn. For example, the merchant will arrive once you have accumulated 50 silver coins. Some of them appear randomly. These NPCs can be killed by monsters if they so happen to encounter one, as they will not fight back.

 

The graphics and overall game presentation are the least pleasant factor of Terraria. As was aforementioned, it is two-dimensional. It also has extremely simple pixelized graphics. The graphics aren't bad enough that you can't tell what's what, but they definitely are not pretty most of the time. Also, the music can get a bit annoying if you leave it on. However, the music can be useful, as it changes when you enter a different zone or it becomes night time.

 

In conclusion, I give Terraria a 7/10. Despite having no real story and atrocious graphics, the gameplay more than makes up for it. I've been playing Terraria off and on for years, and I continue to play because of the updates that continue to come along. I believe I've gotten my $20 worth out of this game. Terraria is available on PC, consoles, and mobile platforms.