Terraria Review

After a few expeditions I travelled through forests, deserts and winter landscapes, but more often than not I was tempted underground, especially as zombies come out for a munch at nightfall. You can start digging from the surface or investigate a crack in the ground to get a head start. Essential tools to take along are fire torches and wooden platforms. The darkness underground is very close but you can stick a torch in any surface as a permanent fixture, which is a handy and considerate touch.

Extra platforms are useful if you have dug down too straight to jump back out again, so try to dig diagonally. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having to ‘dig up’ to get out of a hole. Oh actually, there is, like remembering very late on you can lay down any picked up soil/stone blocks to rebuild an exit.

Mining through the darkness is often more than a little scary, as at any time you could dig your way into a cavern and fall down into whatever lies below. This could be a neck-breaking drop, treasure, new enemies or even one of the terrifying boss fights.

Combat is very basic, with similar targeting to mining. Early enemies are just bouncing gel blobs and worms but later monsters often ensure you’ll dig in the opposite direction. You can jump and attack to take care of vultures and other flying pests and a bow and arrow is available if you like taking on enemies at a distance, which is something of a luxury in mined tunnels. Grappling hooks enable better movement skills later on in the game, but you could be looking at a serious amount of hours before crafting one of these. It’s going to be at least a dozen hours before you’re even allowed to look at a boss and even then you’re going to last about five seconds.

You don’t level up to become stronger, instead it’s all about grinding your way to build or find better equipment. Early on, it’s agonisingly slow to play, but every now and then, you’ll make a breakthrough, such as access to a better pickaxe, or a sword that doesn’t take forever to carve through a zombie and suddenly your enthusiasm is renewed to carry on thanks to the lure of speedier progress.

No matter how many houses you build, you will always respawn at the original dwelling. That is until you craft a bed. After you’ve crafted a loom. And found some cobwebs to fashion silk. Acquiring all of this takes a small eternity and really tested my patience. It’s not particularly difficult to get back to where you last carked it, but with the little niggles in the platforming becoming more apparent when you’re in a rush you start to wonder why you’re bothering.

“What am I doing with my life?” will probably spring to mind at numerous junctures during play. With such a lack of objectives and rewards, it’s hard to feel you’re making any progress. If you stand back and look at the game, you’re just digging downwards while fending off the odd zombie or bouncing blob. Of course, I could take the same attitude with most games. An FPS is walking from area to another and shooting everyone in-between, a driving game is driving in circle to end up back where you started.

The rewards aren’t what we may be used to in gaming and Terraria demands more time than anything else I’ve played until it starts to feel like progress is being made, but that’s not always a bad thing, although it may have been an easier concept to swallow on a handheld or a tablet device. The experience is all about trying to make your way down to what you ultimately know is the end. Just that little bit deeper each time and hopefully finding some shiny new tools along the way. Ultimately, Terraria can only ever be as good as the time you can afford to put in.