Terraria - Day One

I pretty much troll the Minecraft forums all the time, not sure exactly why but that's not important right now, what is important is that I found another game on the forums that I needed to check out, Terraria.

Terraria is what you would get if you mixed equal parts of Zelda, Metrod, Minecraft and then added in a pinch of Final Fantasy. Sound like pure awesome yet? Well it's good but I'm not going to go all out and say it's the greatest thing ever, let's break it down.

PROS

- Open world that is randomly generated
- Lots and lots of craftable items with uses and lots of things to dig up
- Good level of action, but not crazy
- Ability to create a working town as you play and progress
- Gear leveling, not character leveling. As you find better stuff you get tougher, finding mana stars and crystal hearts is a great system for leveling up, a la Zelda.
- Very colorful, but not stupid looking

CONS

- 2d world is pretty linear. Not sure how this will play out over time, so holding back final judgement on this one.
- Night is way way way way way too long
- Movement has some issues, can't hold down jump to get over small little hills on the ground
- Money is a little bit of a grind, not much, but a little
- Early part of the game is a little too slow
- Caves aren't scary like MC (that is a huge plus for MC)


While there are a few issues that bring down the fun, it's still a good game and I'm looking forward to seeing how fun it can be. I really think that multiplayer would be pretty cool (humm maybe I'll get Druss =) ). As of right now though, Minecraft is the better game, and it's a fair comparison because they are similar, Terraria does highlight a couple areas where MC is lacking, namely how NPC's are generated in Terraria. The generation of NPC's in Terraria is a great feature, you build them a house and after you've met some criteria they spawn in those houses.

In the end the way I look at it, if Minecraft and Terraria had a child, that would be the greatest game in the history of mankind. A 3d open world RPG, where NPC's were generated with a purpose based on the activities that you preformed. Plus a deeper and richer exploration quality in a dark cave. Oh sign me up now!!!