Dig! Fight! Build! These three words appear quite simple and straightforward. And yet when they are used to describe the game Terraria, the depth and weight of these words are intensified. Terraria is a game that lets the player survive and thrive in a world that is abundant with raw materials. You must gather and craft using earthen materials you dig from the environment to sustain your avatar’s existence. Begin by choosing the size of the world: small, medium, or large, and create an avatar that is as zany or normal as desired. There are a few items available in the start-up inventory but the sword, ax, and pick-ax are the ones you need to use first.
I started by chopping down the area’s trees, digging through stones and dirt until I had enough to build my first structure. The first thing you need to create is a standard house/base. Building is extremely fun when using the Wii U’s Gamepad due to the ability to use the stylus to build whatever structure your imagination can think up. The gamepad makes the Terraria experience more interactive and easier to take creativity to the extreme. Drawing out the lines of stone, wood, snow etc. and watching them form a building is a satisfying moment… until you start thinking of complex rooms and shapes and then the fortress never seems to be complete.
Terraria is NOT a peaceful game. Zombies, floating eyeballs, and slime droplets are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to describing enemies. Soon players will be bombarded by a myriad of enemy invasions. Defending is not a simple task, yet crafting ranged, melee, and magical weapons along with a variety of armor types makes surviving the game a bit easier. Enemy appearances are based on the type of terrain your avatar is in and which part of the day/night cycle is current on the surface world. Unfortunately there is little guidance in the game. The best path of action to take is to ask your friends. A great option is asking fellow Wii U players on Miiverse for help when it comes to which ores are the best to meld for weapons or which terrain is safest for building your main house.
Terrains vary greatly when it comes to what types of resources can be gathered. Digging far deep into the soil grants you discoveries of the rarest ores for crafting and occasionally caverns can be found. My favorite part of Terraria is the exploration of dark caves and the ability to carve out passageways into the underworld. Digging through the ground darkens your screen and you need to place torches on the passage walls every so often to make a path of light to watch out for ambushes. Eventually specific goals like crafting an item or killing a boss will spawn special NPCs that can move into your dwellings according to the furniture placed in each room.
Online multiplayer is a treat to visit other players’ worlds. Players have a choice to either work alongside each other or reek havoc. The Wii U edition includes the choice to play Terraria locally with people on the TV screen for some party fun.
Terraria never ends. The game continues to progress as the player meets set goals and the unique world created for you becomes more dangerous. The Blood Moon and Corruption are only two of the events that players will meet and must survive. If you have never played Terraria before, be prepared to forfeit whole afternoons and evenings without realizing time slipping by in the real world. The Wii U edition of the game is perfect because of the utilization of the gamepad. Directly drawing out the structures on the gamepad screen and using the trigger buttons to mine or attack makes the experience enjoyable. Terraria is the game that gives players a special way to discover materials, fight against monsters and build whatever structure the mind can think up all while using nostalgic 16-bit style graphics. Enjoy digging, fighting and building my friends!
A Wii U review code of Terraria was provided by 505 Games for the purpose of this review