Terraria

I love Terraria so much that the writing this review was partially delayed so I could play more Terraria.

I don’t even know where to begin with Terraria. I’ve put so many goddamn hours into this game that it’s hard for me to even remember what I love so much about it anymore. I don’t think I’ve gone a year without completing at least three playthroughs. I’ve played through it so many times that I have a formula for each run. I’ve done playthroughs of all the classes, multiple times each, killed all the bosses, collected every item, filled in the bestiary, caught all the fish, gotten all the achievements, built structures, drawn pictures, I’ve done everything with this game. During my first playthrough, I was having so much fun that I couldn’t sleep at night because I was thinking about it. The music would play on repeat in my head, I would play every single day for hours, I would constantly bother my friend because I wanted to play with him. At the time of writing this, I have well over 1000 hours on Terraria. The game was originally released in May of 2011, but I only started playing in the summer of 2017. Ever since, I’ve never gone a month without at least booting up the game. It’s hard for me to even say my “after playing this game over an X month period” line, because I’ve never stopped playing Terraria since that summer. Either way, I know that Terraria is in my top three favorite games of all time, because of its infinite possibilities, replayability, and challenging fun.

I can remember all of my playthroughs of Terraria very well. I remember my characters, what armor I would have them wear, their wings, their equipment, everything. I remember what bosses I struggled on, my strategies for overcoming them, what weapons I used, what order I killed the lunar pillars in. I remember what each house looked like, the walls and blocks I used, what NPCs were in what room. I remember building a huge floating island in my winter 2018 playthrough. I remember making an underground bunker in my fall 2018 playthrough. I remember the huge wooden tower I built in my first playthrough. I remember the wizard tower I built in my fall 2020 playthrough. I even remember the song I was listening to when I built it. To me, Terraria is about more than just how fun it is. Terraria has been a consistent part of my life for over four years.

For people who haven’t played Terraria before, it always looks like “2D Minecraft.” It’s obvious where this misconception comes from, because both games share the breaking/placing blocks mechanic that is so iconic to Minecraft. But once you go even an inch below the surface of Terraria, you can see that that is where the similarities end. At its heart, Terraria is actually a boss rush. All the time you spend in the game is either fighting a boss, or preparing to fight a boss, all until you kill the final boss. Every time you go into a new area to look for loot, it’s always in preparation for the next boss. If you’re building, then you’re either building a house for a new NPC to sell you new items to use against the boss, or you’re building an arena in which you’ll fight the boss. Minecraft is a famously goal-less game, where the player sets their own goals within the game, to build a cool house, to make huge farms, to reach the farthest edges of the world, whatever it may be. Terraria always has the next goal set out for you, and pushes you to reach it.

Terraria’s four classes of damage are all very different and very fun. Each one plays completely differently, and, if you’re in multiplayer, they all make an excellent team together. I have a group of three other people that I play Terraria with constantly, and the four of us all have a class we like the best, and we tear through the game multiple times a year. I’ve even made a mod for the game that adds a custom skin for each of us that we wear during our playthroughs. We each have our own “thing” in the group as well. I’m the one who does all of the tedious farming and building tasks, our melee player is the best at fighting, our summoner always digs the tunnel to the underworld, and our ranger is the one who crafts all of the essential items for everyone. Every time I play Terraria with them, I can always expect at least 20 hours of fun with them, and it’s always one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences I have in all of gaming.

Terraria is so much more than a game to me, it represents four years worth of good times with my friends, four years of tough and rewarding challenges, four years of building creative things. Terraria is a game that I think no one should ever pass up the opportunity to play, because it is a textbook masterpiece.