If You Enjoy Minecraft, Try Terraria
Lovers of Minecraft’s exploration and combat systems will have a great time with Terraria
To flatten Minecraft is to make its world much simpler (though the simplicity of a two-dimensional world allows for greater complexity in other regards). Greater diversity among materials and enemies allows for more complex combat and character progression, for example.
For each distinct mob or ore in Minecraft, there are a dozen in Terraria. Players can choose among summoning, magic, archery, and melee to kill enemies or bosses, though archery appears to be the best.
More Mobs and Better Pacing
From summonable mounts to grappling hooks, Terraria almost gives the impression of being intrinsically “modded.” What’s also possible is to build a big enough town to attract villagers and vendors who sell you helpful trinkets and consumables. There are 22 distinct villagers who offer assistance as you make your way to the final boss.
To the benefit of pacing, construction, and the preceding collection of resources don’t take as long as they do in Minecraft. Obtaining 1,000 units of wood takes a half-an-hour while building only in two dimensions saves time and resources. You can spend as much time as you want making your house look cool, but if you want to build big, it won’t take all day.
You Keep Your Gear
Because gear fails to take durability damage, you can focus on advancing the ores you can use, and you needn’t stock up on any ore apart from whichever one you use to make arrows. Once you build this-or-that piece of gear, you have it for as long as you don’t drop it.
While there are other game modes, in the standard/classic/normal/whatever-you-want-to-call-it mode, you keep your inventory upon death, losing only part of the money you carry. If you have the ore for that sick suit of armor, use it. You don’t need it to pile up in your chests.
Potion Stacking Is Encouraged
Another strength of Terraria is that your little Terrarian is essentially a Witcher. Among other consumables, potions are mandatory for beating bosses. You need to know which potions to brew 10,000 bottles of. One lets you change your gender; while that may help you connect with yourself, it probably isn’t going to help you kill Cthulu. You’ll need at least a dozen potions active to kill the final boss, but the best potions are general enough such that you can knock them all back for any roadblock. Potions are the pithiest examples of how well you must master every facet of the game in order to beat it.
The bosses aren’t special while you’re fighting them, but they require a lot of preparation. Not only do you need to make sure you have enough potions, but you also need to summon the boss in an arena you’ve built to your advantage. For example, building a flat land bridge across most of a world is a common strategy among Terrarians that makes lukewarm bosses much easier.
In Minecraft, reaching the “bottom” of the world takes ten minutes. In Terraria, three-quarters of all worlds are underground, complete with sprawling diversity among underground biomes. You can even dig all the way down to Hell where one of the game’s major bosses awaits.
None of this is to say that Terraria’s succeeded where Minecraft’s failed. Both are excellent games that’ll stand the test of time, but they’re similar enough such that anyone who’s played one will enjoy the other. Both games focus on survival, but Minecraft’s 3D world offers more of a serene, creative experience, and Terraria offers a more dangerous 2D world that presents a challenging, combat-oriented experience.
