The Good:
-Open ended sandbox gameplay
-Vast amounts of items and weapons to obtain
-Can suck a lot of your time away
-Good value for money
The Bad:
-1.2 patch did not make many meaningful changes to the gameplay
-There is not much if anything to do once you unlock hard mode
-Early game can be a major grind
I have owned Terraria for a long time now, but never actually bothered to write a review for it.
Now however with the massive 1.2 patch which added a great deal of more stuff into the game out, I took enough interest in the game to play it some more and decided to write a review for it which takes the 1.2 patch into account.
Terraria could be described as a mix of Minecraft, 2D action platfomers, and RPG's. You explore a large world filled with monsters and mine and dig your way through the world's landscape, looking for resources and metals which you use to craft items and weapons.
While the game is a sandbox game like Minecraft, it is different in that there are in fact goals to strife towards which gives it a sense of direction that minecraft doesn't have. This gives the game a big advantage over minecraft, because it means that I actually find myself going back to this game while I have ignored Minecraft for ages and don't have any desire to play more of it.
In addition, Terraria is also better in terms of graphics. While 2D, the well drawn sprites look much better then the ugly 3D box graphics in Minecraft.
Your "goal" in this sandbox game is basically to make your character powerful enough to defeat various bosses which can be either found or summoned in the game world. The final boss is the "wall of flesh", which once defeated unlocks "hard mode", which makes the game world more hostile and tougher. Once you have entered hard mode the game turns into a true sandbox game with no goals, with the player being free to do as he pleases.
While this game can easily suck away dozens of your hours, it still suffers from some of the same problems as minecraft does, though not as badly.
The biggest problem is that after you unlock hard mode there just isn't anything to do. If you want you can keep building things or try to explore more parts of the world while looking for more resources, but there is no point.
What the game desperately needs is more endgame content, something for the player to actually do after he has unlocked hard mode. Before entering hard mode, trying to obtain more weapons and abilities to make your character powerful enough to defeat the bosses is the main motivation, but after hard mode is unlocked you are basically superman before too long and have no obvious reason to keep playing.
Another problem is that the early game before you have any powerful tools can be a real grind. Without any advanced mining tools it can take FOREVER to dig through terrain so a lot of time is simply spent slowly digging tunnels. Some of the best tools such as the power drills aren't even unlocked until after you have unlocked hard mode, but then what is the point of having them at that point?
This problem can be solved by starting a new game with a old character, which allows you to start working in a new world with all of the items you already obtained in your last game, but that just completely defeats the whole point of your quest to become powerful enough to defeat the world you are in in the first place.
The game also really needs to give the player the ability to just skip nights by sleeping in the beds like you can do in Minecraft. Nights can go on for over 10 min, and if you have nothing to do in that time (like when you are exploring the terrain and dig yourself a hole to stay in while the night lasts) you will be VERY bored.
I am also rather unhappy with how little the 1.2 patch actually changed in terms of gameplay. There are lots of new items and enemies sure, but almost no new actual gameplay elements. The only really meaningful gameplay change I have noticed is the new map feature.
Overall, Terraria is a great game, but still needs further improvement.
8/10