Make the world as you want it; craft a story of your choosing; be a character of your own making.
But maybe this isn't what I was sent to do…As I have shaped the world to my needs, wants, and desires, it seems that it is I who has moved the world out of balance. The bouncy slimes used to roam the land, only devouring bunnies that were already in plentiful supply. The Corruption, while home to grotesque monsters seemed contained in its own part of the world. The Eye of Cthullu only appeared because I summoned it; as did the Eater of Worlds. They likely would have remained in slumber were it not for this interloper. And as for the old man…What has he done except stand guard over his riches? He has yet to bother me. Why should I slay him? As it is, I have already constructed an immense home that can provide my needs and I am richer than I need to be. Then I come to realize that maybe I was put here not so much to master the world, but to learn the meaning of balance – to master myself. It seems it is a lesson that is not being learned as it ought. I simply cannot stop myself from accumulating riches and devising increasingly devious weapons of destruction. Quite despite the fact that I am meant to learn this lesson I have long decided that the old man must die. I must possess what is now his. And as I move inexorably to this final pitched battled, I, in the process, learn something about my real world self – I enjoy the exercise of power as much as the next person.
I don't know that this is the "right" story in Terraria, but I've decided it's MY story, one that I have thus far spent over 50 hours shaping and giving content to. This is the marvel of Terraria, and this is the reason it may be the best RPG ever made. I don't say this lightly. I've played the "greats" and these games – Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy XII (my favorite in the series), Chrono Trigger, Dragon Age: Origins, and others – truly are great. But Terraria accomplishes something special that, for all these other games' greatness, seems somewhat beyond their reach.
This should signal that an answer to the typical game question is going to be ambiguous. What is Terraria about? The answer is: what would you do if you were placed on a world that provided an immense amount of resources there for the taking? When you begin Terraria, you will make a number of initial choices. First you will design a character, and name him or her. Because the game does not rely upon a class or leveling system, there are no stats to roll, so you do nothing more than select gender and look. The next choice is more crucial for your game experience: world size, of which your choices are small medium and large. The choice is important, for while there isn't really such a thing as "finishing" Terraria, world size will impact your rate of progress. There is no right or wrong choice – there is only what you are willing to invest (this review is based on my experiences in a small world [which turns out to be humongous nonetheless]).
After you have made these choices, your world is randomly generated. This means that topography, resources distribution, size of certain biomes (world areas, i.e. cavern or underground jungle), and other factors are different for every generated world, so it is highly unlikely any two worlds are exactly the same. You are placed on this world with the most basic of implements: a wooden sword, copper picaxe, and copper axe. That is it. You are now left to your own devices. Unless you get a rare badly generated world, you quickly find out that a number of resources are within close reach. You first need to build a safe house and this is your first introduction to Terraria's economy. In the game, nearly every collectible item can be parlayed into another good. Wood is maybe the most basic good and allows you to make a number of items, such as doors and walls, as well as a work bench which allows you make a number of other goods, such as wooden arrows. Once you get some iron, you can build a forge which allows you smelt ore, which allows you to make iron bars out of ore, which allows you to make an anvil, which allows you to craft a variety of weapons. This is how Terraria basically works. And as mundane as this sounds, provides nearly the entire impetus for all you do.
As I intimated in the opening paragrapsh, Terraria provides you with no story to "progress" through, but it makes immediately apparent that your vocation is to be productive. I will admit, this sounds like a very not fun game when put like this, but one thing the game banks on is our individual desire to display ability, competence, survival skills, and have a sense of accomplishment to show for these. And few games allow you to do this as Terraria does. So what is produced and to what end?
Though there is no pre-determined narrative, there are entities that would do you harm and these entities get stronger the farther from your safe house you venture, and you want to venture farther for increasingly useful goods become available the farther afield you can go. And, while Terraria does not have a character leveling system, your weapons are assigned to tiers of quality and power, with the lowest goods being wooden copper goods, and the highest tier being those goods in the Molten category which depend on upon Hellstone, found in the deepest parts of the world that are also home to some of the toughest monsters as well as hostile environments, such as lava – lava, however, can be rendered harmless if one as the right potion which can only be gotten by combining lava and water requiring some ingenuity on the part of the player. Notice again that your ability to explore the world always depends on your willingness to be productive.
The productive aspect of Terraria satisfies on two levels. Often, the most valuable goods require the most preparation to acquire, so the first time you have acquired sufficient Demonite and Shadow Scales to craft a full set of Shadow Armor, you will feel truly accomplished. And, subsequently, being able to go to a part of the world in which you died within minutes some time before proves that your time was well spent. At the end of the day, Terraria is "about" you – are you the kind of person who likes to see the fruits of your labor?
This raises the question of combat. Terraria offers plenty of opportunity to fight monsters of various sizes and strengths: swords, axes, bows, guns, and even lightsabers. You can also craft armor of varying levels to protect yourself. Finally, you do have mana for magic of a sort. While you do not cast spells in typical RPG fashion, you can acquire magical weapons, the use of which depends upon mana points.
It is worth noting, though, that it isn't all merely about producing so as to explore more and more. Terraria provides some impressive opportunities to construct and landscape. You can build a house of gold bricks if you have mined enough gold and there really is no point in building such a house except that it might represent your most outlandish ideas of opulence. Maybe you're more of the engineer. You may find it incredibly lucrative, or maybe just interesting, to generate a lot of vile mushroom. This presents and engineering problem. Why? Well first, you need corrupt seeds for the grass upon which this kind of mushroom grows. Second, corruption spreads easily, so you need to find a way to contain it from spreading (there is a solution to this – plan sunflowers at the edges). Third, corruption pretty much guarantees at some point that nasty monsters will come around that otherwise wouldn't, namely Eater of Souls. …But, you may desire this, for these monsters drop Rotten Chunks that, when combined with Vile Powder (made from Vile Mushrooms) allows you to concoct a potion that summons the Eater of Worlds, whom, when defeated drops Demonite Ore and Shadow Scales. You don't have to look at this as a productive endeavor. Rather, you can see it as a puzzle – how can I develop a supply chain of materials that don't occur naturally or frequently.
And at the end of the day, this play between you and nature defines Terraria. The world can give you all you need if you give it time, but you can impose your will and make it give to you sooner granted you have the patience and imagination. This ability to make your experience what you want at your own pace sets Terraria apart from other games. And, to my mind, the fact that you have to play so many roles – miner, hunter, gather, farmer, enforcer, protector (of various NPC's who will join you at various points and can sell you select goods), inventor, and, moralist – is what might make Terraria the ultimate RPG.
I've spent a lot of time singing the game's praises. Is there anything wrong with it. Well, on the one hand, this kind of experience might represent something quite anti-thetical to the best RPG experience – there is no dialogue and there are no towns, so there is no sense of your character as narratives tend to represent that idea. But this is ultimately a matter of taste. Second, there is to my mind, one main shortcoming that makes the game laborious. You are allowed to set up a number of safehouses around and in the world, and you can set any of these as your spawn point, but there is no way to travel between houses. This, for me, is a main reason I will likely never play (unless this changes) a large world game. It simply takes too much time to traverse a world and gather various resources as you decide you need them. A third, less problematic issue is that you can develop industry to get gold colds to buy some unique items, but none of these are required to accomplish the toughest tasks. Appropriately, you can craft the most useful items. But this raises the question as to why have money at all? It seems a straight barter system (3 Shadow Greaves for a Flintlock Pistol) is more consistent with the game's governing mechanics. However, at the end of the day, none of these things come close to ruining the experience.
So, back to my story….
The old man stands in my way and he must be gotten rid of. I currently have almost all the power I need to destroy him. But in doing so, will I become, more than the most powerful being on my world, but the most evil? Does evil exist in a world without institutions? Is it wrong to exploit the world for resources just because I desire them? Or, in becoming the world's major power, will I have secured a more appropriate state of affairs? I currently do not know the answer to thee questions, but I do know one thing: I am willing to go to the depths of Hell (one of Terraria's resource rich Biomes) to get what I need to do what I feel I must. Maybe this says all we need to know about the kind of character I've developed; and maybe this means that, in good Tabula Rasa fashion, Terraria is really a story about the corruptibility of good people, making them the villains every other game gives you as previously manufactured products. I don't know that this is the right story. But it is my story.