I had started playing Terraria maaaany updates ago, but stopped and thought to give it another try with the Journey's End final update. Back then (almost five years ago!) the invisible 'timer' that was on with the world evil spreading the more you took your time made me not really feel able to give proper building a try. The corruption spread system stressed me out to the point I felt I had to keep rushing to outpace the difficulty spike in hardmode and it eventually dulled my enthusiasm. I played hundred of hours of the game, but stopped before I even got to experience all of the content. With that in mind, I can now confidently say that the Journey's End update is absolutely fantastic and more than enough reason for returning and new players to give Terraria a try. The game was already great even before the update/s, but I'll focus on giving some feedback on that since that was the reason I came back to the game: The Journey world and characters you can now optionally make allow you to control your experience and how you want to play. It's as close to 'creative mode' as you can get, while still giving you a reason to go out and explore everything (ex. to unlock unlimited use of x ore, you have to mine y amount of it first, etc). You can control enemy difficulty on the fly, pause time, change the time of day, weather and even turn off the spread of the corruption/crimson with the click of a button. You can take your time and build your dream base and have a more relaxing time until ready. Needless to say it should now be way more friendly to newcomers who might be unfamiliar with the combat style or might want a relaxing 2D building/mining game or just recruit all the NPCs instead. This update successfully makes the game extremely more adaptive to different ways you may want to play. This amount of choice given in this update is something I cannot praise enough. Truly a fantastic end to a game that was supported and improved on consistently for nine years.
Many will take a look at this game after checking out Greedfall, which unlike Technomancer, gained a lot more popularity and way more people suddenly noticed Spiders, a very small indie studio up until recently. The Technomancer not only gained very little attention but many that played it didn't give it enough of a chance to experience its story and get through the learning curve of the game. I am now going to paste the review I had written when the game first came out on steam with a few tweaks: Combat: You can switch between combat styles on the fly and even in the middle of combat, and there is something for every kind of player. You can be sword and shield, pistol and dagger, or a staff wielder and change whenever. RPG elements: The game offers multiple approaches to quests such as stealth or talking your way out of fights with your charisma or other skills, something not many RPGs offer effectively. You also have a variety of companions you recruit that each offer personal quests and commentary as you do quests. You can develop relationships with your companions, good or bad, and there are even three romance options you can pursue. Story: The story is very good. Your choices have consequences, and you have different endings you can choose. I would also dare to say that the companions easily compete, and some surpass Greedfall's. Misc: There are multiple areas to explore, and while the maps are a bit confusing to get around at first, a dungeon fan would feel right at home in it. The city areas are full and visually distinct, and the art style is unique and pleasant to look at. These areas are filled with optional side quests, and the game even warns you if you are about to lock out side content by continuing with certain main story missions, which is very nice if you are a completionist. TLDR; a VERY good, underrated RPG. Sure it's not an AAA RPG that would be polished to the extreme, but that shouldn't be reason for an RPG fan not to check it out.
This game is set in the same world as 'The Technomancer' and came before it, even though the timeline shows some events that happen after certain events from the Technomancer. The game has a solid story, with a set protagonist who is surprisingly charismatic despite his dry sarcasm. You have dialogue options and choices to make, and this is a game that changes completely after a certain point based on a choice you make, which is very cool. The choice you make is not easy either, and personally made me switch sides with just one choice. So kudos to Spiders for managing that (as they recently did with Greedfall as well!) It's not a very long game, but that doesn't mean that you don't get a solid experience. There is no 'fluff' to make the game longer, which I personally appreciate. The companions you have are pretty barebones with some exceptions. For some reason there are 'romances', and I put quotation marks there because they are basically one single dry dialogue option and then a quick kiss scene if I remember correctly. So don't expect much there. I'm giving it five stars because I loved the game despite its flaws. You have to consider that the game came out even before Bound by Flame (which oddly enough I find way more flawed than this), by a very small studio with limited budget. Having played almost all games from Spiders now, I'm constantly seeing how much they try. Each game has something that really shines through, that might get lost in future games only to come back later. I feel like this game was a great start to the Spiders Mars universe, and the lore is actually solid and really interesting (especially if you play both War Logs and The Technomancer). I really hope we get a third game in the Mars universe from Spiders. And I hope more people see why.
It makes me so sad that I'm putting a one star rating for this game. I LOVE this game. I was obsessed with it since the early alpha. It's a perfect combination of cute graphics, story, and chill gameplay. I managed to hold out without buying it on steam, and waited for a GOG release that I wasn't even certain it was going to get. And I was so happy when it came here and bought it instants after it became available on GOG. That was a mistake. As it stands right now, buying the game here would be a mistake for anybody else. During its time here, players have had to beg for the patches to get here constantly, only to get older patches that were severely outdated. And now the game hasn't received ANY patches or the new DLC that has been released since this summer. The lack of communication from devs makes it look like the game has been completely abandoned here. This is especially horrible for a game like this since the patches also include new content for the game (including story content!), not just bug fixes. Gog users paid for the game but do not get the same amount of content or treatment. I literally feel scammed out of my money for daring to think my money guaranteed me the same content as steam users. I really hope my review ages poorly and the updates and dlc get released here soon after I post this review, but I really feel like I waited enough and need to at least write this review to warn other users. And if we're lucky (since from what I've seen I'm not the only one making a review complaining about this issue), the low ratings might come to the devs' attention? Who knows.
I am extremely happy to see this title come to GOG. There is a surprisingly huge number of people, despite being fans of the genre that haven't even heard of this RPG. So, let me try not to reduce this review to 'just trust me' and give you some reasons to why you should definitely give it a try. The main thing this game does well is combat. Not only is the combat fun and responsive, but it is also extremely versatile, with vocations from the classic fighter or mage, to fun hybrids like magic archer or mystic knight adding hours upon hours of you never getting tired of the combat because as soon as you grow bored of a class you can switch it up and continue playing as something completely different. Being a fighter feels responsive, with blocking similar to Dark Souls, rewarding the perfect block time, while being a sorcerer feels extremely powerful and cool. No class doesn't have that power or ability that makes it unique and worth a try. This is hands down the best combat experience I've had in an RPG that allows for multiple classes, no contest. Many would claim that the game has a weak story, and while it is true that the story can get lost, similar to an elder scrolls game, I would argue that the story shouldn't be dismissed so easily. There are some powerful scenes here, especially during the later part of the game, and the expansion that's now packed with Dark Arisen makes the story dark and cool once again, despite the fact that you'll probably keep playing the game for the awesome loot and combat. Character creation allows you to create your character's face and body to your liking, as well as your main companion that will follow you throughout your journey. You can also recruit up to two more 'pawns' that if you are online can be made from other players! I am unfortunately running out of characters here, and there are so many other things I want to bring up for this game, but just know this; it's worth your attention, and especially at its price.
