TERA Review

[Guri]

TERA (short form for The Exiled Realm of Arborea) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Bluehole Studio. The game first released in South Korea in January 2011 and later in North America and Europe in May 2012 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One. Over the period, Multiple publishers published the game across various regions. In 2013, the game was renamed to TERA: Rising after the game launched with its free-to-play model. Again in 2014, the game renamed to TERA: Fate of Arun.

Gameplay:

Tera is a typical fantasy MMORPG title with Player vs Player (PvP) & Player vs Enemy (PvE) action in the third-person camera view. This Korean-developed title is set in an imaginary world formed by dreams of two slumbering titans forming the two continents of The Exiled Realm of Arborea. Out of these dreams, created 12 god-like races that now struggle for survival from the dangers arising from the underworld that wants to destroy Tera. The characters’ 12 races are allied to Valkyon Federation, and the player can choose one of them. Each race has its own set of unique skills. Tera also features 13 classes, each with their unique attributes and abilities. Each of Tera’s classes is entirely different that demands new strategies & expertise from the player. The player has to gain experience, unlock new skills and collect powerful weapons and armour so they can face anything that comes their way.
The game’s PvE combat story is relatively the same for all the classes. You have to find quest givers who give you quests and that lead to new quest-givers & quests and so on. The quests are also overwhelmingly generic– “kill XX number of these or that”. They also don’t have any exciting rewards, as there are no talent/skills trees, so buying weapons and armour from completing quests is the only beneficial option. The game also has a crafting system that’s standard gather-&-combine.
Your characters have a level-cap up to 60 which the tutorial will speed up to level 20. At level 11, players can attack other players & engage in PvP combat but will advertise everyone that you are a threat. Best way to pick battles is being in a guild and participate in a Guild vs Guild battle system, letting leaders call wars upon other guilds while avoiding retribution from others.

Combat:

Unlike other MMOs, Tera has no autofire or auto-targeting system, so unless your melee blows are landing, or your ranged attack is aiming accurately, then trust me you’re not doing any damage. Rather than clicking or selecting an individual enemy, players have to target them with a cross-hair cursor by pressing left-click to attack and right-click to block or actively dodge. Standing still means death is imminent. Tera’s combat follows mindless hours of hack-n-slash until your levels are high enough to give a sense of real threat and face new dungeons full of hard-hitting enemies and giant boss monsters.

Graphics:

As the game progresses, the locations become more exotic, and monsters become weirder. But in the early hours, its mostly grassy plains with bland enemy models. The maps have a colourful palette and variety of locations and landscapes with flashy battles; however, there are apparent issues with texture pop-in and framerate inconsistency. Overall graphics of the game are passable, and unlike other MMOs, its Korean origin is evident because of its overly-sexualized characters & costumes.

Verdict:

The game is rewarding for those who truly put the time into it. But it deliberately holds back the good stuff to induce grind and forces the character’s progression first. On the other hand, the Quests’ structure is woeful, and the story is just uninspired, making its combat and typical MMO grind the only justifiable point of playing this F2P title. If you’re easily impressed by MMORPGs, especially fan of Korean ones, then Tera won’t disappoint. I particularly recommend for hardcore fans of this genre!

Reviewer: Anonymous Source

Rate: 7.5/10