Terraria. Simply put is by far one of my favorite games.

As of writing, I have nearly 450 hours into it and have played it when it first came out. Keeping this in mind I am going to attempt to talk about it from its first iteration to its current(1.3).

To avoid getting into the major spoilers yet, it is a 2d focused game with platforming and a more action-combat based focus with a sort of block based world/construction system. Ontop of that, it had an element of exploration. Each sort of area feels unique in some way, you can find unique treasure underground and discover interesting little areas. A small note is unless specifically taken, dying does not lose any equipment and there are no durability systems.

For the inevitable minecraft comparisons, dont. These games are nothing alike, liking minecraft may not mean you may like terraria and vice versa.

Pricewise, it is 10 dollars, extremely cheap for a game like this and they even tend to give a 50-75% discount around events.

To basicly boil it down, the developers seem to have an extreme care for this game, releasing updates for at least of time of writing, about FIVE YEARS after release, for no charge whatsoever.

Do I love the game? Yes. Am I potentially heavily biased in my review about it? Completely, but only because I absolutely love what they have done with it. Should you buy it if you are into the type of game? Yes.

SPOILERS, to those who have yet to play it, below.

So, when it was first released, it was a rather simple game. You could get to the sort of endgame rather quickly. You set up a house, maybe a village or a big fort, people moved in and offered services to you. You were able to dig into the ground, get ores, find secret treasure chests. The game generally started kinda simple. Make a sword out of ore you find, get a bow possibly. Tote around your gold armor...eventually fighting one of the big bosses such as the eye of cthulhu or venturing into the corruption, a dangerous purple biome, to kill the devourer of worlds...another boss. When you start doing this, you can generally get access to magic and corruption tier equipment. Past this you start venturing into various other biomes to gather different equipment and weapons. With this, you generally had a couple paths, going out for low cost magic, high damage magic, high attack rate melee, high armor melee or high damage ranged, with you being able to access guns, bows, spells, swords and other miscellanious weapons such as explosives or maces. And after a certain point, you can delve into a dungeon, one created every world, the entrance protected by a guardian you will have to fight.

It eventually did get a small update to this, redoing the sprites and a couple of other things...but eventually, it got 1.1
Now, 1.1 was what I believe terrarias first major update. Adding in a way to enter a sort of hardmode status for your world with stronger enemies, new equipment and deadly bosses. It makes the corruption spread through the world properly, adds a sort of 'hollow', a kind of opposite to the corruption, deadly but filled with rainbows and happyness and most likely your friends corpses. Something important to note is that they changed their lighting engine. What this means is that in 1.0, all lights projected a white glow to them and was somewhat blocky, with 1.1 however, they made darkness abit smoother and gave lights color. Lava has a dull red glow to it, torches tend to have a sort of orange light to them, various magical spells will give off their own colored light. This additionally had mechanicisms, wiring you can place down to do certain things, such as open or close walls or the sort. And a sort of modifications system to weapons, giving them random bonuses that can be rerolled. The update added a bunch of cool things.

And then, somewhat after 1.1, they announced no more work on terraria would be done. This put a damper on things. Eventually I believe some of the artists started working on starbound, a sort of terraria like game.
....Nearly two years later however, they released 1.2.

They...did quite abit of things. Doubled chest storage space, increased inventory space, let you autowalk up one high blocks, lets you make up to a thousand worlds and characters instead of the previous five, a minimap, they rounded the world, added dyes and block paint, things that encourage exploring other worlds such as alternatives to ores and corruption...rare areas. New bosses, new armor. Weather, new biomes such as snowy ones. A sort of playable CTF mode you can make, biome specific woods, remodeled building areas...about a thousand new items themselves, paintings, new npcs, pets, plenty of enemies, new events. This sort of thing. Ontop of that, it also did a couple things like add unique mechanics to sort of 'class' armor. So you can act as a healer/caster type or a a pure tank. Eventually adding more things like hair stylists, hair dyes(Including said dyes that change depending on variety of circumstances)...and the sort. And something ultimately more notable, summoning monsters to fight with/for you.

And eventually, 1.3.01 came out. Adding in things like steam integration, better fleshed out npcs that even fight against enemies if they are under attack, linkable items, unique clothing dyes, purchasing items from npcs can now work from any character storage, easier inventory management...and expert mode. Expert mode gives new ai to monsters and bosses, makes them drop treasure bags for each player, containing the full amount of loot that it would normally drop in a single bag, as w2ell as unique items from that specific boss for beating him in expert. Things including a sort of endgame-esque event with a massive boss that gives some pretty great reawrds.

Terraria. Simply put is by far one of my favorite games. As of writing, I have nearly 450 hours into it and have played it when it first came out. Keeping this in mind I am going to attempt to talk about it from its first iteration to its current(1.3). To avoid getting into the major spoilers yet, it is a 2d focused game with platforming and a more action-combat based focus with a sort of block based world/construction system. Ontop of that, it had an element of exploration. Each sort of area feels unique in some way, you can find unique treasure underground and discover interesting little areas. A small note is unless specifically taken, dying does not lose any equipment and there are no durability systems. For the inevitable minecraft comparisons, dont. These games are nothing alike, liking minecraft may not mean you may like terraria and vice versa. Pricewise, it is 10 dollars, extremely cheap for a game like this and they even tend to give a 50-75% discount around events. To basicly boil it down, the developers seem to have an extreme care for this game, releasing updates for at least of time of writing, about FIVE YEARS after release, for no charge whatsoever. Do I love the game? Yes. Am I potentially heavily biased in my review about it? Completely, but only because I absolutely love what they have done with it. Should you buy it if you are into the type of game? Yes. SPOILERS, to those who have yet to play it, below. So, when it was first released, it was a rather simple game. You could get to the sort of endgame rather quickly. You set up a house, maybe a village or a big fort, people moved in and offered services to you. You were able to dig into the ground, get ores, find secret treasure chests. The game generally started kinda simple. Make a sword out of ore you find, get a bow possibly. Tote around your gold armor...eventually fighting one of the big bosses such as the eye of cthulhu or venturing into the corruption, a dangerous purple biome, to kill the devourer of worlds...another boss. When you start doing this, you can generally get access to magic and corruption tier equipment. Past this you start venturing into various other biomes to gather different equipment and weapons. With this, you generally had a couple paths, going out for low cost magic, high damage magic, high attack rate melee, high armor melee or high damage ranged, with you being able to access guns, bows, spells, swords and other miscellanious weapons such as explosives or maces. And after a certain point, you can delve into a dungeon, one created every world, the entrance protected by a guardian you will have to fight. It eventually did get a small update to this, redoing the sprites and a couple of other things...but eventually, it got 1.1 Now, 1.1 was what I believe terrarias first major update. Adding in a way to enter a sort of hardmode status for your world with stronger enemies, new equipment and deadly bosses. It makes the corruption spread through the world properly, adds a sort of 'hollow', a kind of opposite to the corruption, deadly but filled with rainbows and happyness and most likely your friends corpses. Something important to note is that they changed their lighting engine. What this means is that in 1.0, all lights projected a white glow to them and was somewhat blocky, with 1.1 however, they made darkness abit smoother and gave lights color. Lava has a dull red glow to it, torches tend to have a sort of orange light to them, various magical spells will give off their own colored light. This additionally had mechanicisms, wiring you can place down to do certain things, such as open or close walls or the sort. And a sort of modifications system to weapons, giving them random bonuses that can be rerolled. The update added a bunch of cool things. And then, somewhat after 1.1, they announced no more work on terraria would be done. This put a damper on things. Eventually I believe some of the artists started working on starbound, a sort of terraria like game. ....Nearly two years later however, they released 1.2. They...did quite abit of things. Doubled chest storage space, increased inventory space, let you autowalk up one high blocks, lets you make up to a thousand worlds and characters instead of the previous five, a minimap, they rounded the world, added dyes and block paint, things that encourage exploring other worlds such as alternatives to ores and corruption...rare areas. New bosses, new armor. Weather, new biomes such as snowy ones. A sort of playable CTF mode you can make, biome specific woods, remodeled building areas...about a thousand new items themselves, paintings, new npcs, pets, plenty of enemies, new events. This sort of thing. Ontop of that, it also did a couple things like add unique mechanics to sort of 'class' armor. So you can act as a healer/caster type or a a pure tank. Eventually adding more things like hair stylists, hair dyes(Including said dyes that change depending on variety of circumstances)...and the sort. And something ultimately more notable, summoning monsters to fight with/for you. And eventually, 1.3.01 came out. Adding in things like steam integration, better fleshed out npcs that even fight against enemies if they are under attack, linkable items, unique clothing dyes, purchasing items from npcs can now work from any character storage, easier inventory management...and expert mode. Expert mode gives new ai to monsters and bosses, makes them drop treasure bags for each player, containing the full amount of loot that it would normally drop in a single bag, as w2ell as unique items from that specific boss for beating him in expert. Things including a sort of endgame-esque event with a massive boss that gives some pretty great reawrds.