Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Gameplay: 4/5
+ Many people have termed this a 2D Minecraft. Considering I've never played Minecraft I can't really say how true this is, but I think it makes a similar impression.
Right when you create a character and enter a world you are basically given nothing but an axe to survive with. Immediately you have to cut down some trees to make wood, and then use that wood to built a shelter for you. Once you've done that you will then create a workbench that allows you craft more useful tools and weapons. As you continue you will come across different types of ore which will allow you to make upgraded crafting stations, again allowing you to make even better weapons, tools, and armor. The ore has a natural progression of copper, iron, silver, gold, and beyond gold there is even more powerful ore like demonite, meteorite, and hellstone. Most of the weapons, tools, and armor will be crafted using these ores, so it is always important to mine them if you see them.
The start of the game basically just involves you being able to survive until you find enough resources. Then once you have a basic arsenal of tools (like a pickaxe, hammer, and axe) then you can start explore underground caves. Here you will begin to encounter some basic enemies, pick up some deposits of ore, and find other useful treasure. This treasure can be from dropped enemies or from treasure chests. The further down you go the better the treasure will be. Every now and then once you have a full inventory you should make sure to return back to your structure that you built and unload everything into a chest for safe keeping. And remember to keep building your structure with more rooms so that other NPCs can move in (there are only a few in the game but they do provide to be quite useful at times).
Exploring can be somewhat hard at first because you need to destroy blocks in order to reach certain locations. But once you are able to craft the grappling hook then exploring becomes a whole lot more enjoyable and overall the game seems a lot more fun. As far as your armor goes you only have three slots (head, chest, legs) but you have a number of extra slots for other inventory items (such as an item to make you run faster, an item to increase your defense, an item to allow you to double jump, etc).
Once you've crafted the gold armor and weapons then you may hit a dead end. At this point you can continue to dig deeper, you can explore different environments in the world (like the desert, jungle, or corruption), or you can take on your first boss. I think I waited too long to fight the bosses because when I did I already had maximum health (400) and all gold armor. Which means that the first boss (Eye of Cthulhu) wasn't really that hard for me. As of now there are two other bosses, both of which seemed a lot easier than I had imagined. There are other events that you have to watch out for, though, like Blood Moon where zombies will be able to open the doors to your structure and attack your NPCs. Also, a goblin army will invade every now and then and you will have to spend the entire in-game day fighting them off. But I do have to say I was rather disappointed with the bosses. You spend all this time exploring caves to upgrade your armor and weapons and then there are only three bosses to fight. I would have liked to put my hard-earned resources to more use with more boss fights. Because after you kill all three bosses then you are allowed to make the best gear and weapons in the game, but it's kind of pointless since you already defeated the bosses. So you'll only be fighting common mobs afterwards.
I also have to say that the game is very hard to start out playing. The game desperately needs a tutorial because if you've never played a game like this then it can be extremely overwhelming. In fact, this game is nearly unplayable without using an online wiki. There are so many important things that the game does not inform the player of, but instead can only be discovered if reading webpages. I'm not sure if the developers wanted players to experiment and figure it out on their own, or if they didn't have the time to make an in-game encyclopedia, or if they wanted to save game space by not including it and only making it available online. The bottom line is that there should at least be some sort of reference within the game itself. Even if they threw in a "Need help? Check out the Terraria wiki!" somewhere.
But the game does offer a lot of possibility for players. You can spend a lot of time exploring underground and digging your way through new passages (which personally I found to be most enjoyable). You can gear up and fight the bosses and enemies in a more action-adventure style if you prefer. Or you can be one of the artistic people and really make the effort to build some monumental structures as your living quarters. There is a lot to do and a lot to explore, and if this sounds like your type of fun then you should definitely try it.

Story/Presentation: (N/A)
+ There is no story in the game. Which is kind of disappointing because I imagine that some sort of story would have fit in nicely. But still, a story isn't entirely necessary and the gameplay is still fine without it.

Graphics: 4/5
+ The graphics are done in a nice retro pixel art style. If you're not a fan of this then you may be disappointed, but I would assume most people playing will enjoy it for its SNES era graphics. Everything is very colorful and distinguishable on-screen, too.
Another impressive feature that involves the graphics is the light/darkness feature underground. You have to use torches to light up the caves, and the light seems to behave in a rather realistic way. If you put up blocks in the way of a light source then it won't reach as far. Take some of those blocks away and the light seems to bend and wrap around further. Similarly, the water behaves in a realistic fashion and will drain downward if free space is available.

Value: 5/5
+ This game really offers a lot for $10. Even if you just play one character and just stop when you've defeated all three bosses then you'll still put at least 20 hours into it. But I think a lot of people enjoy making new characters, creating new randomly-generated worlds, and starting over again to see what the new environment has to offer. There is also a multiplayer mode which I never had the chance to use, but I've heard good things about it. So the price is absolutely fair for the content that is provided within the game and the time that you will spend playing it. I would highly recommend this for anyone who thinks that the idea of a 2D game where you dig and explore caverns and then craft better armor, weapons, and living structures sounds appealing.