Review - TERA

Monday, 14 May 2012 18:34

For those few of you that may not know, TERA (The Exiled Realm of Arborea) is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). It has a “real-time battle system” in third person view.

You can level your character up to level 60 and as you level up you get to upgrade armor, weapons, learn new skills, enter dungeons, and go on raids…. Describing TERA is almost impossible, as it is with most games in this genre simply because it is an open world with loads and loads of quests, missions and action to find and explore. So a question comes to mind, how is it possible, for such a big MMORPG to brawl its way and make a name for itself in today’s MMORPG gaming society which is already packed with games, WOW being the biggest one while there are still a lot of Free to Play MMORPG’s that can hold their own?

First the backstory:

   “ About a millennia ago two omnipotent titans Arun and Shara entered into formless voids and for reasons we can only guess, fell asleep. The titans started to dream. Dream of a world that took form on their backs known as Tera. The first beings to call Tera home were twelve godlike beings dreamt up by the titans, but it wasn’t long before the gods started fighting.

As the dream continued new creatures took place called mortals, they were less powerful but far more numerous. Arun dreamed of ambitious Elves, clever Humans, honor bound Amani, powerful Giants, scheming Devas, and mischievous Poporis. Shara dreamed of sly Sikandari, dark Gulas and Vampires, fierce Wendigos, strange Faeries, and serpentine Nagas. The mortals were forced into the divine wars of the gods, which eventually left the gods dead, imprisoned, or otherwise diminished. The mortal races didn’t escape unscathed. Some—like the Sikandari, and most of the Giants—were wiped out but others rose from the wars such as the Barakas and Castanics. Now that the gods were gone the seven races; Amani, Barakas, Castanics, Elin, High Elves, Humans, and Poporis must band together to fend off a new enemy. A metallic race from the underworld called Argons; their goal is to take over Tera and wake the titans to end their dreams and destroy Tera.”

TERA gives you the choice between seven races, The Aman, a race of draconia humanoids, The Baraka, a giant, intelligent race, The Castanics, a demon-like race, The Elins, an innocent nature loving race, The High Elves, The Humans and The animal-like Popori.[

When you have chosen your race you need to put your character into a certain class:

Archer: The Archer is a “Ranged Damage Class,” using a bow and wearing light armor.

Berserker: The Berserker is a “Melee Damage Class,” using a two-handed axe and wearing heavy armor.

Lancer: The Lancer is a “Blocking Tank,” using a shield with a lance and wearing heavy armor.

Mystic: The Mystic is a “Support Healer Class,” using a scepter and wearing cloth armor.

Priest: The Priest is a “Primary Healer Class,” using a staff and wearing cloth armor.

Slayer: The Slayer is a “Melee Damage Class,” using a two-handed sword and wearing light armor.

Sorcerer: The Sorcerer is a “Ranged Magic Damage Class,” using an arcane disc and wearing cloth armor.

Warrior: The Warrior is an “Evasive Tank” or "Melee Damage Class," dual-wielding twin swords and wearing light armor.

And when you have chosen a race and a class it is time to customize your character to your liking. The customization options are good and deep enough with enough choices for anyone to head out into the game without looking like every other player in the game and it simply adds a small factory to the overall experience, everybody wants to be different at the end, and at the end everyone truly are.

The first 10 levels might seem like your standard fetch quests, but when you reach level 11 you get the ability to travel and get your mount. When you do the world really opens up and you find out that you have been playing around on a small island and that it is just a speck of what the game world really holds for you, it is huge. Also the difficult level slowly speeds up, and at first it might seem like the easiest mmorpg game ever, but trust me, when you get up the ranks the game will start to punish you.

In a regular RPG you have the ability to manually upgrade your strength, health etc. This is also somewhat available in TERA in the form of something called Glyphs. Glyphs are like a skill tree but instead of just going for the basic upgrades it servers the player the ability to go deeper into specializing how you want your character to level up.

Also as with any MMORPG you will never be overpowered, as your quests and missions tend to drive you towards areas where your level matches the enemies level, giving the game a constant feel of struggle and achievement when you do kill off a boss. And the boss battles in the game are good and some of them even tests your skills to the max, making you really pull out any trick and skill you have up your sleeve, but then again it feels even better when you finally do manage to take them down.

The combat system in TERA needs a section of its own, simply because it isn’t your typical “click the enemy and your character auto attacks”, it is more a hack ‘n slash feel, meaning you are in total control of the combat while it is ongoing. Additional to the regular hack ‘n slash you can also combo your attacks, because when you have pulled of an attack you have the ability to link a combo attack or more onto it for more powerful impact, which serves really well if the enemy is of the more difficult sort which you will run into regularly as you level up your character and travel deeper into the game. Also you are free to customize your combos to your liking.

The thing with an MMORPG is the fact that you never really can say you finished the game. There will always be stuff you missed out on or stuff that you didn’t reach yet but if I was to play through this game I would need a lot more of something I wish I had more of, time. TERA will consume your time if you let it, and I can see how easily that can be done simply because of the addictive and entertaining gameplay that is TERA. The only thing im wondering about is the fact that it is pay-to-play, and in a community where this is a dying breed except for the big one, i can't help but to be a little scared. Now, if you already love MMORPGs, chances are you already got this, but if you are not, check out some videos online and see if this isn’t something you could dabble into, because if it is, TERA will keep feeding you as long as you feed it.