Fighting Terraria’s Bosses

Right now, I’m not sure whether or not I prefer this to Minecraft.  Minecraft has more potential for building amazing structures.. but sometimes it feels a bit too easy to end up wandering around without much direction.  So far Terraria seems more purposeful, with the ability to level up your character and loot or craft better gear, and with the various bosses to fight.

On our multiplayer server, we’ve already taken on the Eye of Cthulu, and next up was the Eater of Worlds, a huge worm-like creature.
Once the three of us were online, the Eater of Worlds was summoned, and we headed to our arena of wooden platforms..

This boss tunnels in and out of the ground, and using the platform means you can see him coming.. of course he still hits hard, and coming in contact with any part of his body seemed to cause damage.  You can split him into multiple worms if you damage sections of his body enough.. though then you end up with multiple bosses at the same time.

Unfortunately, I found that his head was rarely within reach, especially after dropping from the platform to avoid contact, and we did end up with a few worms by the end of the fight.

The final boss is Skeletron, found outside the main dungeon of the world.

He first appears as an Old Man, and will transform into Skeletron if you speak to him at night.  We approached during the day, and I was tempted to go into the dungeon to have a look around first, but was warned off.. entering the dungeon without first summoning and defeating the boss will result in him appearing and one-shotting the intruder.

We created a small room with a bed up on top of the dungeon, so we could set our spawn point close by.  This turned out to be a good idea, as there were a few accidental uses of the Magic Mirror during the fight.. it also meant that if any of us died, it wouldn’t leave the other two alone for long.

With all our powerful weapons, we killed him of course.. sadly this boss can only be defeated once per map.

In addition to bosses, we have also started to encounter Goblin Invasions on the server.  To enable these invasions, at least one Shadow Orb must be broken.. after that it’s a random chance each dawn while at least one player with 200 health is present on the server.

The arrival of the Goblin Army means a lot of fighting, and with some of the better weapons it’s a lot of fun, though the Sorcerers are still annoying as they teleport around.  This adds another facet at the stage when you’ve discovered much of what there is in the map, and I think this really helps to maintain interest in the game.

Terraria

A new game appeared in my friends’ group over the weekend – Terraria.  As I have a silly number of unplayed games in my collection, I was going to give it a miss.. but they kept talking about it with such obvious enthusiasm that I started to feel a bit left out..

Terraria is a 2D scrolling adventure game which has a few similarities to Minecraft.. you start in a randomly generated world, with trees and other resources to gather.  Once you have collected enough goodies, you can craft items: weapons, building materials and decorative items.

There are monsters, ranging from coloured slime with little health, right up to some fairly tough bosses, which you can summon when you’re ready to take them on.  Unlike in Minecraft, the appearance of monsters is not limited to the night-time.. so while you could build a shelter and hide, it’s far better to get out there and fight!

As you find better resources and loot, you can craft stronger weapons and armour.. you can also level your character up with items which increase your total health and add a mana pool.. and you will need to do this if you’re going to take on the bosses! 🙂

Another dissimilarity to Minecraft comes in the form of the NPCs you can attract, should you build shelter for them to live in, and met a few requirements.  The merchant has a range of items for sale, the nurse can heal you, the Arms Dealer sells guns, and the Guide.. well..

The Guide got me into trouble.

I started out in the world knowing very little about the game, as I wanted to experience and learn as I went along.. and seeing the Guide, I expected I’d have to follow him along a little way before getting into the game properly.

However, he led me off the grass and onto a manky grey surface with spiky weeds.. Corruption, which I’m told is not normally this close to spawn.  The spiky weeds hurt, so I decided to leave the Guide to his wandering and go back to the grass.. but before I got back I met my first monster, the Eater of Souls!

I found I could take one point of health from him with my pickaxe, but before he was dead another appeared.. this was too much to handle on top of the damage from the weeds in the Corruption, and I managed to die within one minute of spawning! So much for an easy game at lunch 😉

After respawning I tried to explore to the left, but met Slimes, as well as a rather high mountain.. then night came, bringing zombies, so I went to dig down and instead met some kind of worm.. more death!

Eventually I went after the Guide, hacking away the spiky parts of Corruption so I could walk there.. I found him trapped in water above his head, still alive apparently, and as soon as I’d made a path he headed back up the hill.  I cut a path down into one of the caves, and trapped him there!

I was surprised how quickly the corruption spread across the dirt tiles.. I came to take screenshots at the end of play, and found it had grown like this.. 😮

Terraria also has a multiplayer mode, and after a friend set up a server I joined them.  Multiplayer allows co-op and PvP, which you can toggle on individually.. you can also form teams which adds a little indicator to show which direction and how far away your friends are.

Both friends had played for a while already, and as characters keep all their equipment and resources when they enter a world, they already had some decent gear.  As I was now on my home PC, and the game has no Steam cloud support, I had to start from scratch, but I didn’t mind as I’d barely collected or looted anything yet.

I was given a better pickaxe, as well as some bombs and some other random items.. I went exploring for resources while one friend built a large tower and filled it with rooms.. this meant the NPCs started to arrive, though till I’ve earnt more money I can’t buy from them. 😉

He also went and summoned the Eye of Cthulu.. I got killed trying to take a look at him the first time, but after being given hearts and levelling up somewhat, I was able to take part in the second fight! 🙂

We fought him from a platform, so there was plenty of room to avoid him as he swung past.  As well as attacking you by himself, he fires little eyes at you.. the magic boomerang came in handy for those, killing them before they got too close 🙂

The Eye’s second phase was a little creepier, as the pupil and iris were replaced by a mouth full of sharp teeth..

It wasn’t too much longer before we killed him though.. the flaming arrows, magic boomerang and Undoer’s spiky ball of win made sure of that! 🙂