Terra Memoria is an interesting retro and 3D spin on a game of magical adventure.
Terra Memoria was developed by La Moutarde, an indie game studio that is comprised of five individuals sporting their own focuses on game design, and published by Dear Villagers. Terra Memoria is a game that will have players taking on a cozy and interestingly combined graphical adventure with six characters and a mysterious awakening of robots.
Starting the game, the player is shown an interaction between an NPC, who seems to be at their wits’ end with the state of things in the land of Terra. Leading into the conversation between the characters, the player will come to learn of the state of things in the land… While waiting for the first main character to arrive.
After the interactions, the player will be able to move on to the next phase of the game. This is where the player will learn how combat works. Coming to understand the timeline aspect of combat first, it is explained that the line at the bottom of the player’s screen is sort of a race between characters; this will indicate how many turns a character will be able to use in their next turn. As each turn progresses, the character furthest to the left will be able to use a skill. However, once this action has been taken, the player will then return to the timeline and play again in a few turns after the enemies have taken theirs.
The next function of Terra Memoria that will be explained will be that of the power indicator. This indicator will give the player the ability to choose one of two ways to play. One way would be to play again while the others offer the player a more powerful attack. The information on a skill can be found on the right or left of the respective skill.
It would be wise to keep in mind that if the square in the timeline you need to reach is occupied, it’s very likely that the player will fall behind. So, make a point of using the skills with care to gain the advantages of playing before the opponent. Once these rules have been read and understood by the player, the game will throw the player into a short combat situation with two spells to use.
Just as explained, Terra Memoria will play out in turns with both characters leap-frogging over each other to reach the left of the screen. Between the two options of skills the player will have in the beginning, players will be able to use one that will carry out the mini version of the characters over the estimated number of rocks further in the line at the bottom of the screen. Whereas the other will offer less distancing.
Once the enemy has been defeated, the player will be moved to the next objective, which happens to be moving to the front lines of battle. It is here where the next aspects of the game come into play; during this phase, exploiting weaknesses becomes the subject matter.
When it comes to attacks in the game, each seems to have its corresponding element,s such as wind, fire, lightning, ice, earth, and water. However, there is a mysterious hidden element that happens to be more powerful than all of the elements combined. Aside from this explanation, players are also shown a visual example of how to determine a monster’s weakness found next to its life bar. Successfully hitting the specific weaknesses guarantees more damage on a hit, basically hitting it with critical each time.
Next on the list of things to learn will be the destruction of shields, aside from hurting an enemy with a specific kind of weakness, destroying an enemy’s shield makes them weak to any element available in the mage’s arsenal. Shock is a powerful attack and will send the enemy straight to the end of the timeline.
While dealing damage will result in the loss of 1 shield point for the enemy, the enemy, however, will lose two points if attacked by its exploiting elemental weakness and will shatter the shield, making it vulnerable to all elemental attacks. Finally, once the mock battle is over and done with, the player will be shown how to target multiple enemy characters at once.
When it comes down to skills in Terra Memoria, some will have the ability to multi-target all characters in a team. Dots indicate these skills, a single dot representing a standard single strike, while skills with multi-targeting will have three dots present, indicating a full-party target.
While being able to deal damage is fun and some spells hit harder than others, it is wise to keep track of what’s happening with enemies as well, as some may have the skills to heal themselves and their allies, which can be a problem if not paying attention. The game is by no means hard, and it’s quite an enjoyable, cozy playing game with a sort of 90s kind of feel to it.
Once the tutorial for battle is over, the next objective will be to talk to the engineer named Hammah. During some interaction, the game allows the player to make choice-based responses to the NPC, which gives the game a more personal feel to it and its characters. Once the interactions are completed and a mini fetch quest is done, the player’s next objective will be the crafting aspect of the game, which involves placing the Barricades, placing them around to protect the village of Constance.
Being careful as to where to place them, the player will only be able to put them in specific spots. However, the player can rotate them in order to let them fit in the place, and they should look the same as indicated in the open spots.
The game does feature other aspects such as cooking and a unique story, the world-building and story, although short and light-hearted, still carry a message of dwindling resources and battling wars to stay safe. The characters that are joined for the investigation into the problems of this world each have something unique to bring to the table, and have very pleasing looks to them.
As mentioned before, the game sports a food-making mini-game, and the game houses a wide range of recipes, each meal being unique and visually appealing for a video game. This aspect of the game kind of reminded me of an old PlayStation 2 game, which was titled Odin Sphere. That game had up to 60 kinds of dishes in the later version, in Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. Terra Memoria has a unique way of filling a longing for a touch of the past while still keeping it modern and entertaining.
Terra Memoria houses a great and visually pleasing combination of 3D backgrounds and 2D styles of sprites. The environments are beautiful and fun to explore with the investigation into the land.
Although the game looks retro, the gameplay is fulfilling, and it doesn’t feel like the game has been overloaded with padding. Characters are also memorable, especially when it comes to global issues. Alongside the great visuals and interesting story, Terra Memoria features a soundtrack of just over 80 songs composed by Yponekod. It kept things fresh and didn’t once feel like it was repeating itself on an annoying level.
Overall, Terra Memoria is a fun turn-based RPG with six playable characters, each with their unique looks and skills. Terra Memoria tells a unique story of a world with interesting issues and some crazy inhabitants and features a few satisfying things to do, such as battling, crafting, and cooking. It is a game well worth giving a shot.
