Terra Memoria Reviews

Very middle of the road rpg, enjoyed the time i played and will watch out for the next game they make.

Fun battle system with a interesting way of build crafting.

This game is turn-based comfort food with some unique and fun features that stand it apart, but it also has some major balance issues that detract from my enjoyment and lower my confidence in my recommendation: Pros: 1. I like the way the dialogue boxes animate to infer character mood and tone. 2. I really like how dialogue text is paced as if it is being spoken. You can easily read dialogue in its spoken tempo; this also helps infer tone. 3. The funny menu sound effects add some fun to an otherwise overlooked portion of any game. 4. Humor is present in a lot of aspects of this game, and it really makes it feel fun and lively. 5. I really enjoy the travel guides and how they're designed like pamphlets you'd hold in your hand when visiting a city. The humor involved is also a lot of fun. Cons: 1. Economy is unbalanced and insulting. Early game items cost hundreds of gold and you need dozens of each, but the game doesn't even give you a 20th of what you need, even when doing side quests. 2. Combat is horribly unbalanced. You will wipe mobs with your eyes closed, but face certain bosses that will be nearly impossible. The game gives you no way around them other than luck as no amount of skill will secure you a win. You effectively hit a brick wall. Why are mobs so easy I can do them in my sleep, but certain bosses nearly impossible? 3. The "pair" combat system is a novel idea but executed poorly. It's like the team, when planning this system, thought, "what are the only ways we can ruin this novel and fun system?" And of course, they came up with a system that needlessly takes control away from the player and that is needlessly convoluted. Do we get to choose pairs? No, the game chooses for us. But we can follow an unintuitive graph and decide which pre-made pairs to disable. Furthermore, many pairs are flat out bad and are the difference between winning and losing even the easiest fights you'd normally steamroll in your sleep. The devs should have allows us to choose our pairs, and they should have also balanced pairs more so that each pair is desirable in differing situations, instead of many pairs being flat out bad. 4. Systems are explained poorly. They are introduced as text dumps then never revisited later on. They're pretty easy to understand, but some are not fully explained. Also, you're overwhelmed with a bunch of systems at the start of the game. 5. Localization needed some QA. It's a case where you can tell English is not the developer's first language. And while that's perfectly fine, when you're publishing a game, the audience shouldn't be able to infer that from your text. Also, some of the humor doesn't land due to this and I was left thinking, "what are they trying to say?" 6. The quest UI popups are way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way too much. There is a widget for every minuscule step in a quest, and the same quest can be split up into different widgets split further into multiple steps. There is no flow to this quest tracking system, yet it micromanages everything you do and repeats itself like a parrot repeats its owner's favorite phrase. Neutrals: 1. The narrative is predictable but enjoyable. Without getting into spoilers, it's essentially "discover secrets of ancient, highly-advanced civilization to solve economic crisis." It's perfectly fine for a semi-cozy game. The dialogue is also fine, but it comes off as it's written by the generation born in the mid-late 2000s. You know the kids shows on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel where the characters overreact to everything, yell everything, and casually talk 90% in irony? It has a little bit of those vibes. But, to be fair, I'd say it's the most tame example of it and dials it down quite a bit. However, you can still see it's there. Overall, dialogue is serviceable and the narrative still draws me in even though I know what's coming. Overall: I'd just barely recommend this game. Just... barely. It'd be an easy recommendation if its combat and economy weren't so unbalanced. I feel more financially squeezed in this game than I do irl... so that's saying a lot. I can't afford ingredients, which are the first purchasable item and, for a large portion of the game, the only way to increase your strength outside of the minuscule increase from leveling up. Eventually, the game shoved multiple new classes of items to purchase when I can't even afford ingredients even when doing all the side quests. Combat is not well-though out and needed more time in pre and in polish. It's a shame, since it's such a nice and fun time otherwise.

Terra Memoria has very solid graphics, reasonable world building, and a fun elemental break system similar to Octopath Traveler or Bravely Default. Most notably, it has a unique party structure wherein your three active party members are randomly paired with a support character who gives them the option to modify their abilities in different ways. There's too much walking around, combat gets grindy (though there is a fast forward button), and there isn't much else that stands out, but I'm glad that I played through it all for 15 hours or so.