Terracotta

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Terracotta, released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023, is a character-based Puzzle game set in ancient China and steeped in the lore and legends of that country, particularly surrounding the famed terracotta warriors. Players take the role of one such warrior, brought to life to put an end to the curse placed on his eight thousand comrades, who now fight to stop him.

Gameplay in Terracotta has players shifting between two worlds: in the shadow-like Yin, time is frozen for all but you, your own movement is slowed, and you can use magical energy to empower automated devices and construct defensive walls; and in yang, time flows normally, and you can act and move in ways you cannot in the world of Yin, but must also content with enemies trying to attack you.

At its best, this makes for some really clever puzzle design, where players must make use of both worlds to get past cleverly-placed obstacles. At its worst, Terracotta’s puzzle design is either poorly-explained or simply unclear about what players must do.

At one point early in the game, players gain the ability to summon warriors who can only briefly fight alongside them, performing a single task in exchange for coins earned by blocking arrows with an ability. However, while the does explain that these warriors must be summoned by pressing ZL to switch modes, it doesn’t tell the player that this summoning can only be done in the shadowy “yin” world, it doesn’t make clear that these coins are different from a similar-looking gold coin you find and collect to upgrade your abilities, and it’s unclear what it means when it says that these warriors can only be used for one “turn”, as this is not a turn-based game.

I was stuck in this part of what was essentially the tutorial for an absurd amount of time trying to figure out what to do, and I couldn’t even refer back to the tutorial messages to try to decipher what they meant, as they were gone and even exiting the game and reloading the save wouldn’t bring these messages back.

Almost immediately after this, I encountered a horseback enemy who was apparently immune to this attack, and the game did not seem to indicate in any way how I was meant to pass this foe. This sort of issue with the game failing to properly indicate what you can and can’t do, how you do it, and what is expected of you, seems to be a recurring theme through the game.

At the very least, the presentation here is good, blending some lovely, detailed 2D pixel art with some subtle 3D effects, backed by thematically-appropriate music and even joined by some Chinese-language voiced narration. Terracotta looks and sounds quite good.

I feel like Terracotta’s problems were issues that could have been resolved with better playtesting to show the game’s designers where players kept getting stuck and needed better instruction or guidance, because the lack of this instruction and guidance is the biggest problem the game has. When this problem doesn’t get in the way of things, this is a well-crafted Puzzle game with great theming. However, I think more than a few players will find themselves too frustrated to enjoy it.

tl;dr – Terracotta is a character-based Puzzle game where players jump between two versions of the world to solve puzzles and fend off enemies in a story set in ancient China with the focus on China’s famed terracotta warriors. The presentation and puzzle design here is excellent, but this game does far too job indicating what the player needs to do and how to do it. As a result, I think players are just as likely to be exasperated by this game as they are to be delighted by it.

Grade: C+

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