Ren'Py - Tales of Terrara [v0.4.0 Prepatched] [Thunder One]

[ Review for version - 0.4.0 Prepatched ]

TL;DR: Tales of Terrara is a charming game with great renders and big promise for story telling and player choice held back by an absolutely obnoxious user interface. I dropped it before the end of the current update because clicking around got really frustrating.

The Good: Great character and scene renders. The dialogue was well written, and there was a good foundation for interesting world building. The sex scenes are all very well done!

The Average: It's a sandbox game with an in-game clock gating LI progress and some quests, so you will find yourself rolling the time forward so you can make incremental progression very often. Interesting system, but not the best implementation.

The Bad: The UI is so frustrating. Everything feels like it takes 2 or 3 clicks more than it should. Everything that needs to be clicked is so small. Traveling between places, especially when in a 'dungeon' feels glacial and clunky.

Wishlist:

> Rework the UI. Points of Interest for the place you are in shouldn't be behind a menu as it makes interacting with them difficult. Make the location nodes MUCH larger, ideally a whole rectangle area over the place of interest. I don't want to have to use FPS level precision just to walk to the next room over.

> Indicate better what times certain activities are available, and how much time activities will take. Skipping forward with random increments to try to progress a story feels tedious, and an activity shooting you past the time slot for another activity means you're just waiting even more. It may even be better to get rid of the clock all together and just reduce it to a few time slots (morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, for instance)

It's an amazing AVN and great RPG with one of the best animated H scenes I've ever seen—beautiful rendering, beautiful "monster girls", great writing with a nice fantasy plot. Choosing to play between a male or female MC is a huge bonus as it makes the game replayable with different perspectives.

I played v 0.3.8

The writing in this game seemed boring. I didn't get very far before I lost interest. For a visual novel like this, the writing is very important. The art seems like it would be good, but I didn't see much of it.

Hey, that's a really good game. For once it's actually a game, and adult moments are nice.
Yeah, UI is not great, combat is sometimes buggy, companions are useless and some dialogue options are counterintuitive, but this have a lot more effort put into it then 90% of games here.
The only real downside i can point out is that it's a small team making something quite big and interesting. Therefore in 4 years only a handfull of quests are done with a small amount of scenes for each LI. So I really liked this game, but how long it will take for story to make same amount of progression? Several more years? Well, that's the way she goes i guess.

If you thinking of giving it a try you probably should.

Good writing and renders. The goblin is honestly super cute

I'd give it 4 stars, if the UI navigation made more sense and didn't require me to open the map continuously when exploring

I'd give it 5 stars, if saves and loading didn't take so long. The long save/loading time makes the experience near unbearable especially when the first scene of the game encourages a lot of saving

Dev, I think your save/load performance is drastically slowed down by how many classes you have. Could probably increase performance by decoupling a bunch of those attributes/variables

Nice vibe. Although there's a quite a bit of reading, I'm not bored or frustrated like I do with some other text-heavy VNs.
Great H scenes. I like that there are build-up to the sex scenes. Good for setting the mood. The inclusion of the male protagonist is kinda pointless cause all the scenes can be viewed as fem/futa protagonist anyway and you also can't see the female exclusive scenes. Plus, why would I choose the boring male protag over the hot female one (with dick)?
The combat is whatever. It's kinda boring but at least they aren't too grindy.
Overall, great VN with a lot of sex scenes.

UI decision for this game is beyond my understanding. I mean those renders are not THAT good so you wouldn't sacrifice an inch of the screen apart from the top right corner, where the actual buttons are.

While I understand that it is much easier to code than conditional buttons that you would DIRECTLY see on screen for you to click, use or explore, clicking that one button that hides ALL fkin actions is much easier. But effectively doubles the clicks required to do anything. Not sure what the benefit is for the player tho.

Anyhow, best of luck with the game, but the UI is beyond my tolerance.

Dident really expect much from this since the sandbox part looks so old and boring, but story is good enough to enjoy and the girls look great.

The sandbox part does need a ton of work, its trying to be a form for RPG but there is no stats, no armor, its ok for MC since he does get more HP when he lvls up if we can call it that, but for the people in hes party theres just nothing, also you only have one attack spell so all you do is cast one debuff then spam your one attack spell, it needs some AOE and more choices if its to ever be good.

It also really needs a better questlog on each girl since you have no clue when you reached the last update with one.

I got supprised how good the animations are, did not expect that at all.
Music is also pretty decent.

The biggest issue is that the game is more then 4 years old now and there is barely any content, like the main quest has still barely started, it dosent really make any sense and i would expect this to never be finished since at the current rate it would take 30 years more atleast.

I will still give it 3 stars even with the very slow progress in updates since the game is good enough for that and that is what i am reviewing after all.
I will revisit this one since it could easily be a 5 star game if it ever get alot more content, but for now there is just not enough to make it worth playing, with the main quest there are like 14 quest total, it truely is nothing compared to being in devolpment for 4 years.

Well came back to try out v0.3.8 but cant say theres much progress considering its about a year since i tried it last, so now its been in development for 5 years and its still not really getting anywhere, its to bad really game is kinda fun but if it will take another 5+ years to finish its just to long and pointless to even start playing this one.

Well. The game isnt bad graphically. Have some smooth animations. Beautiful (sometimes) models. But gameplay and plot... too little and boring. I played for about an hour, and realized that it was easier to just download the full save and view the gallery. The game is purely for fast fap. It can't offer anything else.
P.S.1 And yes, that also a typical game where the consequences are not taken into account. In the goblin cave, the heroine is raped and cremied by goblins. And they just return her back to the chains. Zero reactions from her or her friend/lover... Evereday situation, right?
P.S.2 And for a game that has been under development for 4 years, there is very little content.

What to expect when you start this game:

Pages and pages of text, backstory, blah blah blah. Please name your character! Now stare at a static image with lo-fi ambient sounds playing in your headphones. You're probably supposed to click on something somewhere in the static image at this point. Figure out what to click on to progress the game. I dare ya. Click on something.

So much sandbox point-and-click-on-a-static-image gameplay. Free-roam all over those frozen pixels.

So, Tales of Terrara
I simply love the moment when you find a game that nails the tempo and scene/story/gameplay balance, when it doesn't throw over-the-top convoluted gameplay mechanics at you, and at the same time doesn't feel like a porn gallery.

But how is this achieved,

First - Implementation of the core mechanics, interactions with companions, free roam, relationship system, quests, fights and dialogues. You always know what you can or need to do, you don't need to grind as there's no EXP or LVL, and sometimes you even have multiple ways of achieving your goal.

Second - Characters, they are likeable, maybe not that deep, but you don't need deep characters if you can be deep inside characters. Jokes aside, it's a relatively light-hearted RPG, and the NPCs are written more than well enough for this genre. Different races make it all even better.

Third - Dev's vision, Well I have an extremely strong feeling that the dev is a very experienced dungeon master, because of the descriptiveness(how scenes are set up), battle maps, races, combat balance, and the story itself.
And funnily enough his skillset make him exceptionally competent for creating (or at least designing) a porn RPG, I've never thought about it before, but it makes so much sense now, and that's probably the main reason why it's fun to play the game.

Regarding the sweet scenes - renders are great, including some smooth animations, and there is a surprisingly big amount of them for a game in such an early stage of development. One small grudge - I fully completed the game as a male MC, and only then in gallery found out that female MC have a bit more content including many game over rape scenes, which I enjoy the most, it would be nice to add this information before you are given the male/female choice in future updates:")
Oh, and there are many fetishes as well, but you are warned even before light ones.

The only bad side of the game is bugs, although I haven't encountered any game-breaking ones, and sometimes a bit unintuitive UI, but both of these things can be fixed with proper updates.

For now - great job Thunder One, I really hope that this game survives till the release.

B E S T.
- Art
- Animated
- Story
- Fetishes (Especially Bes)
- Gameplay

I don't like les and futa content much, but don't mind at all. Because some content that I like, other may not.
BTW, the best scene for me is goblin and wolf(in the forest)

Will support on Patreon. Game this quanlity and dev that make game like this is worth support.

V0.2.9

Pros
+ Gallery exists
+ Attractive models
+ Animated H-scenes

Cons
- Really bad Turn-based combat gameplay. It's basically just an RNG simulator. Both sides have a chance to miss and it's more about getting lucky to avoid enemy hits, while not missing too much yourself. And you can't control party members.
- You can't check what your spells do during combat, on the off chance you want to use one. Spells are given really nondescript names that makes it hard to remember what they do. The only way to check is via Training mode, outside of combat, and it's an entire dialogue sequence just to check what a spell does
- There are no damaging spells outside of your auto attack, there are no buffing spells, no debuffing spells, no healing spells. Of the many spells you get, not many are useful (save for the AoE Sleep spell and Evil Eye which makes each of your hits do more damage by applying a secondary attack). Also none of your party members have spells or abilities. They just auto attack.
- Really bad resource system. You only have 2MP, and each spell costs 1 MP. So you're disincentivized to use spells most of the time. There are no MP potions. It would have been better if MP was restored to full automatically after each battle. Instead you have to rest or meditate. And you're limited to 2 meditations before you have to rest
- There's no gear or stat points, so you can't really improve your character's survivability or damage. This is made even worse when enemies can one shot you, outspeed you, or 3 enemies all attack one guy and they die before you can do anything. Unfortunately all you can hope for is better dodge RNG.
- Moving around the map is very clunky. Each step requires selecting the Exploration mode, then selecting a nearby node to move to it. If you want to loot something, you have to select loot mode and then click on the underlined text for a corpse or a chest. Overall the game would have been much smoother if it was designed like a roguelike. If each node was a room, and in each room you get free movement and free looting, it would feel far less clunky
- Looting is not automatic after defeating a foe. You have to remember to switch to loot mode and then click the underlined text for each corpse individually. Also most enemy corpses drop nothing
- There's not much content
- H-scenes feel short and unsatisfying. Most of them don't involve penetration
- Most H-scenes require you to lose to an enemy to unlock. You can sometimes miss scenes because only one of that enemy exists and you beat it first try
- Game takes a long time to boot up and it's slow to load saves

Conclusion
This game is plagued by poor gameplay design, UI, map navigation and even looting. In my opinion, there isn't enough main story quests to really gauge if the story is any good. The H-scenes are ok, but it's not enough to save the game

Tales of Terrara is a beautifully crafted, fun VN with interesting characters and game mechanics that don't reinvent the wheel but are still noteworthy and unique.

I especially like that it is possible to play a female protagonist, that there is lesbian content to choose from and that the characters are all interesting, even side characters are designed with attention to detail. Dialogues seem appropriate and are pleasant to read, are very funny at times and the plot has a good flow. There is an arc of suspense and little secrets that seemingly lead to a bigger picture down the road.

On the whole, Tales of Terrara has everything you want in a good high fantasy AVN with good renders and animations and it definitely deserves more support and attention.

Very great game! Very good gameplay and loveable npc !
The game would benefit higher rate of update but this does not impact the quality of what have been mde so far.
Mol is definetely the cutest of the cutest.

The game stands out among other projects on the Ren'py engine, first of all, not with the usual gameplay.
- You move through the points on the map. Even going to small locations. This is especially interesting in small locations. In such zones, part of the map is hidden and moving - you scout it.
- Getting to any point of the location you have a "search" button, by clicking on which you will see a description of the location. Characters and items you can interact with.
- Not a standard approach to rest and recovery. The day is not just divided into several parts, between which you "move" by pressing the wait button (or something else). You choose how many hours to miss.
- There is no longer a "standard" fixed amount of energy, which is restored at the end of the day, after sleep.

It is still difficult to judge the plot, since it has not yet been half disclosed. But the presentation is interesting. I would also like to point out the following:
+ memorable characters (usually in games on this engine this is a problem, they are either all "gray" and do not stand out in any way, or ugly)
+ animated H scenes (in 80% of games it's just a picture)
+ the ability to choose the gender of the main character (and there is Futa content, but this is my personal plus. Who cares if he's cute, right?)

There are several growth points:
1) a small amount of content, but this is rather a temporary difficulty, since the game is still at the development stage.
2) not very interesting fights. I love the RPG genre, but I was bored
3) I understand that the genre of the game is VN, but sometimes there is too much text in it.

The battle:
During the attack, the enemy's health bar disappears, we see the text below, what happened, how much damage was done. After that, a strip appears, with HP already missing. I would like to see the damage dealt/effect applied/damage taken/etc. in the moment. For one battle, the system is interesting, the description of the action, what happened, how the enemy reacted, but the battle in the game is NOT one, far from alone. After 4-8 fights, you just start scrolling through the entire text, and it's not always clear what happened. I would recommend to revise the combat system, make it less detailed, or significantly reduce the number of fights (the second option is worse, because I love RPGs and fights ).

Summing up, I will say that the game is good, even excellent, I see the potential. Stands out from other projects due to non-standard approach to gameplay, interesting characters.
Played version 0.2.6

Interface is still a little bit rough but the characters are well thought out and have reasonable depth to their back stories. Mol is adorable and Hana is fun. Will be fun to see this game develop and possibly have a good time with Gala and our sister. So far I'm enjoying the stories and quests.

An enjoyable game, for sure.
Animations are rather simple - it's usually one animation that's split into stages and different speeds to make it look more interesting. Doesn't bother me, but if that is your focus - you'll definitely be left wanting more. I mostly come to F95 games for the story, heh.
Music is OK.
Try to give up when you encounter any new enemy because there may be an animated ending, just to see it.

I'd give the game a 3.5/5, so I rounded up to 4 since I am looking forward to revisiting it in 2 years.
Note: I played on version 0.2.4 as Sophia (the female protagonist) since I suspect that's how the dev wants us to play. She even has futa magic, so you don't get locked out of any scenes (though you do get locked out of scenes if playing as the male protagonist).
Good:
+ Sophia's cockiness. When you confront a slaver who threatens to call in the guards she responds with "You want some help? It's gonna be tough bringing all the corpses here." The magic powers have made Sophia a wrecking ball and she owns it.
+ Even named characters will die if you choose to fight them, so none of that "letting them go" as a plot point for later. Of course, this means your companions can die too so fights are a bit riskier. The game is still relatively early in development so there aren't many repercussions to deaths, but I can foresee myself having to reload saves in later releases because I refuse to let the goblin die.
Neutral:
= You can get skills and scenes out of order if you don't rest regularly. For example, I got Animal Talking after killing the only animal you can currently talk to. I also got a conversation in which Sophia mentions looking for a dude who knows about portals before her boss was like "we need some portals."
= I hope you like ahegao.
= The human language is called Humanian. Like, I get it: dwarves -> Dwarven, elves -> Elven. Except most writers realize that Humanian sounds dumb and just call it Common, or name the human language after whatever region humans come from.
Bad:
- The writing can be overly flowery, particularly in the beginning. For example, "serpentining" tunnels. Snaking: yes. Winding: yes. Serpentining: nobody talks like that. There are times when a character will be referred to as a "golden-haired woman." This makes sense when we don't know the woman, but not when it's Sophia. We know Sophia; we are Sophia.
- This is one of those games which inelegantly truncates some of it's content in order to stay on Patreon. I don't mind cutting the content, but if the only thing to do at the stables is get a bestiality scene then I feel the stables could just be completely removed from the unpatched version of the game instead of having you go there and do nothing.
- The gallery unlocking is also inelegant. You need to play a scene with both characters to unlock both entries even though they're not that different (and remember: futa magic). There are also game-over rape scenes so you have to purposefully lose to unlock them in the gallery then reload your save instead of the scenes being unlocked automatically after winning. It'd make a bit more sense if you had to fight the enemies multiple times, but so far each enemy is a unique encounter.
- Combat can be pretty random. Sometimes you'll miss most attacks, eventually dying even after landing 3 hits. Then you'll reload the save and win the battle in two attacks no problem. It's pretty inconsistent. This is also more of an adventure game than an rpg, so you can't go off and level up or anything. Combat isn't really hard though, so I guess it's not as bad as it could be.

This game is absolutely fantastic. It has such a great rpg storytelling feeling, and I love all the characters. They're all super attractive too. One thing to make sure to do (which I do most of the time anyway) is to save super often. Things can go downhill quite quickly sometimes, but I got quite lucky on my first playthrough.

Anyways, this game has tremendous art and storytelling, and definitely deserves a 5/5. Gonna keep an eye out for whenever this updates.