Developer: Wonderfling
Publisher: Digital Tribe Games
Platform: PC, Mac
Terrian Saga KR-17 – Review
Terrian Saga KR-17 is a game made by Wonderfling and published by Digital Tribe Games in which you play as a little robot who tries to find his way back to his friends after having a malfunction in his circuits. Dash and jump between platforms, find the exit and gather back up with your comrades!
Story
Two brother solar systems, the Terrius system and the Cyrinus system, share multiple planets with their gravity complex. The galaxy of Carina consists of mostly conflict, which threaten these two solar systems as, the Cyrians are having a conflict with the Glortac People’s Resistance. Terrius has begun building an army to better combat the threat of this resistance. One of Terrius bases, built on the planet Valiant, has been sabotaged by a terrorist that released thousands of killer robots on the Valiant base. The Terrius military discovered that this terrorist may have contacts with the Glortac People’s Resistance. Due to the risk of one of their most powerful military installations, along with its armory falling into the hands of the resistance, Terrius has sent an army of 100 KR drones who have been ordered to destroy the enemy robots and by doing so, restore order to the base.
In Terrian Saga you play as a robot called KR-17, who has malfunctioned along the way. Trying to find its way back up, you need to overcome all kinds of obstacles or enemies in order to reunite yourself with your robot comrades.
Graphics
The graphics are pretty simple, yet they do the job nicely. You can see that de developers tried to make the game much like the old retro games, kind of similar to the style of Megaman or Sonic, and they did a fine job on it. Each stage has its own style, either it being inside of a building or outside a building or even both. There is only a small thing that could have been better, and that is the difference between the background and the foreground. Sometimes it’s hard to see what is a platform or what is not which will sometimes lead you to either death, or you wandering around looking for a place to jump on. There are sometimes dialogues where you will see a close up of KR-17, but these seem to be made really cheap as they look more like drawings done in MS Paint.
Sound
Terrian Saga’s music is also pretty nice. Each tune in the different stages sound nice and they will stay in your head for a while as they are quite catchy. You won’t get bored of it nor would you want to mute the music while playing. The sound effects are also nicely done, each sounds much like a machine or some kind of technology.
Gameplay
In Terrian Saga, you’ll be playing as a small little robot that wanders around different stages in the hope of finding the exist in order to progress to the next stage. Before you can enter a stage though, you need to press a set amount of buttons that are scattered across the stage. In some stages you don’t even need to press any switches, but stages are usually pretty hard so it’ll take time before reaching the exit. In order to reach certain switches, you’ll also need to find card keys that will allow you to go through a locked door. If you would die of either falling in water (which is an instant kill) or taking too much damage, you’ll respawn unlimited times at checkpoints that are scattered across the stage. You’ll need to hit the save point first though.
In the beginning you’ll have a couple of skills that you can do. One skill would be your gun attack, which is a basic ranged attack that has an unlimited amount of uses that you can spam as much as you want. You also have a small companion with you called J1M that is a missile. By using it, you control the missile itself and you travel through the air until you hit either a wall, or an enemy. Usually you’ll use it to blow up some kind of obstacle that is in your way, because if you are fighting against enemies KR-17 will stand around doing nothing since that you are in control of the missile which makes you vulnerable to enemy attacks. You also have a grenade with you, which has quite a big area of effect that blows obstacles up or deals massive damage to opponents. In order to use your grenade or missile, you’ll need energy that will expend itself each time you use your skills. If you have no energy left you can perform you skills, so you’ll need to go search for a place that can replenish your energy. These are found in quite a lot of different places on the stage, so you usually won’t run out of it. Later on you’ll receive even more weapons that will help you on your way.
Depending on what level/ stage you are in, a couple of special items are available to you that you’ll find scattered across the stage. Among these weapons are either a jetpack that lets you hover to distant places that are otherwise inaccessible to you or upgradeable weapons such as a laser or flamethrowers. By collecting gear, you can upgrade these weapons on certain points of the game and will definitely come in handy for defeating bosses or making your way through tougher enemies or obstacle.
There are in total 8 different bosses that are themed around the 9 different zones. It will take a long time though before reaching them because you’ll first need to go through tons of stages that will take quite some time. These bosses aren’t like bosses in older games like Megaman, as bosses are a part of the stage itself. When trying to reach an exit, at certain points in the game you’ll encounter these bosses. They try to obstruct your from reaching the exit and killing you in the progress. This means that you don’t actually need to fight the bosses, but require you to be fast and responsive in order to survive and reach your final destination.
Overall, the stages get harder and harder throughout the game. You’ll often die because that you weren’t fast enough or because weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You mostly won’t die from taking too much damage, but the platforming in this game can get really hard requiring you to be responsive and utilizing everything you learned.
Conclusion
Terrian Saga is a small game that has little flaws. The only thing that might be slighty annoying is the fact that sometimes you won’t notice a difference in texture. The couple of dialogue seem to be quickly made in Paint, but overall the graphics are done nicely and really fit the style of retro games. The sound is also done pretty well and the gameplay is fun, addicting and the difficulty makes you want to try again and again, without discouraging you at all. Overall, Terrian Saga KR-17 is definitely a game that is worth its purchase.
Terrian Saga KR-17 - Review,
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