void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium (Switch) Review

Sporting one of the most confusing computer-speak titles I've ever seen, Void Terrarium is a game that surprised me. I wasn't quite sure what it was about or what sort of game it was, I only knew that it looked like a bleak narrative judging by the trailers, featuring the struggles of a small girl. What I discovered was that Void Terrarium is actually a dungeon crawler in the vein of the Mystery Dungeon series with a virtual pet element running in the background, all wrapped up in this desperate attempt to care for possibly the last human in a dead world. After about twenty hours with Void Terrarium, I still feel incredibly compelled to keep playing, pushing forward just to see what will become of this frail being. 

Void Terrarium puts players in control of Robbie, a small robot who stumbles into an oddly chipper AI called factoryAI. From here the game feeds us details of its decrepit world, one that's been overrun by a deadly fungus, warping the creatures over hundreds, maybe thousands of years. This environment makes it nearly impossible for humans to survive but despite these odds, the pair of electronic beings discover a dying girl that they later name Toriko. Once they stabilize her, Robbie and factoryAI swear to keep her safe by braving the wilds, gathering resources, and crafting helpful tools, while also trying to revert the effects of the fungus and maybe even wipe it out at the source. 

The game flops between a 2D view at the base where Robbie cleans, feeds, and builds Toriko's glass terrarium home and a top-down view for dungeon crawling. These dungeons are randomly generated and time moves in singular turns, much like the popular Mystery Dungeon games. Usually, I don't find this genre appealing as these types of games are often far more complex than they need to be, leaving me scratching my head. I usually struggle to find helpful information on them because they are fairly niche games in regions outside of Japan. Void Terrarium actually streamlines a lot of these genre traits, creating a dungeon crawler that is easy to pick up and understand but one that has enough depth to be engaging. 

Each time one enters a dungeon, Robbie's level resets, meaning if he gets to level 20 at the end of a run and dies, he starts back at the beginning of the next dungeon dive as a humble level 1 hero. Thankfully, all of the items on-hand upon death are changed into resources that can be used for crafting. Through crafting an item the first time, Robbie can acquire permanent upgrades, meaning that while progress can be slow at times it is at least steady. 

Where things get interesting is when a level-up occurs. Upon gaining a level, the player must choose between two randomly generated upgrades, either a passive or an active skill. Active skills are like special attacks and they can be extremely handy for dealing with tougher foes. Yet, I usually found myself picking the passive skills to increase survivability and the strength of my basic attacks. Some skills are game-changing like the Juggernaut, an upgrade that disables the often used basic attacks for the ability to move through any enemy and cause an explosion at that location. Another one I found handy was the Spin Slash which turns the basic attack into a swing that hits all surrounding squares. 

To further tailor one's build, Robbie can equip Knacks which are like classes or jobs in other RPGs. These provide boosts to certain stats and can increase the likelihood of drawing particular skills. Eventually, players can equip multiple Knacks for further customization. Additionally, Robbie can remove skills from the overall pool to remove unwanted skills, though getting enough skill removal points can take a ton of time. 

The gameplay loop that results is a satisfying pattern of going into a dungeon, going as far as one can, ending the run either on death or getting to the final floor, taking care of Toriko's needs, making upgrades or crafting items, and then repeating the process. Unfortunately, there are lots of times where Toriko's needs become super annoying, and feel like they're actively impeding game progress. For example, Toriko can become sick with specific (often super macabre) illnesses that force the player to drop what they're doing and run through a short, specific dungeon to craft a cure. I jumped into a story dungeon, got five floors in, and got the alert that Toriko was sick and needed immediate care. 

While I'm pretty sure the game was tutorilizing, I once had to do this four times in a row. 

It also didn't help that the game would frequently crash but thankfully this resulted in just starting at the beginning of whatever floor I was on. This will likely be addressed in a patch but it did lead me to realize that I could exit the game before getting back to the base if I lost in an unlucky way, allowing me to reset runs and have a better chance of success. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this trick until about 15 hours into playing. For most of my time with Void Terrarium, I played with the hand I was dealt. 

Luck plays a lot into the frequency of success; sometimes Void Terrarium just dumps a heap of unfortunate events and when it happens it feels awful. Sure, the game does get progressively easier if one can keep crafting and get those permanent bonuses but that grind takes a long time with usually only about one upgrade being achieved per dungeon crawl. This, compounded with Toriko constantly needing food or for her terrarium to be cleaned which costs precious energy, can keep progress from being as constant as I would have liked. 

Dungeon crawling is snappy and the controls are mostly intuitive, aside from when a room is full of enemies or items resulting in some slowdown as things shuffle into place. I also didn’t appreciate how clunky moving diagonally can feel which resulted in far too many accidental trap triggers. Speaking of traps, there are tons of them and some of the status effects remove inputs or cause inputs to be different, mostly just slowing the player down but sometimes ruining their dungeon crawl. Robbie can reveal traps by attacking an empty space but trying to be safe wastes valuable turns and brings the pacing down to a boring crawl. I mostly just hoped to find items and skills that reveal the locations of traps.   

There's a huge focus on gathering items since they are both resources and can be helpful tools for taking down foes, meaning that most of the game is spent trotting from room to room looking for little blue boxes. In areas affected by the corruption of the fungus, items can deteriorate or cause extra effects to Robbie. Oddly enough, a highly corrupted item can sometimes strengthen its effects, encouraging experimentation and can lead to situations where a gamble must be made. While the game is simple to play, the enemies keep the player on their toes in a rather challenging manner. 

Much like the best action games (much like the recent DOOM Eternal), each enemy has a particular movement pattern, attacks, and traits. This means that as the player gets deeper into the dungeons, they will undoubtedly start to pick up patterns and use those to their advantage. Some enemies explode into toxic patches that are great for dealing with crowds while some grant a ton of experience points. Learning these enemy types is rewarding and fun and it wasn't long before I was equipped with starter skills to specifically one-hit kill the little experience-rich bugs. Although, keeping track of one's energy levels can be a pain, mostly because the needy Toriko can be satisfied remotely from the dungeon by expending large amounts of precious energy. 

Without her incessant whining Void Terrarium would be a fairly straightforward endeavor but I can appreciate driving home particular themes and emotions through gameplay so I learned to overcome it. 

I fully admit that my positivity may be because I played Void Terrarium in brief bursts over a long move from Alaska to Texas. I even found the grind to be pleasant. I don't know what it is about grindy games and moving but it goes together amazingly well and even as I write this, slowly unpack my things, and build new furniture I am really glad that I can take a short break with Void Terrarium for a satisfying splurge of RPG goodness. This isn't the best dungeon-crawler I've ever played but it is one of the better ones and I'm glad to see more and more experimental designs like this making their way from the Vita to the Switch. 

With the interesting theme of robots trying to care for a creature they don't really understand in a hostile world, Void Terrarium has a wider appeal than most dungeon crawlers and I can recommend it to those looking for something just a little different, especially so if this genre seems hard to get into. 

I do hope to further unravel the game's mysterious narrative but for now, Void Terrarium has a ton of elements that I'm really enjoying. I hope there's some balancing and the performance issues addressed in a patch (as of this writing there hasn’t been one) and I would like to see the game not crash as often as it does but even with those issues I think this game is worth looking into. I've never played this developer's other games, A Rose in the Twilight and htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary, but after playing Void Terrarium I want to at least see what those games offer. 

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - /10

VISUALS - /10

SOUND - /10

CONTROLS - /10

REPLAY VALUE - /10

OVERALL - /10

void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium is available now on PS4 and Nintendo Switch for $24.99 USD and more information is available on the official website. Screenshots were taken through the Switch's native tools and a digital copy was provided for the purpose of review.