Game Review: void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2

By JT

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch

void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2 (from here on simply Void Terrarium 2) is set in a collapsed civilization, void of all life that had fallen to some sort of toxic fungi – or so it is believed. A little girl, named Toriko, is thought to be the last remaining human of this world. It is up to our robot friend, Robbie (the player), to take care of little Toriko and tend to her needs, along with the help of a lone computer, factoryAI. Also, it is up to our little robot friend to find out who she is, why her body is in constant decay, and what happened to the civilization that once was, but is no more. In this bite-sized adventure, you must overcome the odds, some boss fights, and little Toriko's health, as well as a certain level of redundancy. Hit or miss? Let's blast our way inside Void Terrarium and see!

Carried over from the previous game, factoryAI is in need of a fix, along with finding Robbie and Toriko a new home. In Void Terrarium 2, the story gets as dark as the original, dealing with the thought of death with not-so subtle jabs at forgetfulness and helplessness, and it can tug at you very deeply. The thought of having a pet decay over a very short period of time and fall to literal pieces, getting sick, or even dying. That's the thought process Void Terrarium 2 gives the player, especially with the human becoming the pet in this scenario.

​Along the way there are bits of memory Robbie unlocks from hundreds of years ago, telling a story about what happened to the humans. This sets up a Virtual Reality world, which is called the VRRAT. Think of current VR and reality flipped to where live humans are a part of the virtual space, but it's all in 8-bit fashion. It adds some additional narration and a bit of adventure to break up the monotonous nature of the rest of the gameplay, but you'll always be asking for more. VR is a very small focus of the story, but it does keep you engaged over the course of the game.

Much like the first game, with Void Terrarium 2, you are given a human and tasked with finding resources. You must constantly feed little Toriko after almost every run, clean her cage (Uhhh... I mean, Terrarium), and make sure she does not succumb to illness via contaminated food or loss of health. Within the dungeons, you will find scrap piles that carry food, whether it be contaminated or not, which can be fed virtually through Pet Nanny, similar to a Tamagotchi. Although I found that it's better to wait until you exit the dungeon to give Toriko the food directly, because it doesn't actually effect her gaining health back, only sustains her current health. Most food gives a similar amount of health back to Toriko, but some can also make her sick if it has high level of contamination.

There is some level of customization in the game as well, from Robbie the robot to the terrarium itself. For the terrarium, there are beds to craft, along with chairs, lighting, decoration, etc. Each one crafted for the first time grants Robbie added stats during dungeon runs, such as +2 Def, +3 Inventory space, and so on. The level of customization is better here than other similar games, and you can even make it so Robbie acquires more skills upon leveling.

Every dungeon run begins at level 1, and with each enemy fought you progress through the levels at a decent pace. Each level grants the option of picking one skill from a set of two different skill cards, and as time progresses more options open up. Some may add boosting effects to your stats or items, or even add passive skills, such as HP Regen. My number one choice is always extra inventory space, because resources matter a lot more to me for dungeon runs, and if RNG wants to strike me down where I stand, then I will just accept it and move on. Even with three rows of inventory space early on in my runs, I would still find myself lacking any space for the most important items, which have always been health items. Every item you get that isn't a Blueprint or Crafting Material gets distributed to your Resources (Organic, Inorganic, Energy, and Contaminated) at the end of each run, and they're what you will use to craft items out of your Blueprints or to upgrade Robbie.

Tool Kits restore health, batteries restore your energy, and you hit the A-button to spam attacks, that was a vast majority of my time inside the dungeon. If you love dungeon crawlers, then this game might be for you, since that will take up over 70% of your time. However, it's all randomly generated, including the enemies that spawn. The only exception is the boss fights. With this in mind, you can expect some very unfavorable RNG to happen, even when you first spawn into a layer or floor. I found myself consistently dying due to unfavorable RNG, with many of the monsters either being too difficult for me to defeat right then and there, or me not having any healing items.

Items are completely randomized, sometimes I'd get the best runs until I had to return to base before Toriko ran out of health completely, and sometimes I died almost immediately from spawn/floor 1 of the area. There are times where you may receive no HP items during a standard run and you're forced to try to make a run for the exit or hide out until you can regain some health. It was often lack of health items, or lack of energy, that doomed me more than the monsters themselves. Monsters can spawn into the floor you're on while you're there, so you can't hide for too long. You're also able to get an item that summons a "Monster House," which is just a mob of monsters that spawn in the same room as you. More often than not it will just lag your game. I used the Stimulant Sprayer item numerous times, which gives you a Monster House, only for the game to sometimes freeze for a few seconds as my Switch was trying to catch up. Thankfully there were no crashes. Monster House was something I was only able to get through on my already OP runs.

Like most dungeon crawlers, Void Terrarium 2 is turn-based. Every step taken, every item used, and every attack carried out is considered one turn. If you're in trouble during a run, and you want to escape a fight, you will find it almost impossible. You'll usually just have to accept your fate because, besides being able to attack up-down and left-right, everyone can also attack diagonally. This means that unless you flee directly behind you, you can expect some extra jabs before you're able to leave battle.

Many of the floors also have traps in them, which range from Glitch to Poison, and sometimes they can just teleport you to another random room on the same floor. Mystery Rooms are also randomly spawned, with these providing both an easy escape and more items for the inventory, in particular a room where you're able to fuse weapon and shield items for their stat bonuses and levels. Mystery Rooms also take you from your current floor and place you onto the next, so think about your next move is before leaving the area. Other than that, there is a VR world outside of the main dungeon, but it's only accessible from Home, and it's not all that engaging once you finally get to access it.

The art style is similar to what's found in most mobile games on the market today, and even reminds me a little of Maple Story. VR reminds me of a Game Boy Color Pokemon game. These are all just my personal associations with Void Terrarium 2, maybe yours will be different. It's cute, and it will most certainly tug on your heart strings, especially after you pet the... human for the first time. The emotes given to the characters are also in the same vein of many MMO games, using similar chat boxes and icons.

Void Terrarium 2's music was not bad at all, and the entire time playing through levels not once did I feel forced to listen to it. It was a treasure that works for this type of game. If there are going to be dungeons you explore over and over again, you might as well have some good music to follow. Sound design was solid. Everything sound-wise was good.

One of the things that really bothered me was the pacing of the story. It was incredibly slow to first get off the ground, and then once you get hit with another piece of the story, things slow down yet again. Also, even though there are the possibilities for more quests, a majority of the quests were fetch quests, That said, it's a dungeon crawler, so I don't expect much from it. A majority of boss fights were the exact same and often played out in a similar manner. Sometimes scrap piles would appear on the exit teleporter, forcing me to dump some weight if I wanted to continue. Much of the game feels like it works against you. As time progressed, it felt as if half the fights had been given a huge RNG advantage. Healing wasn't something you could micromanage, as some things depended solely on that RNG. The bonuses helped enough in the end at least. That's something, right?

What I got from void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2 on the Nintendo Switch was a journey, it's just not the journey I was expecting. The game tackled a serious issue and handled the thought of death and loneliness very beautifully and tactfully. There is just more needed to be improved overall in the next installment (if there is one) in order for me to rave about this game. Any dungeon crawler that catches my attention for an extended period of time is clearly doing something right though, and this one did. It may be a one and done type of game, but at its core it's pretty solid.

For More Information on void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2:
https://nisamerica.com/void-terrarium/2/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: C+
Graphics: B
Sound: A
Value: C

OVERALL : B

Pros:
+ Levels of customization that rival similarly-priced games.
+ Cute graphics and art style.
+ Story is very solid. It's much better than many others within the same genre.
+ Music is what kept me going throughout. Good choice!
+ Various types of ways to change up gameplay.

Cons:
- RNG, RNG, RNG!! Sometimes RNG is way too overpowering.
- Too repetitive.
- Boss fights are lackluster and you will often fight the exact same boss, but with a largely different inventory.
- Monster House lag – way too many enemies can make the game lag too much.
- Very slow beginning for at least the first couple of hours.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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