tERRORbane Review

Earlier this year I had a chance to check out the demo for tERRORbane: an INTRODUCTION, Mostly; I had a great time playing it and was excited for the full game to be released. tERRORbane is releasing on the 1st of April 2022, and it's no joke: this game is great! tERRORbane is a 2D RPG that breaks the fourth wall. It looks similar to titles you would have played on the SNES; however, I assure you it offers a totally different experience that you haven't encountered before.

A title scroll tells the story of beautiful Arielle and how the Archdemon Xonder (a creepy looking tapir) is envious of her beauty. He sends his army of demons to destroy her. It is prophesied that a brave knight will save her using the Eversteel of Eternity that Bork the Undying has forged. You have the choice to sit through the story scroll or hit the A button to skip it. I will warn you that if you decide to skip it you will have to deal with the angry game developer! The DVLPR.exe chat window pops open and he will scold you for skipping through something he worked hard on for six months, how dare you! So he sends you back to the beginning of the scroll to watch it all the way through and questions you to make sure you are paying attention this time.

Once you are done learning the story, you are taken to a buggy title screen and to the name selection screen. Enter whatever name you want for your hero, I will warn you no matter what you choose it won't be good enough. Once your name is finalised by you — or rather for you — you start your adventure in a whimsical place called Whiskerburg. All the NPCs in town have moustaches, even the women. They will tell you that you need to head to the castle to speak to the king as he has a special quest for you. As you try to make your way there you encounter a ton of crazy bugs. This is your task as the player of tERRORbane: the developer has given you a piece of looseleaf with the challenge to find all the bugs in his game. Seeing this page with notes and sketches in blue ball-point pen took me back to being in school — who am I kidding, I still keep notebooks and use blue pens to write down notes from all the games I play. Be sure to explore the town and find all the bugs that you can, they are really entertaining, you don't want to miss out on any of them!

The developer will chat with you multiple times during the game; every time you discover a bug he will show up to make a witty comment, an excuse as to why it is there, or he will just fix it for you so you can continue on. I especially love the times when the blue screen of death pops up while he is talking. Despite all these bugs and errors, he declares that this is the best game ever made! I have to say I'm actually agreeing that tERRORbane is indeed great.

Finding all the crazy bugs is so much fun. Unlike glitches in other games (that aren’t supposed to happen), these aren't frustrating; they are just ridiculous! The music is fun and fits very well; happy village music you hear in a typical RPG, great battle music, and awesome sound effects from retro games to round it out — like the item acquired melody from Legend of Zelda. You can't help smiling or chuckling at the bizarre things that happen.

The game progresses is crazy and unpredictable, yet entertaining; you don't spend tons of time in any area, it's always changing and evolving, with puzzles to solve and glitches to abuse to break things and make it do things it shouldn't. Especially when the obviously frustrated developer shows up, he is clearly annoyed with your antics, but it's so much fun! Playing through the game took me about six hours, but there are multiple choices you make during your playthrough that will change the ending. Upon completion, you unlock the Warp Zone where you can go to the separate areas of the game to make different decisions to change the ending you get at the end; this way you don't have to start from the beginning.

tERRORbane is a must-play for anyone who wants a fun and goofy game; it is full of so much humour and personality I can't recommend it enough. I have never been so enthralled to see a loading progress bar in my life! I never expected to have a crate of pears join my party! The crate even had multiple abilities like Ripen, Absorb Light, and a Solar-Ray, though I question how useful they will be. The description for Ripen warns you that it "becomes effective from two to three weeks after its use."

I know my brief time with tERRORbane has left me wanting more, I can’t wait to see what title BitNine Studio comes out with next. Until then I will go back to alter my choices in tERRORbane and see if I can find all of the different endings!