I was sent Terra Alia for free to review for my blog. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I won’t let it sway my opinions. This will be my honest review. If you enjoy my reviews, please leave a like, comment, follow, and share this with your friends. If you’re looking for accessories for your VR headset, like magnetic prescription lenses or a high-quality charging cable, get it at ZyberVR. Use discount code CHURAPE for 15% off. You can also always buy me coffee.
Terra Alia is a VR RPG game for the Meta Quest that teaches players a new language. The game supports 10 languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Players are put into a world full of magic, but the only way to use it is to learn a new language.
There is a story to this game, but it doesn’t feel important. At least it didn’t hook me enough to care. The main draw to this game is the grind to learn a new language. The game does this through exploration, puzzles, and combat.
I felt like exploration was the main loop for this game. Players pick up new vocabulary and phrases through exploration. To pick up a new word, you point at the word, listen to the translation, and pronounce it properly. The game offers a prerecorded pronunciation and uses the Quest’s mic to check yours. Players use the words and phrases they learn to solve puzzles, beat challenges, and cast spells.
For the most part, the prerecordings are fine when it comes to single words, but they fall off when it comes to prerecordings. The recordings of some of the phrases were incoherent, and I found myself stuck because I couldn’t hear the pronunciation. Challenges are a pain because you can’t repeat the pronunciation of phrases. You can listen to single vocabulary words all you want, but you only get a quick shot at phrases. This made learning phrases difficult, and the challenges annoying to complete.
Combat in this game is where this game could have stood out more, but it falls flat after the novelty wears off. After a couple of battles, I found myself actively avoiding them because they felt like a chore. To cast a spell, players have to translate a word to their chosen language within the time limit. The system gives players a word like a dog and two options, and players must pronounce the correct word properly. It’s a fine system, especially with this kind of RPG, but nothing exciting. It also doesn’t always work which is a bit frustrating.
Terra Alia is good at teaching players new words in a different language, but don’t expect to become fluent. I found that the repetitive grind helped me pick up new words quickly, and I rarely needed to look up a resource. Unfortunately, once the novelty wore off, I didn’t find much reason to play. If you have young kids, this is a solid came to throw them into. It has a cute cartoonish style, the loop is simple and easy to follow, and it’s a nice intro to a new language. Anyone more hardcore about RPGs will find the experience lacking. It is a cool idea and I hope they can make it better, but in its current state, I can’t recommend it.
You can pick up Terra Alia for the Meta Quest for $19.99.
