Terra (Kingdom Hearts) - Reception

Reception

When Terra's character was first revealed, 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish found him to be very similar to Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII to the point where he wondered whether he would actually be Zack. However, when considering Terra's weapon being a Keyblade in contrast to all the other Final Fantasy characters shown in previous Kingdom Hearts games, he thought he may not be Zack. Amanda L. Kondolojy from Cheat Code Central found there have been various speculations regarding the similarities between Terra and Zack, but thought it would not be strange considering the existence of Nobodies in the series. Selecting Terra for a demo of Birth by Sleep IGN's Ryan Clements agreed with Parish, finding only minor differences between their outfits. Parish labelled Terra's demo from a Square Enix's event as "fairly standard KH fare", finding his gameplay to be entertaining, but still finding that it was already done in previous games. Kevin VanOrd from GameSpot called it "totally combat oriented", and enjoyed Terra's fighting techniques.

Terra's role in Birth by Sleep has received mixed critics with Adam Ghigiino from PALGN criticizing his naive personality when finding the three protagonists unappealing. VideoGamer.com writer Emily Gera stated that players may know little about them due to their role in Kingdom Hearts II, but with Birth by Sleep, players will able to know about them. Writing for GamesRadar, Crhis Antista commented that he did not understand the importance of him and the other characters being briefly featured in Kingdom Hearts II, although it could be explained once the player finishes Birth by Sleep. PlayStation LifeStyle's Thomas Williams found the trio as welcome additions to the franchise, finding their stories enjoyable even though the three travel to the same worlds. X-Play found Terra to be very similar to Riku due to his personality and vulnerability to evil's allure. Eurogamer found Terra's role in Snow White to be merely a "stand-in for an established supporting character" and having little impact on the storyline. VanOrd criticized Jason Dohring's work as Terra's English voice actor as he "can't express angst, excitement, sincerity, or any other emotion", affecting the storyline. VanOrd also pointed this when Terra interacts with Disney characters, finding the latters' voice actors to be "uniformly excellent and absolutely comparable to the original source." RPGFan's Ashton Liu agreed with VanOrd, finding Terra's voice, alongside Aqua's, as "bored for almost the whole game", comparing him unfavorably with the games other voice actors, such as Mark Hamill and Leonard Nimoy. Bob Miur from Destructoid compared Terra's storyline with the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith due to the struggles he faces, and found that gamers familiar to the series may realize that his fate in the game "won't turn out to be very pretty." Miur also commented on Dohring's work, praising how he makes Terra "tortured and conflicted", but still criticizing the result. UGO Networks listed Terra's Helmet nineteenth on their list of "The Coolest Helmets and Headgear in Video Games", stating "For a minute, but only a minute, the two-horned helmet will get you feeling like the Keyblade is a viable weapon." In a Famitsu poll, Terra was voted as the fifth most popular Kingdom Hearts character.