I Can Dig It

I had always worried that my purchase of Terraria on Vita would never see the update to the 1.2 content that was released for PC around the same time which basically turned the game into something far larger than the already expansive confines the game offered.  There was multitudes of new -everything-, and indeed, it was one of those things that threatened to turn the game into an entirely different one.  A game that I would never get to play (until I got myself a proper PC, which is still on the agenda because shit is expensive) and one that I really -did- want to play.

Thankfully, the 1.2 content was always promised to us on non-PC platforms, it was all just a matter of time.  And not too long ago, we did see that patch finally.

As expected, Terraria feels almost entirely different.  The trappings are the same thus far - you still want to establish shelter and dig down, you still want to summon the Eye of Cthulhu as soon as possible, and you still want to work towards finding the Corruption (or the Crimson) and destroying Shadow Orbs to spawn the Eater of Worlds. (or their equivalents)  You'll go through new biomes (The Ice biome is especially nice) and improved ones (the Jungle biomes are -incredibly- different) as you do it, but that's still priority one, since that is how you get the Nightmare/Deathbringer (again, dependent on Corruption or Crimson) Pickaxe, which you need to mine Ebonstone, Hellstone and Obsidian, which will naturally impede your progress.

Unfortunately, this is sort of where I'm stuck.  My world has the Corruption, which means the Eater of Worlds, and it has only two spawn conditions.  The first is by breaking three Shadow Orbs (which is repeatable) which will force it unto the world for you to fight and conquer.  I attempted this, and came to discover that the Eater of World has been buffed (I swear it has been) and thus my first attempt met with nothing even approaching success.  Humbled, I sought out better armor, more health and a lot of healing potions, thinking I could certainly best it a second time. 

I could not, and this presented something of a problem.

You see, there are only so many Shadow Orbs in a given world.  They do not respawn.  Thus, once you have broken them all....well, that's it.  Fini.  I am not sure if I have reached this point, as I have to mine with bombs to continue further (or buy purification powder, but bombs are so much more bomby) and actively search for other ones.  Though, there is meant to be that second method of summoning, and it is one that I looked into quite heavily.

All it requires is an item called Worm Food.  Worm Food is made of Vile Powder and Rotten Chunks, the latter of which are dropped quite easily from the Eater of Souls monsters that fly about the Corruption constantly.  Vile Powder, on the other hand, requires Vile Mushrooms that you refine into the powder at an Alchemy Station.  Nothing could be more innocent, as the Vile Mushrooms grow naturally in the Corruption and plentiful, though you can even make a quick and easy farm for them.  I did this, as I wanted Vile Mushrooms, and I wanted them yesterday.  It was with this that I discovered there was something very, very wrong.

All patches have a tendency to wreck things moreso than fix them, we know this, and it's especially prevalent in games that are so open like Terraria or Minecraft or the like.  This is the case with Terraria, as the 1.2 Content update for Consoles included a multitude of bugs which are currently being sussed out.  One of these bugs?  "Vile Mushrooms cannot be harvested."

This is the impasse that I'm more or less at if I cannot find more Shadow Orbs.  In truth, it makes me worry about the validity of my world post-patch, even, as I wonder just how much of it -can- be fixed (since there are tons of other issues that I hadn't even gotten to yet due to my single focus of getting past the EoW) and the fix for these types of scenarios tend to be "Make a new world".  I...am loathe to do this, as my current world houses a "Heaven/Hell Tower" (unfortunately, it is not made of Rock) that extends from the top of the world (as seen at the top of this image) and goes as far down as I can get so far, as Obsidian stands in my way.  It took a lot of effort that I am not particularly invested in reinvesting should that become necessary.  Though I suppose I -will- always have it.  In a...half-functioning world, should it come to the worst scenario.

There are worse things, I guess.

but no, if I didn't make it clear, Terraria with the 1.2 content is so fun you guys