J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Volume 1

"It reminds me so much of the book..."

Although many bad reviews have been posted for this game, and understandibly so, due to this game's difficulty and annoying gameplay style for most RPG gamers that you will just want to throw it into your old gaming cabinet and say forget about it... but to me, after I learned the gameplay in an hour or so, it was so fun...

First of all, the leveling up system is odd, you will gain levels by attacking monsters with Frodo, and to me, one of the best things in this game, you will be given friends that can have the same stats as gaining levels, and when you issue Frodo to give a command like action rpgs do, your other characters will attack with him, so it is almost like a band of people attacking monsters and a true adventure... although at times, a bit difficult with too many monsters, not enough healing items, annoying friendly character CPUs always running away and doing foolish things while you are looking for them, and the mazes are incredible difficult at times.

In the beginning, it starts off the game almost completely like the book. Bilbo tells all the Tooks, Baggins, and etc ... Hobbit families that it has been a great life for him to spend with such happy and peaceful hobbits, and he wants to see the mountains one more time before he will die... all he has is a little more time to live until his hobbit life expires, so he gives the ring to Gandalf, and then it is given to Frodo, Bilbo's nephew, who you control. You will start as Frodo, and although hard to even figure out what to do, how to speak with other people, monsters, and hobbits, you will learn.

The Music and sound effects were quite interesting, and with the storyline being limited a little bit by not much dialogue, it maybe was a little downgraded, but with all these things together it makes a great rpg.

Graphics: 63%
Words: Graphics were good. Colors were good, for the SNES also. The drawings of your characters were quite nice and looked real... at times.

Sound: 92%
Words: Music and sound was almost the best thing. No choppiness, no fuzziness in the music or sound effects, great sound and music at times the music being happy for hobbits, and spooky for goblins with hearing wind swirl all over the trees and ground, an rpg that should always be remembered for all these great things!

Replay: 78%
Words: To me, a lot of replay because of the fun things you can do with your characters by moving them around and attacking monsters and gaining levels with all your characters.

Gameplay: 100%
Words: Gameplay earned what I will admit, rpg greatness with all the things you could do with your characters.

Story: 60%
Words: You could not really enjoy the story like the book because there was not enough dialogue, but there was a little, and even that was good.

Characters: 74%
Words: Good characters, too many Hobbits on your group but a human swordsman, elf archer and a dwarf was good to have!

Final Words: A great game, perhaps one of the greatest rpgs ever created and released on the SNES. Worth having... also mostly if you are a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien! Thank you J. R. R. for these great books.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/26/02, Updated 02/26/02