The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

"Good solid game"

The Lord of the Rings the 3rd age is a role playing game heavily influenced by the Final Fantasy series, but does it hold up read on.............

Story

You start off as Berethor who is following the members of the films on their quest and are soon joined by various companions to help you on your quest. You are basically following behind the fellowship and encounter the places they visited.

Graphics

Good enough, but nothing you wouldn't find on a PS2, the character models are well done, some of the places are a bit sketchy, but the best part of the graphics is when you are in battle mode as some of the spells etc. are spectacular.

Gameplay

As mentioned before this game is heavily influenced by Final Fantasy, but if you are like me and you liked those games then you will love this and will understand how the turn based battle system works. Every now and then you unlock a scene from the great films which lets you know certain things about your location and what happened to the original fellowship. The first level is so easy and does not take too long to complete, but each chapter after that (there are 9 in total) seem to get a bit more involved and longer.

Music

All the music you would expect from the films is in here and it adds to the atmosphere of the game, the noise from the attacks and spells is very good and all in all no complaints from me.

Replayability

Not too sure if I would go through the game again as there is not much you can miss first time around, you have the option to go back in evil mode and do some of the battles you have previously played, but this time you fight as the enemy.

Overall

A good solid RPG game that could have been better, there are no shops to buy and sell things, you find items along the way by opening treasure chests or when you defeat certain enemies. Your character earns leveling up points after each fight and these can be used to upgrade your Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Constitution etc. RPG fans will understand how this works, if you haven't played RPG's this is easy enough to get the hang of.

All in all a good RPG adventure game, if you liked the films then this is for you.

One word of advice is when you start, play it on hard otherwise it will seem to easy.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/08/04