The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

"From the Why-Didn't-They-Do-This-Before Category..."

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is a console RPG based on the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (definitely not based on the books, however, if you belong to that camp). The idea at first sounds obvious. Lord of the Rings was ideal for an RPG the same way that butter was ideal for toast. The books have heavily influenced console, traditional, and even moreso pen-and-paper RPGs for the last fifty years, yet have had somewhat few RPGs directly dedicated to them. Most of them weren't all that great, either.

The Third Age is an improvement, but that's not saying much if you played the old AD&D dungeon crawl Khazad'dum based on the Fellowship's ordeal in Moria, which was bad by the meager standards applied to the hundreds of DOS RPGs based on the D&D ruleset that flowed forth from companies like SSI and Wizards of the Coast like mediocre rivers in the 80's. Third Age, however, isn't really all that bad compared to its contemporaries.

You control several characters through the game, but not the ones you usually expect when you see the Lord of the Rings title. The characters are all minor and unmentioned people from Gondor, Rohan, Arnor, and so on. A few of them introduce plotholes with the Lord of the Rings storyline. If you care, you'll see them. They're not big, although orcs carrying lembas and enchanted elven swords raises some odd questions. If you don't care about plot minutia (I know I'm willing to overlook it for the sake of the game), don't bother. I won't detail them all here, since even if you know the plotholes are there, the game is enjoyable so long as you don't get hung up on them.

Through the game, you travel ever southwards, crossing paths now and again with the Fellowship. Most of the game seems like a guided tour of very well-made environments of Middle Earth. The terrain is all beautiful and realistic, and has very little of the tile-repeat you see in many other RPGs.

On the other hand, there isn't really much terrain to go around. You're always bordered on both sides by those most maddening of RPG cliches: The impassable ankle-high line of rocks, the impenetrable grass walls, and sometimes there's just empty space between two trees protected by some strange kind of elf magic to keep you on the correct path. There are a few branches in each section, but in the long run, it feels like you're spending the whole game mounted on a rail, not unlike Fable. The effect is appropriate in caves or inside of Moria, but somehow it feels strange that I'm walking along the wide open plains of Rohan with impassable walls of thin foliage three feet away on both sides.

However, making the game too open ended would be to risk breaking one of its main features. Much unlike Final Fantasy games which it resembles in many other respects, Third Age is one huge dungeon crawl styled RPG. There's no spending a night at the inn to heal lost health, no leveling up outside each new town to save up for a new set of equipment for everybody. For that matter, there's a decided lack of towns and inns. Not that you have money to spend on them if there were. Much in the tradition of the series, you have to make due with what you have, or with what you find along your way. To that end, it would be nice if the designers would have taken more effort into item placement. Every few steps along many of the paths in the game, you'll find a treasure chest. Depending on the terrain, they range from somewhat out-of-place to eyesores. You also get jumped by orcs every time you go to open one, so ironically if you're in terribly desperate need of a healing item, opening a chest just may be the last thing that should cross your mind. Most of your healing comes from levelups, which fully restore HP and AP, and from savepoints, which also fully heal you (Don't count on these too much, though. When you really need a savepoint tends to be when there's a legion of orcs and their troll master between you and the closest one).

Also somewhat unlike most Final Fantasy games, Third Age doesn't reward you for conserving your AP for boss fights. Your skills (both magic and special weapon-based attacks) improve with use, not just as you level. As you make use of your skills, you'll gain newer, better ones.

The game's sound is one of its greatest calling points. The attention to detail is a cut above many RPGs. Swords make different sounds depending on wether they're striking metal armor, leather, exposed flesh, and so forth. There are enough snarls and grunts in the enemy voice samples to fill a very unfriendly jungle. While the graphics are wonderful, the railroad effect of enclosed paths hurts them substantially. There are no such limits on the sound.

The battle system is turn based, although not as active as other turn based systems like Valkyrie Profile, or even old holdouts like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. You can take as much time as you want to make decisions. To help, the game even shows you who in the battle will have the next several turns. The battle system is almost entirely unremarkable, in itself. If you've played Final Fantasy X, I hope you liked the combat, because Third Age almost blatantly borrows from it, both for better and for worse. EA makes no apologies to this end, but honestly none are neccessary. I found a lot ot be dissatisfied with in Final Fantasy X, but the battle system was not one of them.

Normally I'd give a game like Third Age a five or six out of ten. The battle system isn't as engaging as I like, the storyline isn't that great, and I really despise the invisible wall effect. I would think that an elf, a Dunedain ranger, and a powerful Gondorian warrior would be able to find a way to go over a three inch tall pile of rocks rather than spending a half hour trudging around it.

If I were reviewing it on the Playstation 2, I probably would give it a 5. However, I purchased the Xbox version, and Third Age gets bonus points just for being an RPG on a console that's been sadly lacking them. The only other major ones have been Fable, which was sadly dismal in every sense of the word, Morrowind, which, while excellent in most respects, is often plagued by instability problems on the Xbox as much as the PC version and encumbered with a daunting character system, and Knights of the Old Republic, which I've played to death and then some.

If you're an XBox owner and an RPG fan, then Third Age is at the least worth a rental. If you like it, it's definitely worth buying. If not, the rental will at least tide you over until Knights of the Old Republic 2 comes out.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/04