The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

"Not too bad, but not too good either...."

I was really excited when i first heard that EA was making a LOTR rpg. And even better yet....it was a TURN BASED rpg. I was immediately flooded with memories of all the great times i had playing Dragon Warrior (Nes), Legend of Dragoon (PS1), and Final Fantasy X (PS2). Afterall, a good old fashioned turn based rpg is pretty rare to find nowadays. Well, this is my first Gamefaqs review, so I hope its informative and would lead you to make the right choice about owning/renting this game.

GRAPHICS: 7/10

Nothing special really. The graphics during battle scenes look great, but when you get a close-up of a character's face (Gandolf for example), its just not very convincing. On the plus side, there are over 100 scenes taken directly from the movies and narrated by Sir Ian McKellen, and if you're a big fan, those are always fun to watch. So graphics is really a mixed bag, it should be good enough to keep you satisfied but not so great that it'll blow you away.

SOUND: 10/10

While traveling through middle-earth, the music is one component that kept me interested in the game. It builds up excitement at the right times and brings back great memories from the LOTR trilogy. The clangs of swordplay or swishes from a volley of arrows sound very realistic.

STORY: 5/10

One of the vital elements of a good rpg has got to be the story. It needs to be suspenseful with a plot twist or two to keep it interesting. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, so i won't go into detail. Basically, you control a group of unknown characters that is following the fellowship and occasionally catch up to help fight a few battles. EA should have spent more time developing the characters' personality and origin instead of just forcing a love story (out of no where!) and having them endlessly following the "real heroes" of middle-earth.

GAMEPLAY: 5/10

I LOVE TURN-BASED RPGs......just not this one! Let me try to explain. The battle sequence has a side bar that shows the order in which the characters attack. Each character has a set of melee, ranged, or magic attacks to choose from. The more often an attack type is used, the faster the character will develop new skills and abilities. Each battle ends with the party gaining experience points, items, and sometimes weapons/armor. Sounds pretty good right? The problem is that the characters gain EXP points wayyyyyy too fast. And with free armor/weapons lying around in chests, the opportunity to upgrade is abundant. Plus every time you visit a Save Fountain, you're entire party's HP & AP are automatically restored. The fact that there is a save fountain every 5 minutes, allows your party to be at full strength for the majority of the battles. The enemies just don't stand a chance, and therefore, the battles become too easy and extremely repetitive. Sometimes your party will feature a guest star such as Gandalf or Aragorn. These characters are usually suped up with high HP & AP, and can really deal a ton of damage to the enemies. Talk about making an easy game even easier! Besides the easy battle structure, the game is also very linear. Just travel down a path, look for treasure chests/items/people, and fight battles. Basically, just follow the bright red dot on the area map. There are no towns to buy items and few villagers to talk to. Needless to say, items are almost completely useless in this game. I guarantee you will rarely use any of them because the battles are so easy and there are so many save fountains to replenish your energy. After playing this game for a grueling 30 hours trying to collect every treasure chest and explore every area, I have died a total of 2-3 times. Towards the end, there will be about 2-3 tough battles. Otherwise, you'll be on cruise control on easy street for the majority of this game.

OVERALL: 6/10

I would recommend this game to FIRST-TIME rpg gamers or hardcore LOTR fans. All other gamers should definitely rent before you buy. Don't get me wrong, this is an ok game. There are some good elements about this game, but alas, it is just too repetitive and too easy with a bland story. There is practically no replay value unless you want to max your stats by traveling back to completed areas or engage in EVIL MODE. (Evil mode is a series of mini games where you control the enemies in the game. Sounds great but its just a compilation of battle sequences with no story)

Well, that was my honest review of this game. Any feedback about what I can do to improve my reviews would be much appreciated. I hope to post more reviews about other games in the near future. THANKS for reading!!!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/05