The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"A unique and fun GBA game"

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is an entertaining hack 'n slash RPG done well. Not amazing, but still worth buying.

Graphics:
The graphics in this game have a somewhat dark visual style. I like the Legolas sprite, but I'm not too fond of some of the other characters. Overall, this game's graphics are good, but they don't have that really polished look that a first or second party Nintendo game would have. Colors could be brighter, and they should have put more varied backgrounds. You'll get bored of the ones here. Still, they get the job done. Another improvement for perhaps a similar game (or the sequel) is perhaps the character sprites could change a little more with equipment. Gandalf's spells aren't very impressive either. All in all, the graphics aren't spectacular, but they are definitely acceptable.

Sound:
Sound effects in this game are a lot like the graphics: they're there, and they let you know what's going on, but they aren't really that great. The music, however, is wonderful, especially in the boss fights.

Gameplay:
As other reviewers have noted, this game seems strikingly like Diablo 2. You choose one of 5 characters, and take him or her through a hack 'n slash romp through many locations throughout Middle-Earth. Your character will level up with experience, and be able to assign stat points to one of 5 categories, and be able to assign skill points a skill. Characters each have at least 10 skills, split into active and passive screens. This will all be very familiar to Diablo 2 players. Gameplay is very fun, but slows down A LOT when you have to sit there and let your character regenerate health or spirit(mana). This happens whenever you take a lot of damage from enemies, as you cannot simply pop to town for healing, and there are no potions. A few items that drop on the ground provide immediate healing, although very little of it. My absolute least favorite part of this game is the corruption. Corruption can increase VERY quickly with some characters, and it takes FOREVER to go down. While playing Frodo, I've had several occasions where I had to leave my GBA on, with Frodo just standing in a corner, and set it down for about 5 minutes while that stupid eye went away. This is incredibly ridiculous, because I found that there were areas where I simply HAD to let the corruption die down so I could use The Ring to get by an area. With Legolas and Aragorn (the other two I've played as so far) this was not a problem, however, I did still have to stand still to regenerate health frequently. While I think it is important that the game restricts your use of The Ring, I don't think it should take 5 or 10 minutes of time in between castings. I also think they should have implemented potions or some way of healing that didn't require stand-still regeneration, perhaps at the cost of gems. This would allow a player to have non-stop action, and not have to wait in-between mobs.
However, I still enjoy this game. It is very addictive, and if you loved the item-finding, skill based gameplay of Diablo 2, you'll probably love this game as well. This game is linear, has no quests, no towns, and it doesn't really have any shops. There are shrines that will allow you to purchase items or skill/stat points, but the item shrines work more like gambling from D2, you don't know what you'll get for your gems. Overall, the gameplay is what drives this game, and except for a few problems relating to the pacing of the game, it is done well.

Conclusion:
If you liked D2 and want something like it on your GBA, buy this. If you like LotR, I don't know what to tell you. This game doesn't have much presentation of story, so its mostly all gameplay. Still, LotR fans will probably enjoy running around as Legolas slaying Orcs. If you're both a fan of LotR and you liked D2, you're in heaven. This game is fun, varied enough in characters and skills to have tons of replay, and portable. One final thing that really detracts from this game is the fact that there are only 4 save slots. 8 would have been much more appropriate, as with 4 you cannot even play all 5 characters without deleting one, nor can you have a friend or sibling have a game or two of his own.
I give this game an 8/10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/02, Updated 12/01/02