The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

"It has been reforged!"

Last year’s The Two Towers for GBA was a surprise hit, considering the horrible failure that was the Fellowship. Playing much like Diablo, The Two Towers incorporated RPG and action elements to make a great game. This year’s the Return of the King brings more of the same, only better!

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics are rendered at a 3/4 down angle, same as the last game. However, this time around, everything is done on a slightly larger scale. This allows for much greater detail on the characters. The animations for each character are much smoother than they were in TTT. Another nice touch is the on weapons, which will glow or have special animations when a weapon has a magical property. An increased level of detail can easily be noticed in the environments also. Various parts of the landscape are animated and your character can even see his reflection in the water. All, in all, the graphics for this game are very well done.

Sound: 8/10
Most of the music is taken from the movies (though not all from Return of the King). There is some new music as well, but most is familiar. It seems to me though, that some of the music sounds a bit tinnier than in TTT. However, it is never enough to make me want to turn the sound off. All the SFX are well done and realistic.

Gameplay: 10/10
Very much like TTT, only better. You choose from Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Gandalf, Frodo, or Eowyn and travel the path your character takes in the movie, killing orcs and finding treasure and better items along the way. While this may sound boring, it is really quite fun. You gain experience by killing enemies and as you level up, you get new skills and can use better items. How your character fights is determined by your management of his or her attributes. For example, you can have a Gandalf that mainly utilizes his sword and staff for offence or one that relies more on his magic spells.

There are numerous improvements in gameplay over TTT. One is the addition of the Ranger Hollow, which allows you to transfer items between game saves. Another addition is runes, which can be bought and carved into your weapons for additional attributes. The developers have also added a “Quick Skills” option, which allows you to have three active skills at the ready so you don’t have to sift through them in the heat of battle.

I do have a few nitpicks about gameplay, though. One is that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas all have the exact same quest. The developers didn’t even move the forge and shine locations around like they did in TTT. Another nitpick is that some characters have the some of the same passive skills, which can be a bit boring. Neither of these is enough to detract from a perfect score.

Multiplayer: ?/10
The only thing more fun than saving Middle Earth by yourself would be saving it with a friend, right? Since I have not played this mode, I don’t feel qualified to give it a grade. But I have heard it is just like the multiplayer in TTT and is very fun.

Replay Value: 10/10
Can I give this like a 20/10? There is so much to do in this game!!! There are six very different characters to start with. Then there are four unlockable bonus maps and two very unique unlockable bonus characters. You will also want to replay the game to find better items for your character. I can really only compare this game to TTT, which lasted me a good eight months before I really began to get tired of it. And since this game is even better, who knows how long it will be before you tire of this.

OVERALL: 10/10

Rent or Buy?
BUY BUY BUY!!! I don’t think you can even rent GBA games any more, but you would be better off buying it anyways because by the time you really began to get into it, you would have to return it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/11/04