The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

"Hack and slash game, good for LotR and diablo fans alike"

Note: my reviews' scores use 5 as an average score, rather than 7 -7.5 as an average as most people and schools do. Therefore, 1 is terrible, 3 is bad, 5 is average, 7 is good, and 10 is amazing.

LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING

Summary: A diablo-style game on the GBA. 6 playable characters plus two secret ones and a variety of quests (since each character follows a different path in the book/movie).

Graphics 6/10
Nothing too glamorous, but not too bad either. Reasonable amount of depth in graphics (definetely a step up from Two Towers).

Mechanics/Controls 8/10
Considering how few buttons the GBA has, this is surprisingly good. Quick skill is a very good feature, as it lets you have 3 skills quickly ready at one time by holding L and another button. The rest of the controls and mechanics are as you would expect them to be, and four save files is pretty generous for a gameboy game. The feature of ranger hollows (allowing you to transfer items between characters) is very nice; in fact, this is something that Diablo should have had.

Sound/Music 7/10
The sound sounds exactly like what you would expect the characters and enemies to make. The music is for the most part taken from the movie, and retains quite a high amount of quality on the transfer to GBA.

Storyline/Depth 10/10
It's Lord of the Rings, I'm sure we all already know the story.

Creativity 2/10
I must say... this game is a rip-off of diablo. Let's start the list: you carve runes out of items. You get 5 stat points when you level and 1 skill point. Skills can have multiple points put into them to make them stronger. The paper doll screen looks exactly like Diablo's. Red and blue health/mana bars. Normal, magic, and unique items, with prefixes and suffixes such as "Heavy Orcsword of the Fox". Also, being based off a story that already exists also hurts the creativity.

Gameplay 7/10
It's hack and slash, a lot like Diablo. While some people may find it gets repetitive after a while, fans of the genre will not have a problem with it.

Replay 8/10
Many characters to build up, two harder difficulties after completing the normal game, secret characters and maps to unlock - you'll be playing this for a long time.

Tilt 7/10
Although creativity is lacking, it isn't really that bad a thing. Diablo-style has been proven to be a great success.

Overall 7/10

Rent or buy
Well worth the money. If you're a LotR fan or a fan of hack-and-slash games, this game will keep you occupied for a long time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/01/04