The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

"Lord of the Strategy"

This game was released for the GBA alongside with the completely different console versions of the game. While those expanded upon Lord of the Rings, this game presented it to us in a whole new format.

For starters, if you don't like insanely hard Turn Base Strategy games, exit out of this review and never think of this game again. Why? I barely beat this game on the second easiest without Sauron Mode on good and am struggling to beat it again on normal mode for evil. Also, this game is not a good start-off for those unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings. It provides no storyline at all save for the small paragraph or two in the battle description.

Putting that aside, it's actually quite a fun game. Using it's unique flank system, it allows you to attack your enemies and achieve points for reaching goals. If you get enough points for completing enough goals you win the match. Now, the flank system. Each flank can give you on random zero or one moves. When a hero is on that flank it can be raised by the hero's flank skill. That brings about different abilities for heroes. Whilst Grima Wormtongue has excellent flank raising abilities, he is very weak. Lurtz is a gamble, and Boromir is a strong fighter but weak with flanks. The six commanders which are basically heroes with extra abilities and stuff are split into good and evil. Then for example, on the evil side, Saruman is the strongest, the Mouth of Sauron is the most strategic, or flank-raising, and the Witch-King of Angmar is in-between the two.

The game itself is a nice representation of the battles of Middle-Earth. You fight the main things like Minas Tirith (which happens to have six related battles covering most of ROTK), to side-battles like the Scourging of Rohan in which you must defend the villages against the raving hordes of Uruk-hai, wildmen, and orcs. It allows for quite a nice amount of the battles, and is an excellent hotseat multiplayer game.

But, in the end, the game's downfall is it's insane difficulty. I found myself spending forever to beat a mission. With the lack of anything else to do except fight battles, more battles, and yet even more battles, it does tire you after a while. This game could have easily been one of the greatest Lord of the Rings games ever, but it's a small time game that only few have discovered. In the end, it's a nice game but suffers from it's linear guides of battle after battle.

--Final Analysis--

Gameplay: 6/10
Fun, but far too linear and repetitive.

Sound/Graphics: 8/10
The sound is great, but the graphics are sometimes a little blurry.

Story: 4/10
The story is minimal, you need to have watched Lord of the Rings or read it to understand.

Concept: 9/10
A great idea for Lord of the Rings, just not executed very well.

Replay Value: 6/10
It's fun to play, but if you don't have any friends willing to play the game it'll die off for you fast.

Multiplayer: 8/10
Nice. Could be better, but nice.

Final Report: 7/10
This is sadly an undiscovered and rushed jewel. Had it been more popular and spawned a sequel, it could have been great. But no, it's lost amongst the millions of cartridges for the Game Boy Advance.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/06