Endulging oneself into the world of Tolkien through the Lord of the Rings !
A great game for all the Fans of Lord of the Rings. If you already own the other games in the series, i.e. the Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, then this can easily fill in the trilogy for you. Of course there is also the Third Age Strategy, but the review is about this one.
Well, as a fan of the Lord of the Rings, one can first of all only thank Tolkien for envisaging such a great world. The fact that Jackson made a trilogy film out of it, followed now by the Hobbit, is excellent. If you haven´t read the Tolkien books then do, my favourite would be the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin as essential prequels to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.
Right, back to this Game, for Nintendo Game Boy Advance 2003.
It is only a 2 dimensional Game, not as advanced as all the new Playstation or Nintento or X-Box Games, but still great fun.
It is based on the last film of the Trilogy, i.e. the Return of the King.
In the Game you can choose to play one of 6 film / book characters, i.e. Aragon, Gandalf, Gimli, King Theoden´s Niece Éowyn, Frodo & Legolas. In addition, whilst playing Frodo, you can briefly play with Sam, whereas Gandalf can call the great Eagle and Aragon the dead soldiers.
One disadvantage, you can only save 4 characters, whereas there are 6 to play. So if you played for so many hours and need to stop so that your thumbs get back some blood flow, then you better make sure you have sufficient empty slots. Otherwise you may accidentally overwrite a character you´ve been building up with great effort.
The game is a strategy game, as were its predecessors. Each character has the aim of reaching the final level and come out of it alive. At the end you receive a ranking from the game, i.e. soldier of Gondor, Rohan, slayer of Sauron, King of Men, etc. but to reach there you have to kill yourself many many orcses, as well as everything else living, soldiers, ghosts, gremlins, spiders, wolfs, crows, trolls, big bulky trolls, differently coloured orcs, pirates and many more bad guys. In doing that you receive weapons, fruits or mushrooms, precious stones, and not to forget the all healing kingsfoil and lembas bread.
One needs to arm their character, and make him or her strong enough to be able to withstand to the barrage of arrows, swords, spears and other weapons that one character gets faced against in the various levels. As you progress through the game the weapons given are sometimes of more advantage or powerful- you simply have to be careful not to discard any useful ones, whilst you fight your way through the game.
Selling weapons and unwanted items will provide you with more shiny gems. You can exchange these for other weapons or basic useful things, i.e. kingsfoil, ents water to get resurrected if fallen in battle, sharpening stones, and runes to carve your weapons with.
Warning, addiction may happen, so do take regular breaks. For those of you who want more, well, after finishing the game with one character you can play again. Maximum level 42 (after that there is no more increase but you can still play the game a gazillion times.)
Besides the 18 levels or so, there are another 4 hidden bonus levels. these are useful to strengthen your character, so as to carry on battling in the normal levels.These are only unlocked when you finish the game with the characters.
Additionally there are some objects, which you receive as trophies, depending on which character you use to play.
All in all, I have enjoyed playing this game!Read full review
Verified purchase: No
