The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (LOTR: TTA) is truly an epic game, however, it might be for the wrong reasons depending on how you see it. While the game takes you through the whole movie trilogy, which is an epic effort in itself. What makes it truly epic beyond that and anything I have played recently is the amount of fighting you will do. This game isn’t that large if you go by map size, it’s the density of the orc hordes that need to be slaughtered that makes it way bigger than it actually is. With each five to ten steps you take towards your goal, you will have a fight, which makes this title an endurance run without equal. If you are allergic to any form of grinding, or filler encounters, stay far away from LOTR: TTA! If you are not…
The b-team
Have you ever wanted to follow in the footsteps of Aragorn? Well, here is your chance to do so, quite literally. You play as Berethor, a Gordorian captain with orders to find Boromir for some reason. However, you are ambushed by the Nazgûl before finding him. Things are looking grim, but as luck will have it, an elf servant of Galadriel named Idrial saves you from certain death. With teamwork being the name of the game, you two join forces and set after the fellowship. The story follows the story of the trilogy movies, with you and your crew following close behind. It’s hilarious at times since you are seemingly always a few moments away from reaching the fellowship, having you clean up the leftovers they missed. Now and then you enter locations where the fellowship has just been, like the cave where the group fought the mad goblin troll. From a nerd’s perspective, it’s pretty cool, yet it does feel a bit silly.
Moria was a considerable adventure for Aragorn and friends, however, it’s a much grander adventure for Berethor and crew since the path of the fellowship has been destroyed in the carnage. This means that your group has to take a detour that leads you all around Moria – which will be a true test of your fortitude. While it’s nice to visit new places in Moria, especially for the lore enthusiast – many of these areas feel very samey and will start to feel draining on the good old gaming morale. Unfortunately, this will be a common theme for all the areas you will be visiting. There will be lots and lots of padding…
LOTR: TTA follows the movie canon for the most part, specifically, the parts where you don’t interact with the film storyline. Although, the game takes a lot of freedom when it comes to bosses and some other minor events. Every scene in the movies that be can construed as a “boss fight” will have you being right there smack down in the middle. It’s humorous, and epic at the same time. Fighting the Balrog feels like a momentous moment during the story for your crew, but at the same time, this whole event is rather comical and makes no sense in the lore. Gandalf still does his thing in Moria on the bridge, however, now he got some help from you. I guess the films just missed when the B-team ran up and helped Gandalf during this thirty-minute brutal slog of a battle.
This is something you will have to accept because as all Lord of Rings games go, these stories must somehow interact with the movies. It is probably a law or something. It’s not bad per se, just awfully derivative considering we already know how everything will play out. They did try to spice it up, though. While the main storyline follows the events of the movies, which means the narrative is a slave to the trilogy when it comes to the locations, the personal story of the Gondorian (Berethor) becomes interesting during the later parts of the game. I won’t spoil anything here, but his characterization surprised me, and added some much-needed story beats to this tale. I just wish they would be more daring and leave the main events behind for something original for once. Star Wars games suffer from this exact issue, and it makes these grand worlds seem as big as a convenience store parking lot when they shouldn’t be.
JRPG combat for the win
The gameplay consists of an unholy alliance of old Western fantasy, as in the story by Tolkien, and JRPG-inspired combat with all that this entails. This is a highly unusual combo, especially coming from a developer based in the West, and from the best of my knowledge regarding JRPGs, it works as it should and is pleasantly entertaining. I’m not a big JRPG fan, not because of the mechanics, but for the setting in which these games usually take place. It’s just a little bit too Japan for me. However, as far as mechanics go, it’s pretty fun. It’s turn-based, and for the majority, your team will have three active members in combat, even if you got more dudes in your party. Enemies usually meet you with three or four of their own, but sometimes they have reinforcements waiting to take the place of the fallen. Speed, also known as initiative controls the order of battle, and the “faster” you are the sooner you get to act. There is a ton of different fun options you can take during battle moments. You can buff yourself, or debuff the enemy. There are healing, avoidance, and loads of other spells that will dictate the combat, both for and against you. The enemy won’t hesitate to stun spam you if they get the chance but don’t worry, you will be able to repay the favor when the lads and lassies level up.
If the combat wasn’t as good as it is, LOTR: TTA would bore me to sleep, besides the few interesting bits of story sprinkled throughout the game. But as it is, it works well, and many times during the gameplay, it will throw some real hardballs making you sweat for the victory. Certain major bosses and a few other mini-bosses units will absolutely wreck you, which will require your full attention if you want to come out with your head intact. One tip is to make it a habit of figuring out synergies between party members. Thankfully, there is no penalty for switching out members during combat. If you need someone to dispel something, just bring in that loser for a moment, and then switch him out again when he is no longer needed, if he survives the brief session that is. There is a lot of freedom to be found here, and if that wasn’t enough, there is plenty of usable items to use during combat too. Some of these consumables are rare, so make sure to only use them on the real tough blokes, like the item that completely removes the armor of an enemy.
Now, it wouldn’t be a proper RPG if there wasn’t leveling, stat allocation, and loot here as well. And believe me, you will be leveling a lot during your play since XP come fast, and lose. You are free to build your team however you want, but I would recommend sticking to the classics. Strength for warriors and so on. I made the mistake of spreading out the stats a little too much, which made every encounter a painful lesson. Luckily, I managed to salvage the situation after some light grinding (It’s only time, right?). There is also plenty of loot to collect, but the loot is for the most part a straight upgrade. So, you won’t be getting anything super interesting here, except for one legendary hammer that had a cutscene attached to it. Yeah, you will be finding A LOT of loot which gets a bit tiresome since it requires extensive menu hopping each time. I didn’t even check the stats of the items at the later stages of the game, I just carelessly equipped stuff with the assumption that it was better.
Subpar exploration
While the combat is excellent, other parts of the RPG experience are lacking, as in dry like the desert. There is no engaging dialogue to be picked, there are no vendors to sell stuff to, and the world in itself feels like an apocalyptic fantasy wasteland as the only active entity on the screen for the exploration segments will be you. Except for a few rare locations. It runs the risk of becoming drab quickly given that combat is all you will do. There are no pauses in between, just an endless trial of battles until you reach the end. To be fair, there are a few cutscenes here and there, but it’s not enough to break the monotone action of combat. At specific points in the story, the fighting gets absolutely brutal, having you fight battle after battle in a seemingly endless loop. I ensure you, it ends eventually, but man, some of these areas got some extremely thick padding! Padding so thick you would survive the harshest of winters if it was a coat.
However, all this brawling is part of the charm too since at a certain spot (at least for me) it became an endurance challenge to just persevere until the end. Which for some reason triggered the entertainment center in the old logic box upstairs. I highly recommend taking frequent breaks, though, because going through eight trolls in a row without any rest will damage your will to survive permanently. And that is never good, nor worth it!
It looks like a PS2 game
Visually it looks good, even if limited by the console for its time. However, it has an undeniable charm to it, especially the claustrophobic forest paths with tree canopies snaking over the road. Very cozy, and somewhat nostalgic for the olden days when open world was just a faint fever dream. That is not entirely true, but I’m sticking with that for now. There is a lot of different equipment for your group to equip, which comes with corresponding graphics. It’s a nice way to communicate the progression of your team, from lowly peasant soldier to shiny Fountain Guard. I have nothing to complain about here, it looks and feels the part, and I had no issue at all running the game on the PS2 emulator (PCSX2). Just plug and play, baby!
All the grand songs from the film trilogy are in the game, and if you know your tunes, you know when and what music will be played at the different stages of the game. A few voice actors also make a return to redo their roles. The most noticeable one would be Ian McKellen who voices the story segments and interact with the party a few times as Gandalf. A very nice touch since he sounds like he does in the films, as in putting in some real effort. Otherwise, both sound and graphics are good enough and will have you immersed.
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age isn’t a special game in any way, considering there are better Lord of the Rings games out there, but for what you get, it is pretty good regardless. As usual, it depends on your expectations. If you expect a good or a new story here, you will be disappointed. However, as a pure combat game with added loot and character building, it is entertaining for a while. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be both because I have a feeling it would have been a legendary game if that was the case.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 