GBA Lord of the Rings (1 Viewer)

[Dave F]

Has anyone tried the GBA version of Lord of the Rings? It's $23 at Best buy, so I was considering giving it a shot. I found one user review at Game Rankings, but it said:

The character sprites remind me of THPS2 for GBA. They're poorly done but you can see a difference in the characters.

Considering how good THPS2 was, this confused me more than anything.
-Dave

 

[Travis Kolesar]

Review up here. Link Removed
Doesn't look to promising, which is a real drag.

 

[Joseph Young]

Somewhat of a confusingly written review there on IGN... although I agree with most of what he said.
The controls are awkward because of the isometric view. It feels similar to controlling the ball in Marble Madness only not as floaty.
Video: The graphics are pretty nice, although game is too dark and suffers from the same low lighting curse as Circle of the Moon, which is unfortunate. The detail on the hobbit hovels, and the trees, and the grass and dirt textures are, like I said, actually very detailed and nice. The scrolling of the screen is also very smooth.
Audio: The black rider music is some of the creepier orchestration I've heard on the GBA. However, much of the in-game music stops playing at random intervals, and then starts up again after a few minutes.
Controls: If you want to save your game, you are then taken back to the main menu and have to select 'continue' which is poor, sloppy design. The review mentioned the 'accidental' purchase of items that the trader leaves out on the ground, when you're just trying to figure out the price. Yup, that happened to me too.
The books events seem much closer tired to the books (for instance, Farmer Maggot and his wife end up being quite generous). I've only found Pippin and Samwise, but Merry is nowhere to be found.
You can toggle between members of your group and walk around 'as them' at will. When you level up (which appears related to a situational crossroads as opposed to tedious leveling up) you have a choice of leveling up either hit points or strength.
The battles are indeed kind of dull. There is something extremely disconcerting about wandering around the Shire area and fighting a dog in a turn based battle.
So despite the numerous flaws this game suffers from (and many will undoubtedly not be able to look past them), I personally am enjoying it and have been able to focus on the strengths of the game. After all, it's kind of nice to see there isn't a single promotional shot of Elijah Wood or Cate Blanchett or Viggo anywhere in the game or on the box.. it just mentioned being inspired by the 'literary works of JRR Tolkien.' Kinda cool.
~j