The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

Without The Lord of the Rings there would be no Dungeons and Dragons. Without D&D there would be no Final Fantasy. Without FF there would be no Tifa Lockheart. See how important LOTR is? The Lord of the Rings universe is pretty much responsible for the RPG genre, so it is fitting that it is now an RPG itself. The Third Age is dripping with lots of LOTR goodness, but the storyline and gameplay leave a lot to be desired. It is still good, just not as good as we all hoped it would be.

Story

The story in The Third Age follows Berethor, a Gondorian that has been given the task of following Boromir and the rest of the Fellowship. Along the way, Berethor joins up with his own group of characters. An elf, a ranger, and a dwarf are just some of the characters you meet. So, basically, you are retracing the steps of the Fellowship with a group of characters that is pretty much identical to the Fellowship minus the hobbits. Why in the heck couldn't we have just played through the game as the Fellowship characters? You literally go to the exact same places and see and do the exact same things from the movies, so what is the point of even introducing new characters. The characters aren't even all that interesting and seem more like Gandalf's less popular friends that are tagging along just for the fun of it. Most of the story is told by Gandalf as he narrates over scenes from the movies. Rather than there being any interaction between the characters, Gandalf tells you everything. What happened, what will happen, and why the characters are the way they are. It always feels like you are on the outside looking in and you never become attached to the characters so it is hard to care about them or the story.

Gameplay

If you have played Final Fantasy X, then the gameplay in The Third Age should be very familiar. You walk around levels finding treasure chests and at some points a cinema sequence will pop up. The battles all occur randomly but thanks to a little icon in the corner of the screen you usually have a good idea of when the next fight is going to pop up. The actual battles are turn-based and are very similar to FFX right down to the character mugshots on the right side of the screen telling you the attack order. Attacks, items, spells, and other tactics are used through a menu system and you even build up powerful break attacks as you attack and damage enemies. You can have three characters in battle at once (though sometimes the game will allow a fourth character such as Gandalf to fight at the same time) and you can swap characters in and out at will. You can also switch weapons in mid-battle just like FFX. If you have played any Square turn-based RPGs over the last ten years or so, you'll be very comfortable with what The Third Age has to offer. It is disappointing that the developers didn't try to change up the formula a little bit, but it still works very well.

Leveling Up, Experience, and other RPG Stuff

Leveling up and equipping your characters is surprisingly easy. There is no money or shops in the game and all of your weapons, items, and armor are found in treasure chests or won in battle. Swapping weapons and armor is very easily done in the menu and it is easy to tell right away which weapon or armor is stronger. Each piece of armor and each weapon also has a distinct look, so equipping characters with new stuff is fun because it can drastically change their appearance. Experience points and leveling up are handled basically like they are in any other RPG. When you gain a level, in addition to standard increases across the board, you are given points to assign to strength, spirit, constitution, speed, and dexterity. Special attacks that usually focus on the weapon a character uses along with magic can be leveled up as well. Each time you use a skill, you earn a point that goes towards earning the next skill. It takes quite a while to earn the best spells and skills, but it is usually worth it. Again, if you have played any recent RPGs none of this should be new to you.

Difficulty, or Lack Of

In addition to the problems with the story, there are a lot of other little things that drag The Third Age down into the pits of mediocrity. The most obvious issue is that the pace and balance of the game is completely thrown off. Your characters level up at an amazingly rapid rate and are usually way more powerful than the enemies they are fighting. You can rush through this game in 25-30 hours and never die if you are experienced at all with RPGs. Also, there are only a handful of real boss battles and none of them are all that difficult. Part of why the game is so easy is because there are save points all over the place. Literally every couple of hundred feet there is another save point and every time you save you get your health and attack points refilled. This game is just way too easy and not really all that satisfying to play through, which is an absolute shame.

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