The Lord of the Rings The Third Age

Features

• gameplay that expands all three films
• customize your hero or villain
• free-roaming gameplay; Explore, take on side quests, and uncover secret characters to join your party
• Innovative turn-based combat system as you ride horses or Wargs through massive armies
• Free-roaming adventure as you explore a beautiful and realistic game world

Customer Reviews

Lord of the Rings Meets Final Fantasy
Pros:

+Some good graphics
+Fantastic Music
+Simple to pick up and play
+Allows for multiplayer

Cons:

-Unbalanced leveling system
-Incredibly short
-Not enough side areas
-Generic characters devoid of any personality
-Tedious ability system
-In short, the game doesn't feel like it belongs in the RPG genre. The entire game itself is very generic, only putting in the most basic of basic RPG principles. Yet there are no towns, or NPCs to talk to. The game feels like it should've been an action/adventure game... not an RPG.

Lord of the Rings The Third Age is what you would get if you mixed The Lord of the Ring with Final Fantasy (in particular, Final Fantasy X). The end result is a game that feels less like Lord of the Rings and more like a game trying to cash in on a popular genre. Lord of the Rings hardly feels like it should be an RPG to begin with. If the developers wanted to develop an RPG for Lord of the Rings, they probably shouldn't have done it within the trilogy and perhaps had it in the same world but as a side story.

You are Berethor who is out to find Boromir. Your quest takes you through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You are, throughout much of it, just one step behind them. In short, it's the Lord of the Rings trilogy, only not played out by the cast featured in the films. This isn't the only problem with the story. Most of it is narrated by Gandolf. In fact, so much of the story is told by Gandolf instead of your characters that you begin to wonder what your characters are even doing. The characters do very little to drive the story forward. They're also very generic. You don't care about the characters who join you because they're so generic and devoid of any personality.

The gameplay doesn't do much to save it either. Much of the games battle system feels almost exactly like Final Fantasy X. You roam around until you are thrust into a random encounter. While in battle, there's a gauge on the side that shows you the turn order. Again, it works almost exactly as Final Fantasy X does. Your characters all have an obvious class and a set of unique abilities. Characters can learn more abilities the more they use them. The game also has a gauge beside your characters names. When it fills up you can initiate perfect mode and pull off an incredibly powerful attack. The end result is a system that eventually becomes tedious rather than unique. There isn't much customization outside of equipping characters with different items either. At the very least the game puts an emphasis on using different characters for different situations. But another thing that borrows from Final Fantasy X, is that you can swap characters out of battle on their turn and bring in someone to substitute. The game's level up system is a little unbalanced, though. You'll level up quite a bit, and very fast. What makes it unbalanced, however, is that your characters who partake in the battle gain more experience based on how many actions they take, and who they finish off. A character who does nothing in a battle loses out on a lot of experience while characters who partake can gain two or three times the amount a character who sits out gains. You'll have characters fall behind before you know it.

As a bonus the game is also multiplayer so you and a friend can play. Unfortunately, the only thing your partner can do is act in battle. Outside of that he can't roam around the land with you or interact with anything.

Interacting doesn't really mean much anyway. You won't be visiting any towns. All your items, equipment and such are granted to you through finding them in chests or hoping that an enemy drops them in battle. The entire game is one giant dungeon. It tries to throw in some quirks. For example as you roam you'll run through certain snippets of the dungeons where the eye of Sauron is in the corner. When it fully forms you get into a battle whether you're moving or not. It seems weird, but you won't be complaining about battles for too long. While the random encounter rate is through the roof, there are save points scattered almost everywhere. Save points aren't few and far between by any means and they always restore you to full health.

In terms of production values, The Third Age isn't so bad. The voice acting (particularly from Gandolf) is brilliant, and even your characters don't sound bad when they speak. The graphics are also nice. Not the best to grace the Playstation 2 but good nonetheless. It's not a bad game to look at. You get a little tired of some of the animations for when enemies attack, or for certain abilities, but it's a small price to pay. The only other bothersome thing about the graphics is that there just isn't enough originality put into the game. No creatures they decided to make up. Everything you battle was in the films, but that leaves for little variety in the enemies you'll face. On the other hand, you do get clips directly from the films, which is nice.

The music, however, is easily the best part of the game. It's all ripped directly from the films and it all sounds very good.

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age isn't a great game, but for what you get it isn't bad. The biggest problem with the game is that it's an RPG when it clearly isn't suited to be one. You play as generic characters not even featured in the films on a quest that's better suited for a different genre.

The experience doesn't last long either. In the long run, it'll take you less than 20 hours to complete the game, and there aren't very many things to do off the beaten path either. It's very straightforward.

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age comes off as more of a game that wants to cash in on a popular genre. It doesn't feel like it should've been an RPG in the first place. It isn't a bad game. It just feels out of place by being in the RPG genre.

Hm...FFX anyone?
I played this game a couple of years ago and i must say that its an ffx remake that never really caught my attention.

From what i expeirenced, the characters are crappy in some form, and will perish easily in fights, even if they are at really damn high levels.

The leveling system is very shady at best, since its not really based on how high your character's level is, but what they have learned on their way towards the end. Which means you'll be spend hours just trying to pump them up, even though it may not do any good.

Its too linear and the only direction you got is going forward...into the heat of battle every couple of steps, which tends to slow you down more than the average FF game.

Boss fights tend to get annoying as well, since it will take a couple of party deaths to figure out what the hell you are doing wrong. Sometimes you will not be able to figure it out at all and call a quits, or to use some form of cheating device.

And finally, it doesnt make sense to have it set-up for 2 players when you only can see the lead player walking around while the other waits for a battle to start.

All in all this game is below average and should be passed by those that are looking to get there moneys worth (noted to those that are FF and FPS fans).

Strictly for Lord of the Rings fans or those who must at least try every RPG out there.
Well I got this game for Christmas, and even though I wasn't exactly excited to play I felt I should give it a try. The visuals are nice for a PS2 game, but the frame rate can be weird at times. The combat is the traditional turn based system, but without much of the graphic flair for spells and such that other RPGs have. The storyline doesn't exactly come as a surprise, seeing as how popular the book series and movies are. The entire time I kept thinking it myself that it feels like they took Final Fantasy X, took out all the heart and quality that Square put in it, and then re-skinned it with a Lord of the Rings theme. Right now all of the Lord of the Rings fans are probably getting ready to give my review a thumbs down, but please remember that it is merely my opinion, and please at least rent it first, because the game isn't for everyone. If you you're into Lord of the Rings, or just plain anything tat fits in the RPG genre, you may enjoy this. I found it to be pretty stale and uninspired.

LOTR for FF X fans!
If you enjoyed the linear game play of FF X, then you will love LOTR: The Third Age.

This is about the "other" hero's untold in LOTR world, it is a fun and interesting game.

A must have for all D&D or LOTR fans!

Numerous Issues
An attempt to cross the Lord of the Rings with a Final Fantasy-style RPG, the Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is in most ways stuck in the shadow of many other greater things.

The main characters are not the main characters of the Lord of the Rings, but rather similar characters that share many connections with them. Berethor is the captain of the Gondor Citadel Guard, and is looking for Boromir. Idrial is an elf woman serving Galadriel. Elegost is one of Aragorn's fellow rangers. And so on for the other three characters; all are made in the shape of other, similar characters. Their activities and encounters all follow the Fellowship, even at one point finding the campsite used by them when in the mountains (in the first film). The objectives are usually tantalizingly close to the fellowship - "Oh, that's our campsite, yeah, so come find us in the Mines of Moria! Oh, wait, we moved on." Gandalf narrates the scenes "speaking" to Berethor, usually encouraging him to try and catch up with the group. Many of the game's boss fights are against non-canon enemies, enemies the Fellowship dealt with (supposedly), or enemies that it wouldn't make sense to have killed. As a whole, the story appears more like a fanfiction than a professional work.

The gameplay is reminiscent of most RPGs. Characters have HP and MP (or, rather, AP), and various class-specific skills. They can fight, use skills, use magic, or use items. Items tend to be LOTR-specific things like Lembas bread or Kingsfoil. Most of the attacks in the beginning are simply "hit harder" or "hit harder against certain things", but this later evolves into magical abilities as well. For the most part, the system is uninspired and not particularly exciting. The characters run around on the world map and have old-style random encounters that pop out of nowhere. The majority of the battles are fairly boring and have nothing to set them apart.

The graphics are fairly terrible. The textures are blocky, the characters seem mis-proportioned, the animations are odd and unnatural, and everything seems to be blurry for some reason. The voice acting is decent, but not spectacular; the characters seem chosen, again, for their resemblance to established characters.

As a whole, this game has nothing going for it. It seems amateur in many ways, and isn't particularly fun, either. Even for fans of LOTR, this isn't that rewarding because of the many inaccuracies and oddities present.

4/10.