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Could be an ambitious success of EA

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 73 / 78
Date: November 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard of EA publishing an RPG based on LOTR, I thought it was just another effort of EA to squeeze every single drop of profit from the multi billion franchise. As many of us know EA is not a giant for RPG but for sports and more action oriented games. Nonetheless, the ambition behind The Third Age was a complete make over of the franchise that provides very interactive and involving experience for people who are fans of the series.

The game set its scene at the time when Sauron is making a come back. The player assumes the role of a guard from Gondor setting out to look for Boromir. Nonetheless, fate brought him into a group of Comrades, each has his / her own agenda that unfolds slowly throughout the journey. The story is a dual line one: it has the story of your party such as what you encountered and the life of your comrades; the other one is the main LOTR story being told through Gandalf directly into your mind through spheres/orbs as you proceed with your quest. This is a very smart move as people would love to have all their favorite movie clips and characters back on their screen again as they play the game.

As your playable party, you have 6 comrades, composed of human, elf and dwarf - yeah no hobbits sorry (oh by the way you can play as the shadow party in the evil mode!). Nonetheless in a battle you can only have 3 active fighters. You can switch your comrades in and out during a battle, which when one of your characters got beaten up, you can switch that character out. Battle is turn based and very Final Fantasy alike. This is probably because EA has invited people making FF VII and FF X to involve in the project that the whole battle system is a near identical with Final Fantasy. Once in a battle, your team line up on one side and your enemies on the other. The flow will then be who has a higher speed act first in turns. This could be seen from the turn queue on the upper right hand side of the screen. As in Final Fantasy, the person with higher speed will have more turns in attack. As such there is nothing new to people who used to play Japanese turn based RPGs like Final Fantasy, Wild Arms or Skies of Arcadia. There is a Perfect Mode attack meter during the battle, when once it is filled you can perform devastating special attacks on your enemies. The guage will fill up only when you performed a successful attack action. So it is a mix of limit break in FF and unison attack in Tales of Symphonia. Once you finished a battle and won it, you will get experience point for levelling up.

Levelling up in The Third Age takes the form of a mix between Final Fantasy, Baulder's Gate, Champions of Norrath and Tales of Symphonia. You get experience point and you level up ur stats. But at the same time you can points that you can assign to different stats for further enhancement. On top of that, if you want to level up your special attacks, you have to use them in the battle. Every successful action with the special attack earns you points that when enough points are earned, the next level of that skill will show up - this is smiliar to the tech systems in Tales of Symphonia. However, if you want to open up a different set of skills you have to develop the "tree" of that skill separately and use it in the battle. This shows a similarity in structure with Champions of Norrath.

One of the major difference of The Third Age from other standard RPG is there is no monetary system. So you can only get items from chests or by defeating enemies. Luckily the enemies are no miser so if you spend enough time in battles, you could build up a pretty good inventory of items. The field mode is exactly the same as Final Fantasy but in a different graphic style. It is no eye candy cute graphics but it constructs a very good atmospher for the LOTR world. You will come across locations that the main characters in the LOTR trilogy have visted and you would be happy that you get that treat. But on top of that there are really well constructed sceneries that gets yourself involved in the journey. The break into battle animation will also seriously remind you of standard Japanese RPG - the screen breaks apart and you are in the battle. The time saver though is you don't need to look at the whole battle field as most Final Fantasy games did, but you are straight into the battle. Also the posing of characters after they finished the final blow on the enemies are exactly Japanese RPG like.

Lord of the Rigns: The Third Age is a very ambitious project from EA. It can be seen in a way that they tried to merge standard Japanese RPG format together with western RPG formula. The end product is nothing new to most RPG players but the similarities of both RPG in both worlds can get you involved in the game very easily. The easy to pick up approach and style familarity of the game provides a good foundation for the success of this game. It could attract a very wide range of gamers from different areas to pick up and enjoy the game. Looks like EA had found a good formular or way to get into RPG battle arena this time. The only thing they need to do is after they used up the LOTR franchise, would they be able to build an original RPG that have the same appeals? That will be something that other RPG giants like Namco, Square-Enix, Nintendo and Ubisoft will definitely be anxious about. Meanwhile, just enjoy a completely different experience with one of the best franchises in the world.

Fun, but very mass market.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 52 / 56
Date: November 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Sincerely, it is difficult to rate this game.
It has all it needs to be considered a good game, but also has some issues:

Graphics 9/10: Simply great and beautiful. The landscape looks as if it comes directly out of the movie.

Story 7/10: this is where I think hardcore LOTR fans will be divided from Mass Market customers. The story is a bit of a slap in the face for anybody who read or loves Tolkien. Your party is basically always 5 minutes behind the company of the ring. Especially at the beginning of the game... a bit too much for somebody but very appealing for those who would like to feel as if they were in some way part of the trilogy story line.

Sound 10/10: how could it be better?

Gameplay 5/10: Weird things go on in 3rd age.
*Monsters appear from nowhere while you go around on the 3D world map.
*You can only use three members of your party as you work through fights. Since your characters will become stronger as they use their abilities, the fourth guy you leave out will soon be so behind the other ones he will almost be useless.
*You can't cast healing spells while not in combat. At least I didn't manage to. So either you use items or your wait for a fight.
*Each character has a skill set. For example, the elf has healing powers. Everytime you use one of those powers, her "spirit skill" will go up by a point. Once you achieve enough points you unlock the next skill. Since you use skills in combat it becomes paramount to use the most possible everytime.
*No game economy. No shops. No buying and selling stuff. No random NPC encounters. Low feeling of being part of an "alive" world.

Overall the game is fun but it really is not an RPG. It seems that RPGs have gone down to define every game where your character grows during the game and you can personalize her. Not true. Role playing is about playing a role, and you really don't get this in 3rd Age.

Plus the fact you have no possibility of roaming freely the land, you don't buy and sell stuff, and every treasure you find is in a nice chest. Yes, chests everywhere: in Moria, in the Mountains, in Fangorn...always chests.

Bottom line
Buy this game if:
1) you are a LOTR fan, liked the movies and like simple RPGs.
2) you are LOTR fan and will own anything with LOTR written on it.
3) you mildy like the LOTR and you like fantasy.
4) you like "simple RPGs."

Don't buy this game if you were hurt by all the differences the LOTR movies had from the book. This game would kill you.

HINT/SPOILER: to gain "specialization points" have the Gondorian learn "Company Grace." This will give you a boost in AP (action points) every round. You need these to use your skills. Go through a fight and once you have only one foe alive, use the dwarf to cast "stone shield" on the Gondorian. This will grant him physical immunity for a while. Then use the Gondorian and "taunt" the last foe. Your enemy will only attack the fighter from Gondor. At that point just start using skills. Your enemy will wast attacks and you will gain a specialization point every round. Remember to have "company grace" always active and to recast "stone shield" once it expires.

LOTR Fun for Young and Young at Heart!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: November 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

A simply delightful surprise! I've been waiting for some time for this game to come along-- a video game that's worthy of the name "Tolkien". A satisfying mix of FF Graphics and gameplay and RTMN-esque character models make this a must have for LOTR fans of all ages. Kids: don't let dad see you play or you just might lose your turn!

I only have a few complaints about what is truly an otherwise excellent product! I've always wanted an RPG that would give me a chance to fulfill my favorite LOTR fantasy: roaming middle earth as a hobbit! I guess that this is one hobbit-lover who's going to have to wait in his hobbit hole for the sequel! *winking face*

I was also hoping that the game might correct some of the innaccuracies of the Jackson films. The size of the Balrog in the game, for example, is still overly large when compared to the descriptive passage in Tolkein's "Fellowship" ("man-shape" is explicitly stated-- could "man-high" then possibly be implied?), and I was hoping that this game might give Tolkein fans the opportunity to play as the elf-prince Glorfindel, who, with the Noldor, was banished by the Valar from Valinor following the treason of Feanor. Glorfindel has always been something of a "fan favorite", and I am dissapointed to see him left out of yet another LOTR game.

Five stars!

A great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. The graphics are incredible, the plot is good, it doesn't have much to do with the movie, but who cares?
It has great character customization. Of the 6 characters you get, each one can get hundreds of different equitment(armor, weapons,...). Each character can learn around 30 skills and can level up 100 times (at least). The characters are all vey different and specialize in different things. As you complete quests and get things you can unlock little clips of film. A lot of times they wern't in the movie and are pretty interesting. I guess the point of them is to tell you what's going on other parts of middle earth at the time.
Another cool part is that when you complete a chapter you can replay certain battles from that level as evil.
The one downside of this game is that it is short. The game is 2 disks, so I thought it would be long, but ther is really only 9 long levels.
This game is very fun, and a must buy.

Excellent RPG

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Great, great game. Very challenging overall (especially on hard difficulty), lots of secrets to unlock, scenery is gorgeous, and music is very Middle Earthy. Makes you feel like you're right in the movie. For you youngsters lacking the patience necesary for a turn based RPG, perhaps you should stay away from this one. It is not like the other LOTR games, but rather more akin to a Final Fantasy. For everyone else, highly recommended.

The game centers around the travels of a Gondorian soldier who begins in the woods around Rivendell as he searches for his captain Boromir. As the game and story progress, you pick up various characters from different places in Middle Earth, including an elf woman, a dwarf, a Ranger, a Rider of Rohan, and a outcast Gondorian woman. Some are dissapointed by the fact that you don't play as the LOTR characters, but really I think it's better this way. We already had 3 games like that, and I think we've played Gandalf and Aragorn to death. And there are times in the game when your party intersects with the LOTR characters and you get to battle with them in your group (e.g. Gandalf helps you out against the Balrog, Aragorn and his crew help at Helm's Deep). Each character has different skill trees he can work on to level up and get new moves (like in Diablo II), and the weapon and armor selection is quite vast.

So all around one of the better RPG I've ever played. The only thing that keeps this one from a full 5 star rating is the complete lameness of the final battle and ending. Kind of a let down there. But otherwise a brilliant game

One of the best games with one of the worst endings

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: July 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Overall, this game is totally worth buying. I bought it a week ago and had trouble leaving my gamecube to go to sleep at night. I spent about 23 hours playing it. The graphics are incredible. The storyline captures you. The scenes you gain as you play are well made. Gandalf is the narrator and basically you play as a gondorian with a group of 5 others on a quest gandalf has set for you, following along behind the fellowship. The battles are fun once you get some good attacks. The scenery is beautiful.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the ending. I won't give you many specifics, but it's a bit of a let down for the characters. For instance, I think the main character ended up with the wrong girl, but that's just me.

Other than that, though, I have no complaints. I enjoyed the game very much and I felt a bond with the characters that brought me into the plot line. You fight huge bosses like the balrog (with gandalf), the witch king, dozens of enemies in Helms Deep (with Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn). The battles (which are a big part of the game) can be frustrating if you go about them wrong, but they are fun when you get the hang of them. I recomend it for any lotr fan!

Graphics: 10/10
Characters/Plot: 8.5/10
Battles: 9/10
Worth it? Definitely!

It was okay...it could have been A LOT better.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay, first off, I absolutely love Tolkien. I absolutely love RPGs.
I was hoping for an RPG in where you could actually play the original characters and go to the places they went: Hobbiton, Weathertop, Rivendell, Lorien...etc. Well, when I found about this game, I got excited, until I learned about the new characters and such. Well, no big deal, I bought it anyways, being the big LotR fan I was. I was a bit disappointed.
The Graphics and the music were great. That was the only good thing about it unfortunately.
The Characters were extremely annoying (Hadhod, Idrial and Morwen especially) and a cheesy love story was thrown in. Certain names were mispronounced, and Aragorn, my gosh, Aragorn annoyed the hell out of me. All of his lines were basically ripped from the movies and it felt out of place. The "You bow to no one" ticked me off.
Basically, the game is about a second fellowship following the real fellowship around and you pretty much do the same thing as they did. The one thing I had in mind is, if your going to do the same thing, then why not use the original characters? Personally, I'd like to try beating the Balrog as Gandalf alone. I'd like to try going against the Witchking as Eowyn. I'd like to play Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli together in the battle for Helms Deep. And I'd like to try it without any help from a "wannabe" fellowship.
The ending is incredibly bad as well.
I bought this game with high expectations, instead, I got a disappointment.

Journey into middle-earth..

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The movies are over, but the Lord of the Rings still has some life in it, in the form of EA's LOTR license. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is the third game based on the movie trilogy, and its quite a bit different from the previous two, as it is an RPG. However, thats not to say its any worse. Or any better. The Third Age is a thoroughly enjoyable game that should entertain you for a lengthy bit of time.

As you probably know already, the main characters in this game are new creations, and not the heroes from the films. Instead of the fellowship, you control Berethor, a gondorian swordsman; Idrial, an elf of Lothlorien, Elegost, a ranger; Hadhod, a dwarf; Morwen, a rohan villager, and Eaoden of Rohan's Royal Guard. The concept of seeing the events of the trilogy through the eyes of others is interesting, but EA did not take full advantage of the opportunity. Some rather interesting subplots develop with Berethor, Idrial, and Morwen; but they are shallow and hard to follow. You'll probably forget about them before the game is done. On the other hand, your other three characters remain flat as paper. The characters in this game are a pretty far cry from the fleshed out, well done characters from the LOTR trilogy.

As I said before, the game basically revolves around your characters and their adventures throughout the time period of the LOTR trilogy. The game begins with you following the fellowship to Moria. For a while, it seems like EA is keeping things real. Throughout the first 5 or so hours of the game, it really seems like this could have been happening. However, next thing you know; your fighting alongside Gandalf against the balrog. Hmm. I don't think that could've happened. You'll realize soon enough that EA is not concerned with keeping it real. Of course, I'm not really complaining. If EA was trying to do that, then you would never be able to go to Helm's Deep, Osgiliath, Gondor, or any places that we saw in the films. And I don't think many people would like that. (I sure wouldn't.) In fact, places such as Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith are some of the games finest moments.

Events and such are explained in "epic scenes", which you unlock frequently in TTA. In these epic scenes, it plays footage from the films while Ian mcKellen narrates. He'll keep you updated, believe me. The epic scenes flow like water, and it actually gets rather annoying. Those who have seen the films and know what is going on will probably skip most of the epic scenes.

The games design is that of a turn-based RPG, unlike the hack'n slash frame of the EA's past two LOTR games. Whether or not this was the right move is hard to decide. During gameplay, you wander through beautiful LOTR-ish environments, getting into fights. You will know when a fight is coming most of the time, because a big eye will be growing. There are planned fights, fights guarding chests, basically fights everywhere you go. When a fight begins, you will be taken to the fight screen setup, which looks nearly IDENTICAL to that of Final Fantasy X. Your characters each have a different specialty (Sword, bow, spells, et cet), and as the game goes on, they will aquire more and more attacks. Every time you use a skill, you will get another skill point. When you have put enough points in a particular skill, your character will learn it. You can choose what skill to learn (at least within the skills you have thus far unlocked) or you can just let it go, as you will automatically start learning the next skill down. The fights can get pretty tough, and it is indeed very important to consider well what attacks to use, and who to use it on. There are stunning attacks which delay your foes next turn; attacks that weaken them; attacks that lower defense against spells, and more. There is quite a bit of strategy involved in TTA. However, its not all good. The effects for the special attacks can be very impressive to be sure. But you will be using them TIME AND TIME AGAIN. In fact, skills are all you use. It really is stupid to use a regular "attack," and the only time you'll ever do it is when you have no action points (TTA's form of magic points), and for some reason can't switch to another character. So it gets rather tiresome after seeing an attack being done for, say, the 1,000th time. The fighting system is well done, but it just doesn't echo the chaotic battles of the films as well as the past two games.

Other than fighting, though; there is literally nothing to TTA. You walk around, and you get into fights. You open an occasional chest, but there is NOTHING ELSE TO DO. There are no puzzles, no careful navigation, no talking with NPC's no buying or selling, (in fact, theres no form of money at all), nothing but fighting.

But the appeal of TTA really does not lie in whether or not its a good RPG. If it did, then it really wouldn't be much. Its main appeal is that its an LOTR game. (And thats not an insult). It is indeed quite awesome to play through the events of the LOTR trilogy, especially if your a huge fan such as myself. The fun factor that the past two games had is back in TTA. Also, another thing worth mentioning is the Co-op mode. It consists of plugging in a second controller and selecting co-op from the menu. Player 1 controls Berethor, Elegost and Morwen, while player 2 controls Idrial, Hadhod and Eaoden. It is a pretty fun feature, but only one person can be in control during adventure mode (or "walking mode" more accurately). That means that the other player has to just sit there until a fight comes. However, since fighting is the bulk of a game, your pal probably won't feel too left out. And playing with somebody else is always fun.

Graphically, the game looks great. The landscapes are beautiful, copied perfectly from the films. The character models are quite a bit better than those in most games. The graphics actually look quite similiar to last year's Return of the King, with slightly better resolution and depth. However, the game is plagued by an inconsistent framerate. And also, when your characters move around in "adventure mode", they aren't very well animated, and they look like they have arthritis.

The sound is great. The music is taken straight from the films, so no complaints there. The voice-acting is quite good. Sadly, the writers give them some pretty cheesy lines which will make you wince. And the only voice-actors from the film are Ian mcKellen. Whenever you meet another fellowship character, they either get a new voice actor; or inject dialogue from the films. This may sound like a clever idea, but it sounds wierd to hear them saying the exact same things that they said in the films. ("You bow to no one", says Aragorn to Berethor.)

The Third Age is an enjoyable RPG that will certainly provide you with fun for quite a while. (It took me a full 25 hours to finish the game, and I only got 89 percent). If you feel like visiting middle-earth, then check it out.

The Best LOTR Game I own

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the Lord of the Rings. I have all the books, have all the movies (both the regular and extended cuts), and own the games Two Towers and Return of the King. So it was only natural that I wanted the Third Age. It exceeded all of my expectations.

The main gripe of those who hated it is, "The characters are not in the movie!" Well, wrong. Berethor, Idrail, Elegost, and Hadhod were all in the movies, whether it be in the extended versions or the regular cuts. Just bit parts, but they were there. Only Morwen and Eaoden were not in the movies. This makes the storyline a lot more unique instead of you playing as Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli all the time. You do get to fight with all of those characters, as well as with Gandalf and Eowyn.

Another main gripe of those who hated it is, "The combat style sucks, three hits and you're dead, blah blah blah." The combat style is reminiscent of games such as The Legend of Dragoon and Final Fantasy> If you don't like that type of combat style, or have the patience to make your characters good, don't get this game.

The graphics? Excellent. Sound? Excellent? Storyline? Unique and original. The only real main gripe I have about the game is the last battle (SPOILER FOLLOWS): You fight Sauron. Not Sauron the guy, but Sauron the eye. I thought that to be a tad farfetched.

I would recommend this game to any LOTR fan.

A far better game than its predecessors.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: November 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Frankly this game is excellent. I enjoyed the previous games in the Lord of the Rings series, but they were far too easy. This game offers an innovative new way to battle, and total departure of game play from its predecessors. What I like best is the new RPG style that has been added. Now, the fun is not getting to the end, but rather how you get there. There are 6 characters: Berethor of Gondor, Idrial of Lothlorien, Hadhod of the Iron Hills, Elegost of the Dunedain, Morwen of Rohan, and Eaoden of Rohan. In battle, you must utilize the strengths of your characters together to win. Likewise, you need to collect items and equipment to further your character. I would definitely recommend this game to any RPG fan or Lord of the Rings fan.

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