Definitely entertaining and worth buying for any big fan of The Hobbit. Not worth it for anybody else.
Review 191
Released: November 11, 2003
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Developer: Saffire
Game Genre: Role-Playing
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
ESRB Description: Violence
Opening Thoughts:
One of my favorite books is J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, prelude to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. To me, it's a better book than any in The Lord of the Rings. Looking at this game, I was hoping for gameplay similar to The Fellowship of the Ring with the solidity of The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Story: 30%
Gameplay: 40%
Graphics: 20%
Durability: 10%
Story (5/10)
Based on one of the greatest books of all time, the game follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf The Grey, and a lot of dwarves whose names rhyme.
As good as the book was, Sierra did a pretty cruddy job at implementing it in a video game. Here's the problem; you can only control Bilbo. You interact with Galdalf and the dwarves, but can never use them. This ALWAYS presents a problem in a video game. It's the same thing that prevented the Dragonball Z games on the GBA from being impressive. Any minute details in the storyline are skipped in the game, so anybody who has not read the book will not only be very confused, but unhappy as well.
Gameplay (7/10)
This far along in the life of the Gameboy Advance, the gameplay should be better. As I said in my opening thoughts, I was hoping for gameplay closer to The Fellowship of the Ring than the other two Lord of the Rings games. I always prefer an RPG format to a button-mashing festival. Instead, what I got were graphics similar to The Fellowship of the Ring and gameplay closer to the other two.
The gameplay overall is still not too bad. It's a bit more innovative than The Two Towers or The Return of the King. The Hobbit is closer to a puzzle game than an action game, but the action you do see balances well with the thinking aspect of the game.
Instead of leveling up, you collect runes. Each kind of rune enhances an ability, such as defense, health or attack. The B button and the L button use weapons, and you can select which button uses which weapon in the Select menu. Bilbo's weapons range from sticks to swords to rocks to firecrackers.
Graphics (5/10)
As in The Fellowship of the Ring, a lot of pixilation makes the game pretty confusing. Especially in the puzzle sections, sometimes it's hard to see which areas can be walked in. Also, some areas that could normally be jumped will actually let you fall to your death, almost as if Bilbo just refuses to jump over some ledges.
Durability (7/10)
Previous Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (5.2/10)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (5.2/10)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (6.3/10)
Overall Score (6/10)
Final Thoughts:
If you are as big of a fan of The Hobbit as I am, this game is certainly worth buying.