A decent game, but it's a blaring example of EA's lack of experience in RPGs.
User Rating: 7.2 | The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age PS2
I bought this game expecting about what I got, an RPG in the vein of Final Fantasy X with the LotR story but was neither as great as FFX or as grand as Lord of the Rings; so I wasn't too let down. Overall the game isn't bad, it makes use of FFX's innovative take on the turn-based battle system. In fact, it makes the exact same use of it. The battle system in The Third Age is ripped straight from that game, only without the speed of Final Fantasy X, and the camera angles are uncomfortably close to the characters by comparison. It's hard not to compare this game to Final Fantasy X. The exploring screen is exactly the same as well, it even has a small radar for navigating. What this game doesn't have however is the artistic integrity of the FF series, or the originality and deep storyline. Most RPGs are heavily story-reliant, this one is not. Instead of a storyline that's original and interesting, you're left with a hollowed out version of the actual LotR storyline. This is mainly due to the fact that your characters are all just blatent knockoffs of the real things, and not the real things themselves. This bothered me because not only did they not use any of the original characters, they also didn't bother making anything up on their own, or writing an original storyline themselves to fit into the movie. Instead, your party just kind of follows a few miles behind the actual Fellowship the entire game, on occasion meeting up with them and playing alongside. (To me, if you're going to go as far as to make up characters to play instead of just letting us play the real Fellowship, you should at least make them take their OWN route throughout Middle Earth and not just follow them.) The lack of story and depth of character is easily the game's biggest flaw. Your characters rarely ever talk to eachother about anything interesting, though there is a watered down love plot, you really won't care. In addition, the "story" scenes aren't really anything special, just spliced clips of the movies narrated by Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to tell you what part of the movie you're in and what you're doing. It's very impersonal and makes you not really take the "story" seriously. But I guess the guys at EA are game developers and not writers, which is unfortunate. They might want to consider getting some creative input next time. Another flaw in the game however is the lack of character in the world itself, you never actually get to visit any towns, talk to anybody, go to any item shops, do any silly fun sidequests, it's a very bare-bones RPG. As bare-bones as an RPG can get, quite frankly. If it didn't have the LotR license it'd just be a half-assed RPG that no one cares about. The skill-tree stuff is alright, but it's far from original. One thing that bothered me that no other review has really mentioned is how they just took the music from the movies, cut them together, and made "new" music. I honestly don't think there's an original piece of music in the entire game. And, as great as the LotR soundtrack is, I have to detract the sound score simply from lack of integrity. In the end though, the theatrical presentation of some of the fights and scenes from the LotR trilogy that you get to play can be amazing. The Balrog fight comes to mind. The graphics are pretty good overall, but for some reason or another American developers can't seem make long hair or beards look good, and it shows. Another high point of the game is the fact that your character model actually changes with the armor, which is something you don't see in a lot of FF-based RPGs. If you're an LotR fan this game would appeal to you quite a bit, otherwise, I wouldn't bother. It's obvious the team at EA didn't want to make a truly original game, just something to further add on to the movies.
