The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

One RPG to rule them all

NA release: 2nd November 2004
EU release: 12th November 2004
JP release: 22nd December 2004
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Publisher: EA
NGC Magazine Score: 69%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

After making video games based on the films, EA had a dilemma. They still had the license to make tie-in games and wanted to make more games. Now, there’s a vast amount of lore about Middle Earth – other books and more, however EA only had the rights to what was in the films. So their solution was to tell a new story that follows the film.

This takes the form of an extremely linear RPG. You make your way through corridors based on locations from the films. There are some side quests like defeating certain enemies or finding certain objects, but you’ll probably accidentally complete these as you plod around these rather dull areas, with no NPCs to interact with, no towns, nothing interesting to do between cutscenes.

The battle system is supposedly taken straight out of Final Fantasy X, with a skill tree that requires you to use skills in order to unlock more skills. I really didn’t like the system much. The good thing is that the rate of battles kind of make sense, being quiet in some sections and often in others.

Now, while EA could have easily made an RPG following the main Fellowship, they decided not to do that. Instead, you follow a random group of people who are essentially clones of other characters. The main character is a random soldier looking for Boromir, who gets joined by an elf lady, ranger and a dwarf, meeting up with more later on. They follow the path of Aragon, Legolas and Gimli.

And they were supposedly right behind the main characters the entire time. For example, in Moria, Merry knocks a body down a well. Turns out that this well isn’t a well (despite the bucket), but a hole to a large cavern. Your characters are at the bottom of that well, and the body happens to have a key you need.

As you escape Moria, you run into Galdalf fighting the Balrog. You join in this fight (which is a massive difficulty spike). It’s just amusing to imagine that during this epic battle, some knock-off Fellowship characters were on the other side of the bridge pointlessly stabbing the Balrog in the arse.

Speaking of Galdalf, most of the story is narrated by him. These are told in cutscenes which are just random clips from the film with new dialogue on top. Many important plot points are revealed in these, with no reaction from the main characters. For example, Galdalf tells you that Boromir is dead and your quest is over so you can help fight Mordor, with the main character of the game never acknowledging this. At least they got Ian McKellen for this, while cameos from other film characters have new voice actors (such as Charles Martinet playing Gimli).

But really, the laughably bad story and imagining how it would work within the films is the most entertaining thing about The Third Age. Even the ending is brilliant. After the battle for Minas Tirith, you get teleported to the top of Sauron’s tower and fight the actual eye of Sauron. After you “defeat” if (conveniently timed with the destruction of The One Ring), the tower collapses with the main characters on top of it, and they’re not shown or mentioned in the game’s epilogue. So, everyone dies in an incredibly meaningless fight against a giant fireball eye.

Fine

It’s shallow, one-dimensional and gets very tiresome when played for long stretches due to the fact that all it offers is repeated bouts of fighting leavened with some stat-tweaking and skill-learning. Not what you want from a good RPG. However, we can forgive it a lot because it’s one of the most atmospheric games we’ve ever sat down with and, in short bursts, it’s genuinely engrossing.
Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #100

Remake or remaster?

Perhaps in a LotR film game collection.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age.