Apparently, the company that made this had the rights to make a game based on the books, not the new line cinema films. So it was more directly inspired by the books. I remember borrowing it in high school for the GBA and thinking it wasn’t bad. Wandering in Moria for ages. There’s something charming about it and the graphics are more fairytale inspired which is interesting. If you google the PC version there’s a lot of that early 2000s charm. Obviously most people would have played the EA published two towers game which featured events from the fellowship.
I recently started replaying the 1990 Interplay LotR game, which I have fond memories of playing as a kid. I also discovered they made a sequel which I never played, but intend to!
It’s a top-down, party-based rpg with turn-based combat, and a fairly robust keyword-based dialogue system. Pretty clunky by today’s standard, but it’s chock full of loving detail. There are a number of deviations from the books for the sake of gameplay, but it’s quite faithful to the spirit of the text.
You can find it on various abandonware sites, and apparently someone’s also rewritten the engine!
Ive got the original box, CD and docs. I should break it out and see if it runs on dosbox. As I recall they used some Bakshi clips in it.
I love abandonware. So many old and beloved titles.
I had the snes version of this which was more like a Zelda game but it had 4 person coop once you recruited the other hobbits. Was really good in my minds eye… Which means I should never attempt to replay it…
https://www.mobygames.com/game/17911/jrr-tolkiens-the-lord-of-the-rings-volume-1/
Interesting! Never got a snes growing up; my parents thought we played the nes too much, so it eventually went into the closet, and I transitioned to pc games. Looking at the screenshots, it seems to be a completely different game.
I think the pc version is still worth playing, for Tolkien fans that are willing to put up with a bit of jank.
Still stressed about the part where you’re trying to avoid ring wraiths while sneaking out of the shire.
SHIRE, BAGGINS!
I had this game in PS2. I remember there was a secret area where you could find gollum and get a fish from him that Aragorn would use as a weapon.
I had it for the PC. Don’t think I ever got actually out of the Shire. Still have fond memories of it.
I do remember this one! Oh boy, how was I frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t exit Shire because of a bug in the game.
I had this on GBA, and about 2 hours in the whole game would crash every time. Amazing stuff.
Funnily enough, I have ROTK high up on my GameCube “to play” list after playing LOTR on GBA. The GBA game was pretty dang güd.
I am surprised I never saw this one before. I used to play the TCG pretty heavily back in the early 2000s and would love this.
looking at screenshots from the PC, ps2, and GBA versions, I think I might hunt down a GBA cart!
Is this the one where you start as frodo and have to use the ring somewhat?
I actually do remember this. I got it used from EB games I think. I was afraid of the ring wraiths as a kid and gave up and didn’t play again until I was a teenager. I remember this was different from the movies because it actually had Tom Bombadil!
I haven’t played in ages, but I remember thinking it was pretty decent. I still think about it sometimes for some reason.
How does one leave the shire in this game? I remember trying for days and failing to get out
