/vr/ - Retro Games

To be honest, the game didn't have much else going for it.

There's a guy in Lorien who asks you a riddle about the "greatest enemy of them all". It took me close to a decade of replays and guessing before I got it.


And the answer's really obvious too. And you don't get anything for answering it either.

I don't know whether I should count this or not.

As a game, it's medicore at best. Combat, aside from the start when you just have your snotling hobbits, is ridiculously easy, and often avoidable. And the system relies heavily on "use skill X to get out of trouble here", which means that as your party keeps growing, fewer and fewer things can hurt you. As long as you have one guy with jump, your party can get over the crevasse, etc.


But god DAMN is the writing good. It's the only game I've ever seen with LOTR where they made stuff up, but the stuff they made up doesn't stick out like a sore thumb contrasted against the stuff from the books. In the Two Towers game, you have this one (Silvan) elf complaining about how

>Gil-Galad claimed that he could defeat the Shadow forever. But that is the way of the Noldor, is it not? To boast and to fail, and to drag their lesser brethren with them.

I mean, how many people, especially game-makers, even realize that there are different elven "ethnicities" in LOTR, let alone make a quest playing on their rivalries?

>>1576668

As a game, it's pretty shitty. It manages to combine adventure game and RPG mechanics in a way that does neither of them any favors, and once you get to Bree, there's practically nothing that can threaten your party.


A lot of it stems from this item/skill system, where you just need to have one guy in the party who can jump, or have a prybar, or whatever. As you get bigger and pick up more items, there are fewer and fewer things that can hurt you.

But as a die-hard Tolkien nerd, I LOVE this game. It is the only one I've ever played which mixes in their own stuff with the stuff Tolkien wrote and does it almost seamlessly. You find Athelas near Dunedain ruins; in the second game, you can find a silvan elf who complains bitterly about the arrogance of the Noldor and how it got them in this spot; you have fictional speeches that really do take into account the rules of grammar and diction that Tolkien came up with for his in-universe "archaic" speakers. It's brilliant in that regard, and I have lots of fond memories of it.

Are there any /vr/ games you like in spite of the fact that you don't actually like the gameplay? (Or some other flaw you think the game works past works too, I guess)


For me, pic related. It's a kind of adventure/RPG hybrid. Stats, turn based combat, but you don't get XP for defeating enemies or anything, you only get boosts as rewards for certain quests. Mostly it's just your gear that gets upgraded, tbh. And a lot of the game revolves around using these skills when prompted, but combat related skills excepted, you just need someone in the party to have it. One sneaky guy in a group with 9 oafish louts will still get you past the orc patrol or whatever as well as a group solely of hobbits.

So especially as you add more and more people to the fellowship, you very quickly approach a point where nothing can really hurt you, and then it just becomes a romp. The gameplay is unbalanced and therefore flawed, IMO.


But as a written piece.... it's amazing. Only game I've ever seen where they

A) they make stuff up in the LOTR continuity
B) It actually fits and doesn't stand out like a sore thumb.

Examples in point, you can


>Run into a ranger tasked with watching the Shire. His name is Pellisar, which would actually fit the naming schemata Tolkien used for Dunedain.
>You can find Athelas, and it's always near Dunedain ruins.
>Hobbits like to gossip and will often open up if you ask about "news" first.
>You can run into this one elf in the Two Towers who rants about how the Noldor are always causing trouble for their lesser brethren.


I mean, I know because I read the books, but if you didn't ,and had to just judge on style, it would be almost impossible to tell what's from the books and what's from the dev team, and for something like LOTR, I think that's actually pretty cool.

>>1314703

It's a bit more of an adventure/RPG hybrid than a pure RPG but I would recommend pic related, if you got inspired by the Hobbit.

The game mechanics arent' the best, but it is the single best adaptation of Tolkien's world I have ever seen in my life. The stuff they make up (and they do make up quite a lot) fits, in the writing style, putting names in the Tolkien constructed langauges, keeping the "race" relations alive, that you dig for athelas near old Numenorean ruins, everything.

I think you can find it on abandonware sites, and you'll probably need to dosbox it to play.

Is it weird to appreciate a game more as a work of art than as a game?

Take pic related. It was a kind of adventure/RPG hybrid. You had combat and stats, but you didn't level up, you only got stronger via event. Most of the game was surmounting obstacles, of which you usually needed the right skill or item to get past.

It didn't balance real well; one of the biggest problems is that as the Fellowship got bigger, you usually had one of each skill: if there was a cliff you needed to climb, you just needed one guy with Climb, and he'd guide the rest up. So as the party increased in size, your vulnerabilities decreased and eventually vanished.

Plus, combat was either shit easy or impossible, at least once you picked Aragorn up. You might stumble into 5 nazgul at weathertop and get wiped out, but most of the time you'd be fighting a few wolves or spiders or orcs. Orcs; you'd wander through Moria with the whole gang and run into countless encounters of 2 orcs, whom you'd slaughter effortlessly.


But as a story, to date, it's the only LOTR themed game I've ever played in which they make up their own stuff, but it really does fit into the legendarium. You find Athelas near Dunedain ruins, you have a silvan elf complain about the Noldor in the second game, you have all the obscure languages, you have a ranger helping you in the shire whose named Pellisar, which is just perfect. It's more of a Tolkien fangasm than a game.

(Sorry, but the hobbit movie has me thinking along these lines)

ITT: good games based on movies, books, or some other form of art.

It must be, to you, a good game on its own merits, not just because it ties into whatever world it is you like.
This beauty was a great little adventure/RPG that came out in the early 90s. The combat could get a bit easy towards the late game, but there was a tremendous amount to explore, to talk to NPCs about (you could actually gossip! People when asked about 'news' would tell you stuff about like why a neighbor moved to a new house), and unlike a whole bunch of LOTR games, the stuff they made up? It FITS, they really capture that Tolkein spirit, with the genealogies of NPCs, the names are actually built out of the constructed languages. (Pellisar, a ranger who might help you out in the Shire, is a great example), and it's just cool.

Game does shit itself towards the end, but up until you get to Lorien, it's amazing.

>>1162673

I'm probably in a minority of one, but I found this game extremely comfy. I'm old fashioned enough to like reading through the little booklet that came with it.

It never got a lot of fame or accolades, but I absolutely loved this little one.

It's the only game I can think of where they took the LOTR setting, made shit up, and the stuff they added in actually fits into the setting and doesn"t stick out like a sore thumb. Major, major kudos for doing thier homework right.