Everyone knows the track record for video games based on popular franchises. Thankfully, the industry has begun to slowly chip away at that image. There are still far too many cheap cash-ins out there, but many publishers and developers are beginning to put out some quality products. Unfortunately, Black Label Games was much more interested in making a quick buck than making sure that Fellowship of the Ring would live up to the standards expected of a product bearing the Lord of the Rings name.
Before you waste your time reading the rest of the review, let me make something clear: This game was NOT play tested. The Fellowship of the Ring has more glitches than the Windows: Millennium Edition operating system. I promise that if you, for some reason, decide to purchase this bug-ridden title, you’ll spend much of your time reloading saved games due to game-stopping glitches. On many screens, your character will somehow get outside of the game area and be able to wander around the blank space surrounding the environment. Luckily, this one usually doesn’t force a reload. Once, I walked out of one room and when the next room loaded, the screen was completely black except for my character. I could walk in any direction for an infinite amount of time, but reloading was the only way to continue the game. At one point, I was unable to pick up any items with any of my characters. I would see the icon that lets me know I can pick up an item, but when I hit the appropriate button, the icon would disappear but the item remained on the floor. So I saved my game, reloaded that save, and as soon as the game began, I received each item immediately.
The worst bug, though, happens every time. At one point in Moria, when you walk out of one room, the next room appears, but you cannot move. Reload your last saved game, same thing. The only way to get past this point is to save your game at the exact moment the room starts to fade. When you reload your game, if luck is on your side, you’ll be on the other side of the door and able to move. If not, you may have very well ruined your save and be forced start the game over. Yes, these are the joys in store for you if you decide to test your patience with The Fellowship of the Ring.
All inexcusable glitches aside, The Fellowship of the Ring simply isn’t fun to play. The first part of the game consists of getting the four hobbits to Rivendell. You’ll get into a number of battles along the way, which is quite unfortunate, as hobbits are atrociously bad at combat. Your hobbits will be lucky to hit the enemy 20% of the time, while the enemies’ accuracy seems to be somewhere around 75%. It isn’t uncommon to go two rounds of battle without doing a single point of damage. This makes for some long, frustrating battles. To make matters worse, there is no way to heal your party except by using healing items, which are quite limited in supply. After a brutal few hours of play, I arrived at one battle I simply couldn’t win because I was out of healing items. I was forced to restart the game. The second time through, I bought every healing item I could find and avoided every unnecessary battle. Why? Because winning battles doesn’t benefit you in any way. No experience gains, no rewards. With my newfound strategy, I was able to clear the first area of the game.
Admittedly, the game becomes much easier when other characters join your party. Easier, yes, but no more enjoyable. The vast majority of battles still consist of simply attacking and healing. There is almost zero strategy to winning battles. The Fellowship of the Ring is also very fond of mazes. At many points, you’ll be forced to simply wander around until you find the appropriate key or item needed to proceed. This certainly isn’t the first game to suffer from pointless scavenger hunts, but the poor combat system makes any unnecessary battles that much more painful.
There are a number of other annoyances. You can’t change your party formation during battle, so the same four characters get hit most of the time, as enemies never seem to attack characters in the back of your formation. Equipping better weapons and armor seems to have a minimal effect on your characters’ performance. In my game, Legolas, the master bowman, was more effective with a sword than a bow. In fact, his bow always missed, probably due to another glitch. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
Given the relatively simple controls required of RPGs, Fellowship of the Ring actually manages to be playable. I’m convinced this is due to the fact that everything is menu driven and therefore difficult to screw up, not because any thought or effort actually went into it. The main problem with the game’s controls is that many functions are much more complicated than they should be. Take equipping armor, for example. Each character can carry six items that aren’t equipped. Only one character is on-screen at any given time (except during battle), so only that character can pick up items. Once he is full, you must switch to a different character to pick up anything else. So when you are ready to equip one of your hobbits with a helmet, you must first find the character that has the item, select him, go into his inventory, select the helmet, and then select the appropriate hobbit. It’s like a five step process every time you want to equip something or trade items. This easily could have been avoided by simply having all characters share the same inventory. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. What it does take is some planning and testing, something the developers obviously didn’t have.
The first thing you’ll notice about The Fellowship of the Ring is that it looks…bland. While the character and level designs are passable, everything seems to be made up of the dullest possible colors. It’s nice that the color-blind among us can get jobs in the video game biz, but perhaps putting them in charge of visuals isn’t the wisest choice. It honestly looks as though the game was developed for the original Game Boy and the designers simply threw in a few extra colors at the last minute.
Like many Game Boy Advance games, The Fellowship of the Ring’s audio is decidedly so-so. Sound effects are limited to the occasion grunt of an enemy or the ricochet of clashing weapons. Likewise, the background music that accompanies many of the levels is unobtrusive, if not particularly noteworthy. For what it’s worth, the game’s audio is probably the only aspect of the game that isn’t completely offensive.
The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the worst games I have ever played. It is an underdeveloped, bug-ridden title that is an insult to Game Boy Advance owners and Lord of the Rings fans alike. If Black Label Games is smart, they will quickly repossess any unsold copies of this title and deny that the game even exists.
