A key issue is how the License for such works and why it's never happened. They, being Electronic Arts, would need a new License to be able to do anything such as a Remaster, HD Edition, etc. It doesn't seem like they ever will do such as another Franchise, Harry Potter and the EA Games for it seem to be the same way. It would be really good if they did, especially if they kept "most" of what these Lord of the Rings & Harry Potter Games had back in the day, improve certain things and so on. But I just don't think it'll ever happen unless there is several people in key positions on both the EA-side and now Embracer Group-side (they own the Rights to the LOTR Games & Licenses) and they come to a deal.
That fight with the Balrog is unironically one of my favorite boss battles in any game. The whole Mines of Moria segment was so haunting and the ending setpiece was perfect.
Yeah totally, when I played LotR The Third Age for first time, I were 12-13 y.o and the mines of Moria was almost a nighmare for me as well the Castle wall fight at end of LoTR Two Tower movie (Forgetten the name)
BRO! i coulnt pass it either but i ordered the guide book as a kid and it finally told me!! you give idrial a water boosting item and she hits like 4 times the amount it was crazy lmao
The first time I played, I reached Minas Tirith but then I suffered a glitch that caused the entire city to dissappear. Like an idiot, I saved (thanks to being near a save point) and ruined my entire playthrough. The second time I reached all the way to the Witch King but couldn't beat him no matter what I did. It was well into my 3rd playthrough that I learned that the stat points aren't automatically used when you level up. Meaning I nearly beat the game twice at what was effectively lvl 1. Kinda proud of myself not gonna lie.
Reading comments like yours make me so happy because I relate to it. My grandpa gifted it to me on christmas eve too in 2004 (the year the game was released) and I instantly fell in love with it. I was 10 back then, now I'm 29, time flies. Sometimes I miss being a kid haha
a remake would be better at this point. a remaster just wont make the cut. also i want more content for this bc it was such a great game, so we need a remake instead xd
What I loved about The Third Age is that it wasn't just another movie tie in game, it kinda was, but you get introduced to new characters, and this game is the reason why I never was upset with how linear final fantasy 10 or 13 was, like yeah you walk in a straight line to go to the next combat encounter basically, but the story, the lore, and the world and the characters are what kept me playing
EXACTLY. I'll never understand that "it's linear" complaint. It helps the game's pacing, never frustrates players with random mazes or pointless areas, makes sure character stat progression is adequate, difficulty is better balanced...
@@Walamonga1313 I agree. I like exploration in games but sometimes it gets boring walking around in a giant open world map. Linear games just get you into the story and gameplay asap.
yup, with also allot of these games just have the actual actors doing dialog which is kind of amazing. imagine watching a film then playing a well made game with the actors today. minor complaint which i didn't have at the time but it would be cool, it would have been nice to fight Sauron rather than fight the eye.
I have so many memories of this game. I've played it through dozens of times and even unlocked all skills on characters. My dad, me and my brother all played this one.
This era of LOTR games was so damn good. With the films fresh at that time, the games felt even better. Being a Gamecuber purist back then, I remember the cover art fondly, but I don't remember playing it - weird. I musta missed out. Great vid, big ups covering this 🤘
Great game. Absolutely, between two towers, RotK, third age, battle for middle earth, they just kept putting out hits. Hoping for a LOTR game renaissance!
This and the two ps2 LoTR games based on the movies aged like WINE. I assume they are not re-released because EA doesn't wanna pay royalties to all the cast.
Great that you gave this one a go. This is such a cool mix of things. Japanese style JRPG mechanics in a LOTR setting, something that on paper sounds quite weird, but it works fantastic.
This game legit is one of my favourite games of all time. It’s difficult if you play on the hardest difficulty but the challenge is worth it…. FYI if you struggle, major tip, get Idrial maxed out on all power moves, as her healing, reviving, and status effects are a must need, especially towards the last parts of the game. I barely ever used her to hit foes during my last play through, (6 months ago) she was just buffing my team mates with spells, like if a member falls they automatically get revived etc. she’s a must. I am gonna play another run through of this soon as I want to complete the game with a different line up, as I always use Idrial, Berethor and Hadhod, so wanna do a play through with 3 other of them characters. Only annoying thing about doing that, is alot of characters arnt unlocked till your Rohan progression, and half the game is completed by this point, so it’s hard to build up their move sets, but that’s the challenge, I’m gonna have to do this soon now.
@@chrism4403 I know you think you’re being a clever dick, but it’s not as simple as that, hence why I’m mentioning it, it takes a long time unlocking Idrial’s spirit power tree and the ability to cast spells that can cause these effects, hence it classifying as a tip, as I’ve just started again, and I’ve just been grinding encounters to get Idrial first revive type spell and it’s taken a few hours just to unlock it, so no it’s not just healing, and anyway, you’re not healing, it’s a spell that’s used on members that aren’t fallen, to revive any member should they fall, so it’s much better than just useless healing spells, also after the character revives you also receive a full amount of AP for that character to use, so it’s a must need. So the tip is grind at the beginning which will then make your progress in the game easy, as I said I’ve been grinding for a few hours, in my current game, I’m 4 hours in and I’ve only progressed 2%, so that’s the tip. So feel better now I’ve literally had to spell it out for you as your not intelligent enough to work that out for yourself? You’re welcome 🙄
I always play on Hard, it ironically makes it easier to level your party since it takes longer to beat enemies on Hard mode. So you end up being more powerful and have more skills unlocked than you would on Easy
I forgot the name of Idrial's spells but I remember discovering the game breaking strategy of casting double spells with her so that she revived if fainted and an ally would. Rinse repeat. Rinse repeat.
@@rouge4nimal253 It’s not a spell, all characters can spend AP on double goes either attacks or powers depending on the character, costs alot but yes was so worth it. Cus you could do that with Berethor with sword attacks, and if you unlock the move where he does like 6 powerful hits and you’ve powered him up, you can potentially do a series amount of damage, as long as you grind out unlocking all the moves and put the time in doing that, then you pretty much become invincible. Then if you run out of AP just bait a character to die once you’ve used Idrial spell to bring them back should they fall with AP restored, you revive with maxed out AP to go again. Literally invincible, especially cus Betethor can use taunt so you can easily bait him to be killed to be immediately revived.
I know it’ll probably never happen, but I really want these classic Lord of the Rings titles to be remade, or at least remastered. A good third of my early gaming worldview was built on them.
Playing through this game on medium difficulty right now! One of the best games I've ever played. So glad I have an OG Xbox to play this in it's original glory
yeah you have to go in with berethor out of the party so you can immediately switch to him to use stand fast and avoid being stunned. it's very annoying.
It's a fun game, but it does suffer badly sometimes from being so closely tied to the movie script. The bit in Rohan where totally-not-Aragorn does the whole "tracking speech" thing, for example. Instead of it being a brilliant bit of deduction to track down Merry and Pippin it becomes "oh look, those two corpses 5 feet away from us must have been the villagers"
Those inserts are part of the retro game time capsule. It’s cool to look at what was going on during the time of game’s release and take a trip down memory lane.
Yeah I loved to read them when getting new games, and was always delighted when they actually had units discriptions in them, lore etc. God, so many memories ;)
@ 15:30 A lot of the weapons and armor reflect real equipment from the movies. Idrial gets a copy of Theoden’s Sword. Berethor straight up gets Narsil and it’s the 3rd best sword in the game! I think Hadhod gets Gimli’s walking Axe early on too. The visuals are on point with this game and I love it!
It is so criminal how small this channel is compared to the quality of these videos. Easily the most underrated channel I’m watching right now. Stay on it man, love your stuff!
Something cool about playing this game, on older hardware, was that on down to the wire moments or epic battles. The frame rate would drop slightly and it would create this kinda "momentum" in the game that I found super cool when playing.
I LOVE evil mode. My favorite thing to do was get to the point where I could get that really dope sword for Berethor then use that evil mode to stack a new playthrough and start over 😂
Ah, the Fellowship of the Second String, as a gaming magazine called it in review. Except for being forced to watch the trilogy again inside the game, a fun experience back in the day. I liked replaying the levels as the villains for extra loot, it was a cool mechanic
Played this game back when it came out back in 2004 as a kid and was confused and frustrated at it. Ended up swearing it off. 10 years later, in 2014, fresh out of high school, I gave it another go and it is now one of my favorite RPG's. Glad you gave this one a look, Matty!
I traveled through the Moria for hours wondering when the hell I'd fight the Balrog. When I finally got to him he kicked my ass so hard it's so even funny
Wow i just recently figured out how to emulate this game on my PC (PS2 version) and have been sinking dozens of hours into it. Amazing blast to the past that definitely needs a remaster! Bring us more turn based LOTR!!
I’ve emulated it too! I was able to grind out every single skill for every character. Takes forever but worth it to be absolutely OP. 😂 I used PCSX2 btw.
I'm doing the same thing right now, until I saw it while looking for games to emulate I never even knew this game was on PS2. I had a friend bring it and his GameCube over when we were teens and idk if he told me it was exclusive or if I just assumed but I always thought the game was only on GameCube lol.
Man, u do such a great job on ur videos. Ur delivery, enthusiasm, and obvious love for video games shines thru in each video u make. Never once have I watched one of them and thought u didn't put ur all into it. U make quality content, and seem to have a great time doing it! Thank u Matty for bringing good vibes. Even when u are down or disappointed in something, u still seem to work ur way to positivity. True talent, my friend.
Final Fantasy X had this same style of turn based. Fell asleep many times mid battle playing late at night and everything would still be as it was. Now when the direct sequel X-2 came out, they brought in ATB and you could die during your turn. Anyway, this game was one of my favorites years ago on the original x-box system. It was really difficult sometimes, damn uruk kai or whatever they were were so op. Especially hated running out of mana all the time and for some reason the mana regen items were so hard to find. LOVED when a film character joined the party, also, Idrial was not like Legolas (there was a bow using ranger that joined you), Idrial was more like Arwen in the first film.
I hate that we can't replay the game with all of our newly found and upgraded gear. And I hate that when it ends you can't run around and explore or replay certain maps, you just have to restart from scratch. I still replay my final save, just before the final boss fight, just to view everyone's gear and run around.
I remember getting this on holiday in America back on 2006 and finally coming home to the UK and the family PC not being able to run it. It's weird seeing gameplay all these years later
I have a lot of fond memories of watching my dad play this game as a kid. There’s also a pseudo new game plus mode in this game where you can use the rewards from the end game evil mode battles and give them to a new save file
This is one of my favorite games of all time and the nostalgia is overflowing! I sincerely hope we get a new era of LOTR rpgs. You sir are quickly becoming one of my favorite channels to watch. Thank you for the great content!
Loved this game, and still do. Play it about once every 2 years just for the memories. Always reccomend to play this to anyone thats looking for older games to play.
Love this game! I remember picking it up on release day and playing it everyday after school with my sister until we beat it. For a movie tie-in side-story RPG it is a very good game. Glad I came across this video!
I used to think that i misremembered this game from my childhood, like some kind of fever dream. LOTR turn based game? No way. I was right though and all the memories came flooding back. So glad Matty is giving it a shout out. It deserves a fresh coat of paint. [Yes i'm double dipping with a second comment but what the hell... FOR THE ALGORITHM!!!]
I remember being a little kid riding my bike to the family video to rent the LOTR games and picking up this one and getting absolutely no where… I never realized how in depth this game actually was.
The encounters get thrown at you like crazy in mines of moria. Which is canonically accurate but damn its a brutal section because every 5 steps you have to fight 4 to 5 goblins or 2 cave trolls lol
You can actually see the fellowship fighting the watcher earlier out in the distance. After you get Elegost you go up to the edge of the cliff over looking the water and you can see them fighting.
I've loved seeing your LOTR videos. I have all of these games on my OG XB and a couple for my GC. I actually kinda liked The Third Age. Good video my guy!
Played this game on ps2 as a kid, now i remembered it and i wanna replay so bad, never understood the game back then but it had such a strong ambient mood
The PS2 trilogy of LOTR's games were just incredible. This game was great as well. I just hope these PS2 games get remastered or re-released at some point as I would love to play them again. Great video! :)
the only problem is that Third age ran like absolute shit on PS2 , i remember back in the day i rented it first and after that weekend i bought the gamecube version instead , hoping it wouldn't have so much slowdown
I bought this game when it came out. And at that time I'd never finished a RPG. I had "friends" that kept telling me "I couldn't play this game if I hadn't played a Final Fantasy before".
I really enjoyed this game as a kid. This was my second turn-based game. My first was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the Game Boy Advance.
I was really into this game for a short time. Once every encounter was a slight variation of the same enemies, (with or without flags or other tiny distinctions), I grew suddenly burned out. They badly needed more enemy variety.
I started this game years ago on the Gamecube when I rented it but never finished it. Just started playing through this on my Steam Deck and it's working great so far. 😁
Loved this game as a kid! My only gripe was the ability leveling. I always got to the end of the game before I even unlocked the last, really cool abilities in the tree, or i would just get the last ability in the tree before the game ended and I couldn't even enjoy the fruits of all that hard work. But once you finish the story, there isn't any way to continue into a new playthrough to get those final abilities. I did find an exploit, though. Going back to the very first area of the game, you can find groups of orcs with the flag bearers. If you kill the offensive orcs, the flag bearers have no offensive attacks, so if you stick to using attacks that deal no damage, you can level up your abilities to the max after a lengthy grind in a single battle. That's the only way I found to be able to get the big splashy abilities early on and then get to use and enjoy them longer.
If you play on Hard it becomes much easier to get those later skills because the enemies take longer to beat giving you more actions in each fight. Last time I played I had Berethor's final 5-strike attack by the time I got to Helm's Deep and I didn't even need to do any farming
Anyone else killed 1000 enemies by farming at helm's deep ladders to get all characters to level 99? I did it on Emulator once so I could save state and sleep, also used turbo mode too to be quicker. Was honestly pretty cool to see your crew so strong, everyone gets to level 60-ish before the game ends on their first playthrough 😄 - Can farm in Mines of Moria with the goblin playing the drums but exp rate be small.
Thanks for a detailed video on this great game. I used to play this with my brother on the original XBOX. Many memories with this game and what a great generation of gaming this was.
I used to play coop with a friend on the ps2,we never finished the game. We took it again years later, and we smashed it xD We knew a lot better which skills to get first, we each had half the characters (i had idril, the dwarf, morwen for sure) and we took turns deciding together in battle who to use (it happened that we had 3 of our chatacters together but we never tried to get the exp just for oursselves. We even shared the control on the map (in case you don't know, the exp for quest clearance goes to the "main" pg in that moment, so you can decide who to level up first) We did the evil mode as soon as we unlocked it to get that better equip (kill idirlel first for the heals xD) since it was a lot better than the current one if doing right away Really loved this game
This got me into final fantasy games more because of this title. It felt more simple, maybe because I was more familiar with LOTR terminology, and the character arcs through the movies made sense.
Bought it today. The animation during battle looks awesome. After 1-2 hours already getting new abilities. Bought a gamecube primarily for this and thousand year door.
A lot of these games were written with selling strategy guides in mind. Most people would buy these games with strategy guides to help them find all the secrets and hidden quests. Marketing!
I enjoyed this game, though I agree that the story (especially at the end) was weak. One of my main gripes was that half of the characters just became irrelevant. The ranger and the dwarf were just kind of there after Moria, and the Rohirrim guy was barely notable even after he was introduced. Then the end is someone raises their sword and shouts "To Mordor!" and suddenly the party is at the top of Barad Dur fighting the Eye of Sauron itself, and presumably they're all killed when the tower collapses because they don't provide any epilogue for the characters (as far as I remember).
Final Fantasy X already doesn't have the ATB system my man. FFX uses the CTB System, Count Turn Battle, which makes faster characters get more turns than slower characters and allows your choice in actions to sway your position in the turn order much like the ATB system did, but without the inconvenient downtime waiting on bars, or the inconvenience of being interrupted while inputting an action.
The gameplay was really good. But yeah it does feel like you're the B-team Fellowship. The first half of the game you're trying to catch up with the real Fellowship, and the second half you're just trying to help them out (when they probably don't really need your help).
i think i remembered the massive difficulty spikes at Pelenor Field when i fought those Haradrim Mumakil, it keeps stun my whole party and killed me lol
EA’s infamous Final Fantasy 10 clone! I just bought this and started playing it a couple weeks ago on ps2. I also just bought the strategy guide today as well. I haven’t gotten too far in it yet, but it seems pretty alright so far.
My advice, keep an eye on what skills your party is leveling before entering battle. Make sure that you are "farming" up skills you find useful instead of just learning them in order. Go to skills and read thu them and make a line toward appealing skills. Also, things like stun and sleep are super useful, at least on average enemies or large groups, so focus on learning those skills first, and branch out after that. Your archer Elgost or something has an incredibly powerful sleep arrow attack that can put whole battlefields to sleep, allowing you to farm defensive and support skills quicker while the enemies are asleep. Idrials haste of the elves helps when you are focusing on power leveling a specific characters skill trees by giving them more actions per turn. Sorry for the word vomit but hope this helps! I'm playing thru it on Hard and after a little grinding and key item pick-ups, i can handle anything tossed at me. Good luck!
I will never lose hope of getting an HD version of this game at some point.
A key issue is how the License for such works and why it's never happened. They, being Electronic Arts, would need a new License to be able to do anything such as a Remaster, HD Edition, etc. It doesn't seem like they ever will do such as another Franchise, Harry Potter and the EA Games for it seem to be the same way.
It would be really good if they did, especially if they kept "most" of what these Lord of the Rings & Harry Potter Games had back in the day, improve certain things and so on. But I just don't think it'll ever happen unless there is several people in key positions on both the EA-side and now Embracer Group-side (they own the Rights to the LOTR Games & Licenses) and they come to a deal.
If you play on emulator, there's a fan hd textures in internet, so..
An official one might never happen. Lord of the Rings/Middle-Earth ip is expensive as shit and the Tolkien Estate knows that
Mclassic
and twin towers or return of the king, man those were fun hack n slash games
That fight with the Balrog is unironically one of my favorite boss battles in any game. The whole Mines of Moria segment was so haunting and the ending setpiece was perfect.
I could never get past that part as a kid :(
i thought it was hilarious how easy it was to kill the party in evil mode
Yeah totally, when I played LotR The Third Age for first time, I were 12-13 y.o and the mines of Moria was almost a nighmare for me as well the Castle wall fight at end of LoTR Two Tower movie (Forgetten the name)
BRO! i coulnt pass it either but i ordered the guide book as a kid and it finally told me!! you give idrial a water boosting item and she hits like 4 times the amount it was crazy lmao
I'm on that level now sir
The first time I played, I reached Minas Tirith but then I suffered a glitch that caused the entire city to dissappear. Like an idiot, I saved (thanks to being near a save point) and ruined my entire playthrough.
The second time I reached all the way to the Witch King but couldn't beat him no matter what I did. It was well into my 3rd playthrough that I learned that the stat points aren't automatically used when you level up. Meaning I nearly beat the game twice at what was effectively lvl 1. Kinda proud of myself not gonna lie.
Theres no way bro. Helms Deep was damn impossible.
Actually now that i think about it i dont think i leveled up either, atleast till Moria, and i couldnt figure out why I was having such a hard time
Cant be possible. Your character would all die in one hit
@@TheBeastInBlack I did the same thing and was stuck in Helms Deep forever LOL
Good shit man! That's pretty dope lol
I remember getting this on christmas eve waking up at 6 am the next day to play. I was like 8-9 y/o at the time. Now I'm 28. Such a nostalgia trip.
Reading comments like yours make me so happy because I relate to it. My grandpa gifted it to me on christmas eve too in 2004 (the year the game was released) and I instantly fell in love with it. I was 10 back then, now I'm 29, time flies. Sometimes I miss being a kid haha
I would legitimately play LOtR The Third Age co-op in 2022
You can, there's a 2 player mode. (^.^)
Well I sorta can because I got the game and my old PS2 but lost the other Controll over the years.. 😑
@@miniblasan5717 buy another controller
I've wanted a remaster of this for so long. This game definitely didn't get enough attention back when it released. Really great FF LotR style game.
a remake would be better at this point. a remaster just wont make the cut. also i want more content for this bc it was such a great game, so we need a remake instead xd
What I loved about The Third Age is that it wasn't just another movie tie in game, it kinda was, but you get introduced to new characters, and this game is the reason why I never was upset with how linear final fantasy 10 or 13 was, like yeah you walk in a straight line to go to the next combat encounter basically, but the story, the lore, and the world and the characters are what kept me playing
EXACTLY. I'll never understand that "it's linear" complaint. It helps the game's pacing, never frustrates players with random mazes or pointless areas, makes sure character stat progression is adequate, difficulty is better balanced...
@@Walamonga1313 I agree. I like exploration in games but sometimes it gets boring walking around in a giant open world map. Linear games just get you into the story and gameplay asap.
yup, with also allot of these games just have the actual actors doing dialog which is kind of amazing. imagine watching a film then playing a well made game with the actors today. minor complaint which i didn't have at the time but it would be cool, it would have been nice to fight Sauron rather than fight the eye.
It was impressive what they were able to do. EA only had rights to the LOTR films but they made it work. I still play this game every year or so
Ea is one of the best top notch developers period.
Wasn't spartan total warrior ea as well
Black was ea I mean cmon whatcha talking about
@@michaelb7163no, creative assembly
I have so many memories of this game. I've played it through dozens of times and even unlocked all skills on characters. My dad, me and my brother all played this one.
This era of LOTR games was so damn good. With the films fresh at that time, the games felt even better. Being a Gamecuber purist back then, I remember the cover art fondly, but I don't remember playing it - weird. I musta missed out. Great vid, big ups covering this 🤘
Great game. Absolutely, between two towers, RotK, third age, battle for middle earth, they just kept putting out hits. Hoping for a LOTR game renaissance!
I had this game on Xbox, it was great wish they had ported it to pc
I had on PS2, and I played it 4 or 5 times
This and the two ps2 LoTR games based on the movies aged like WINE. I assume they are not re-released because EA doesn't wanna pay royalties to all the cast.
Great that you gave this one a go. This is such a cool mix of things. Japanese style JRPG mechanics in a LOTR setting, something that on paper sounds quite weird, but it works fantastic.
This game legit is one of my favourite games of all time. It’s difficult if you play on the hardest difficulty but the challenge is worth it…. FYI if you struggle, major tip, get Idrial maxed out on all power moves, as her healing, reviving, and status effects are a must need, especially towards the last parts of the game. I barely ever used her to hit foes during my last play through, (6 months ago) she was just buffing my team mates with spells, like if a member falls they automatically get revived etc. she’s a must.
I am gonna play another run through of this soon as I want to complete the game with a different line up, as I always use Idrial, Berethor and Hadhod, so wanna do a play through with 3 other of them characters. Only annoying thing about doing that, is alot of characters arnt unlocked till your Rohan progression, and half the game is completed by this point, so it’s hard to build up their move sets, but that’s the challenge, I’m gonna have to do this soon now.
@@chrism4403 I know you think you’re being a clever dick, but it’s not as simple as that, hence why I’m mentioning it, it takes a long time unlocking Idrial’s spirit power tree and the ability to cast spells that can cause these effects, hence it classifying as a tip, as I’ve just started again, and I’ve just been grinding encounters to get Idrial first revive type spell and it’s taken a few hours just to unlock it, so no it’s not just healing, and anyway, you’re not healing, it’s a spell that’s used on members that aren’t fallen, to revive any member should they fall, so it’s much better than just useless healing spells, also after the character revives you also receive a full amount of AP for that character to use, so it’s a must need. So the tip is grind at the beginning which will then make your progress in the game easy, as I said I’ve been grinding for a few hours, in my current game, I’m 4 hours in and I’ve only progressed 2%, so that’s the tip. So feel better now I’ve literally had to spell it out for you as your not intelligent enough to work that out for yourself? You’re welcome 🙄
The Rohan chick is op when maxed out
I always play on Hard, it ironically makes it easier to level your party since it takes longer to beat enemies on Hard mode. So you end up being more powerful and have more skills unlocked than you would on Easy
I forgot the name of Idrial's spells but I remember discovering the game breaking strategy of casting double spells with her so that she revived if fainted and an ally would. Rinse repeat. Rinse repeat.
@@rouge4nimal253 It’s not a spell, all characters can spend AP on double goes either attacks or powers depending on the character, costs alot but yes was so worth it. Cus you could do that with Berethor with sword attacks, and if you unlock the move where he does like 6 powerful hits and you’ve powered him up, you can potentially do a series amount of damage, as long as you grind out unlocking all the moves and put the time in doing that, then you pretty much become invincible. Then if you run out of AP just bait a character to die once you’ve used Idrial spell to bring them back should they fall with AP restored, you revive with maxed out AP to go again. Literally invincible, especially cus Betethor can use taunt so you can easily bait him to be killed to be immediately revived.
I know it’ll probably never happen, but I really want these classic Lord of the Rings titles to be remade, or at least remastered. A good third of my early gaming worldview was built on them.
Playing through this game on medium difficulty right now! One of the best games I've ever played. So glad I have an OG Xbox to play this in it's original glory
The first fight against the 2 Oliphants was brutal, way more difficult than anything else in the game
yeah you have to go in with berethor out of the party so you can immediately switch to him to use stand fast and avoid being stunned. it's very annoying.
I played on Hard Mode 2 times and the hardest fight for me was the Nazguls on the Osgiliath roof top after you lose Idrial.
"I didn’t know this existed until I found out about this game years ago."
Same. I usually don’t know something exists until I do.
It's a fun game, but it does suffer badly sometimes from being so closely tied to the movie script. The bit in Rohan where totally-not-Aragorn does the whole "tracking speech" thing, for example. Instead of it being a brilliant bit of deduction to track down Merry and Pippin it becomes "oh look, those two corpses 5 feet away from us must have been the villagers"
A gem of its time. Remember spending a weekend co-oping this with a friend and had such great fun.
Those inserts are part of the retro game time capsule. It’s cool to look at what was going on during the time of game’s release and take a trip down memory lane.
Yeah I loved to read them when getting new games, and was always delighted when they actually had units discriptions in them, lore etc. God, so many memories ;)
@ 15:30
A lot of the weapons and armor reflect real equipment from the movies. Idrial gets a copy of Theoden’s Sword. Berethor straight up gets Narsil and it’s the 3rd best sword in the game! I think Hadhod gets Gimli’s walking Axe early on too.
The visuals are on point with this game and I love it!
It is so criminal how small this channel is compared to the quality of these videos. Easily the most underrated channel I’m watching right now. Stay on it man, love your stuff!
Something cool about playing this game, on older hardware, was that on down to the wire moments or epic battles. The frame rate would drop slightly and it would create this kinda "momentum" in the game that I found super cool when playing.
I LOVE evil mode. My favorite thing to do was get to the point where I could get that really dope sword for Berethor then use that evil mode to stack a new playthrough and start over 😂
I usually never subscribe to channels like either of yours but you’re great at what you do so I’ve subbed to both.
Can’t wait for Buu’s Fury.
Damn, when I played this was back when it came out. A Lord of the Rings RPG with a JRPG-style battle system. I loved it.
Ah, the Fellowship of the Second String, as a gaming magazine called it in review. Except for being forced to watch the trilogy again inside the game, a fun experience back in the day. I liked replaying the levels as the villains for extra loot, it was a cool mechanic
Played this game back when it came out back in 2004 as a kid and was confused and frustrated at it. Ended up swearing it off. 10 years later, in 2014, fresh out of high school, I gave it another go and it is now one of my favorite RPG's. Glad you gave this one a look, Matty!
FF10 came out at the very end of 2001 and DID NOT have an "active time" battle system. FF4-9 did.
Yah the part where he says it atb bugged me cuz it’s definitely not
I traveled through the Moria for hours wondering when the hell I'd fight the Balrog. When I finally got to him he kicked my ass so hard it's so even funny
Wow i just recently figured out how to emulate this game on my PC (PS2 version) and have been sinking dozens of hours into it. Amazing blast to the past that definitely needs a remaster! Bring us more turn based LOTR!!
Very cool, how'd you manage this?
I’ve emulated it too! I was able to grind out every single skill for every character. Takes forever but worth it to be absolutely OP. 😂 I used PCSX2 btw.
I'm doing the same thing right now, until I saw it while looking for games to emulate I never even knew this game was on PS2. I had a friend bring it and his GameCube over when we were teens and idk if he told me it was exclusive or if I just assumed but I always thought the game was only on GameCube lol.
Man, u do such a great job on ur videos. Ur delivery, enthusiasm, and obvious love for video games shines thru in each video u make. Never once have I watched one of them and thought u didn't put ur all into it. U make quality content, and seem to have a great time doing it! Thank u Matty for bringing good vibes. Even when u are down or disappointed in something, u still seem to work ur way to positivity. True talent, my friend.
One of the few turn based games I loved as a kid. I remember having such a hard time with the witch king boss. Loved this game!
"It's not like Final Fantasy"
It is literally Final Fantasy X's turn system.
Final Fantasy X had this same style of turn based. Fell asleep many times mid battle playing late at night and everything would still be as it was. Now when the direct sequel X-2 came out, they brought in ATB and you could die during your turn. Anyway, this game was one of my favorites years ago on the original x-box system. It was really difficult sometimes, damn uruk kai or whatever they were were so op. Especially hated running out of mana all the time and for some reason the mana regen items were so hard to find. LOVED when a film character joined the party, also, Idrial was not like Legolas (there was a bow using ranger that joined you), Idrial was more like Arwen in the first film.
At the time I was I impressed with the graphs and the e fact that the armor would carry to the cut scenes.
I hate that we can't replay the game with all of our newly found and upgraded gear. And I hate that when it ends you can't run around and explore or replay certain maps, you just have to restart from scratch. I still replay my final save, just before the final boss fight, just to view everyone's gear and run around.
I remember getting this on holiday in America back on 2006 and finally coming home to the UK and the family PC not being able to run it. It's weird seeing gameplay all these years later
I have a lot of fond memories of watching my dad play this game as a kid. There’s also a pseudo new game plus mode in this game where you can use the rewards from the end game evil mode battles and give them to a new save file
This is one of my favorite games of all time and the nostalgia is overflowing! I sincerely hope we get a new era of LOTR rpgs. You sir are quickly becoming one of my favorite channels to watch. Thank you for the great content!
Loved this game, and still do. Play it about once every 2 years just for the memories. Always reccomend to play this to anyone thats looking for older games to play.
Love this game! I remember picking it up on release day and playing it everyday after school with my sister until we beat it. For a movie tie-in side-story RPG it is a very good game. Glad I came across this video!
only sitting down to watch this but wow what a throwback, played the absolute heck out of this when I was younger
I remember a magazine at the time refering to the characters as "the junior varsity team" and that always stuck with me. Loved the game.
Watching this, seeing most of the videos in your history, I've played/like many of them. You got yourself a subscriber.
I used to think that i misremembered this game from my childhood, like some kind of fever dream. LOTR turn based game? No way. I was right though and all the memories came flooding back. So glad Matty is giving it a shout out. It deserves a fresh coat of paint.
[Yes i'm double dipping with a second comment but what the hell... FOR THE ALGORITHM!!!]
This was one of mine and my brothers favorite PS2 games growing up, glad you're playing it!
I remember being a little kid riding my bike to the family video to rent the LOTR games and picking up this one and getting absolutely no where… I never realized how in depth this game actually was.
YES! Finally. So so so good... I finally replayed it on a PS2 Emulator program on my PC this year. So nostalgic.
This was the game i encouraged all my friends to try out and now its a group classic that we talk about regularly
The encounters get thrown at you like crazy in mines of moria. Which is canonically accurate but damn its a brutal section because every 5 steps you have to fight 4 to 5 goblins or 2 cave trolls lol
You can actually see the fellowship fighting the watcher earlier out in the distance. After you get Elegost you go up to the edge of the cliff over looking the water and you can see them fighting.
I've loved seeing your LOTR videos. I have all of these games on my OG XB and a couple for my GC. I actually kinda liked The Third Age. Good video my guy!
Played this game on ps2 as a kid, now i remembered it and i wanna replay so bad, never understood the game back then but it had such a strong ambient mood
If you got a decent pc, you could emulate it! I recently dove into Third Age PS2 with pcsx2, I never got to play it til now.
The PS2 trilogy of LOTR's games were just incredible. This game was great as well. I just hope these PS2 games get remastered or re-released at some point as I would love to play them again. Great video! :)
the only problem is that Third age ran like absolute shit on PS2 , i remember back in the day i rented it first and after that weekend i bought the gamecube version instead , hoping it wouldn't have so much slowdown
My husband and I played this game together and LOVED IT. I'd love to see this get a remaster.
another great video man i love your channel and loved the legacy of goku videos you’ve made
Lord of the rings games used to be so fun , battle for middle earth 2 on pc was lit as well
4:02 Come on man… you didn’t even ask me…
Oh yeah! Matty coming in with another LoTR video
Thanks for covering this! I loved this game when it came out.
I loved this game so much! Played it all the way through myself, then played the whole thing on co-op with my friend in high school
This one of my favorite games. I still play it till this day. Best Lord of the Rings game by far.
Battle for middle Earth was also great.
I bought this game when it came out. And at that time I'd never finished a RPG.
I had "friends" that kept telling me "I couldn't play this game if I hadn't played a Final Fantasy before".
I seriously need a remastered and sequels for this game, plus I love the idea how it was co-op cause I help my friend out in the game
I really enjoyed this game as a kid. This was my second turn-based game. My first was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the Game Boy Advance.
I was really into this game for a short time. Once every encounter was a slight variation of the same enemies, (with or without flags or other tiny distinctions), I grew suddenly burned out. They badly needed more enemy variety.
I started this game years ago on the Gamecube when I rented it but never finished it. Just started playing through this on my Steam Deck and it's working great so far. 😁
Loved this game as a kid! My only gripe was the ability leveling. I always got to the end of the game before I even unlocked the last, really cool abilities in the tree, or i would just get the last ability in the tree before the game ended and I couldn't even enjoy the fruits of all that hard work. But once you finish the story, there isn't any way to continue into a new playthrough to get those final abilities. I did find an exploit, though. Going back to the very first area of the game, you can find groups of orcs with the flag bearers. If you kill the offensive orcs, the flag bearers have no offensive attacks, so if you stick to using attacks that deal no damage, you can level up your abilities to the max after a lengthy grind in a single battle. That's the only way I found to be able to get the big splashy abilities early on and then get to use and enjoy them longer.
If you play on Hard it becomes much easier to get those later skills because the enemies take longer to beat giving you more actions in each fight. Last time I played I had Berethor's final 5-strike attack by the time I got to Helm's Deep and I didn't even need to do any farming
Anyone else killed 1000 enemies by farming at helm's deep ladders to get all characters to level 99? I did it on Emulator once so I could save state and sleep, also used turbo mode too to be quicker. Was honestly pretty cool to see your crew so strong, everyone gets to level 60-ish before the game ends on their first playthrough 😄
- Can farm in Mines of Moria with the goblin playing the drums but exp rate be small.
Thanks for a detailed video on this great game. I used to play this with my brother on the original XBOX. Many memories with this game and what a great generation of gaming this was.
I used to play coop with a friend on the ps2,we never finished the game.
We took it again years later, and we smashed it xD
We knew a lot better which skills to get first, we each had half the characters (i had idril, the dwarf, morwen for sure) and we took turns deciding together in battle who to use (it happened that we had 3 of our chatacters together but we never tried to get the exp just for oursselves. We even shared the control on the map (in case you don't know, the exp for quest clearance goes to the "main" pg in that moment, so you can decide who to level up first)
We did the evil mode as soon as we unlocked it to get that better equip (kill idirlel first for the heals xD) since it was a lot better than the current one if doing right away
Really loved this game
This got me into final fantasy games more because of this title. It felt more simple, maybe because I was more familiar with LOTR terminology, and the character arcs through the movies made sense.
See this is what I miss about physical video games. It was the random stuff you found in the box that was exciting to me for some reason. 😂
I love when you on the mountain at moria , you can see the fellowship fighting the kraken in the distance
always make my day with new videos on this channel ❤
I didn't even know there were double disc GameCube games....damn mind blown lol
Have you played the Battle for Middle Earth games? The only rts games I've played and I loved them to death
i played through this game many times back in the day and i just picked it up again from my locale retro game store.
War in the North was surprisingly good! Hell even the story is great.
Bought it today. The animation during battle looks awesome. After 1-2 hours already getting new abilities. Bought a gamecube primarily for this and thousand year door.
A lot of these games were written with selling strategy guides in mind. Most people would buy these games with strategy guides to help them find all the secrets and hidden quests. Marketing!
Cool video. I forgot this game existed. I know you said you were playing the GameCube version, but I def saw PS2 button prompts on screen 😂
Lots of memories with this game :) one of the greatest Ps2 games for me
I enjoyed this game, though I agree that the story (especially at the end) was weak. One of my main gripes was that half of the characters just became irrelevant. The ranger and the dwarf were just kind of there after Moria, and the Rohirrim guy was barely notable even after he was introduced. Then the end is someone raises their sword and shouts "To Mordor!" and suddenly the party is at the top of Barad Dur fighting the Eye of Sauron itself, and presumably they're all killed when the tower collapses because they don't provide any epilogue for the characters (as far as I remember).
I’m a great fan of this. I have it on Xbox and still revisit that generation more than I probably play brand new stuff x
Definitely one of my most favorite games! I'd love to experience a next installment or something like that, in another franchise/universe.
Final Fantasy X already doesn't have the ATB system my man.
FFX uses the CTB System, Count Turn Battle, which makes faster characters get more turns than slower characters and allows your choice in actions to sway your position in the turn order much like the ATB system did, but without the inconvenient downtime waiting on bars, or the inconvenience of being interrupted while inputting an action.
The gameplay was really good. But yeah it does feel like you're the B-team Fellowship. The first half of the game you're trying to catch up with the real Fellowship, and the second half you're just trying to help them out (when they probably don't really need your help).
your lord of the rings replays are my favorite videos
first time a watched a video of you and i liked it very fun to watch
I have never raged so hard in my life in as when i fought Guthmog the second time at the bridge..
Holy crap that was a hard boss fight! Those two Orc sorcerers were a nightmare...
This game is amazing. I loved playing local co-op with buddies growing up. So much fun.
4:00-4:06
…i mean who wants to play Lord of the rings in 2022…
My OC: “You have My _Silver Controller!”_
i think i remembered the massive difficulty spikes at Pelenor Field when i fought those Haradrim Mumakil, it keeps stun my whole party and killed me lol
EA’s infamous Final Fantasy 10 clone! I just bought this and started playing it a couple weeks ago on ps2. I also just bought the strategy guide today as well. I haven’t gotten too far in it yet, but it seems pretty alright so far.
My advice, keep an eye on what skills your party is leveling before entering battle. Make sure that you are "farming" up skills you find useful instead of just learning them in order. Go to skills and read thu them and make a line toward appealing skills.
Also, things like stun and sleep are super useful, at least on average enemies or large groups, so focus on learning those skills first, and branch out after that. Your archer Elgost or something has an incredibly powerful sleep arrow attack that can put whole battlefields to sleep, allowing you to farm defensive and support skills quicker while the enemies are asleep. Idrials haste of the elves helps when you are focusing on power leveling a specific characters skill trees by giving them more actions per turn.
Sorry for the word vomit but hope this helps! I'm playing thru it on Hard and after a little grinding and key item pick-ups, i can handle anything tossed at me. Good luck!
I love your content about old games, reminds me of the golden era of PS2, for me the best video game that we’ve ever had. Greetings from Brazil
This was my second favorite rpg behind Gladius on gcn.
4 player glaius was awesome.
I loved this LOTR game so much! I even got the strategy guide for the game. It's the best LOTR licensed game of all time in my opinion.
Final Fantasy X for people who don't want to be called a weeb.
I remember playing this with my brothers I was the oldest& I’m 31 fuck this brings back memories haha