In contrast to the version of the game available for the Game Boy Advance, The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age for consoles presents players with an entirely new cast of characters, none of whom are mentioned in either the books or the films. The game does have some connection to the films, since it incorporates footage from all three films, along with additional background speech provided by Ian McKellen (Gandalf).
In addition to the seven characters that can be controlled by the player, the likes of Gandalf, Aragorn, Eowyn, Faramir, and Gothmog make cameo appearances throughout the game. Each of the seven playable characters was designed from the ground up for this particular game.
The game covers the events in all three movies and books, with the majority of the focus being on references to significant events presented through cut scenes or the sequences from the movies with narration provided by Ian McKellen.
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is a classic role-playing video game that has gameplay elements that are similar to those found in Final Fantasy. In both games, you control a party of characters, each of whom has a unique set of abilities and characteristics, and as you progress through the game, your characters level up and become more powerful. The player has a certain amount of time between turns to think about what actions they want to do and how those choices might affect the result of the fight. The Pelennor Fields and Moria are only two of the many locations in Tolkien’s Middle Earth that are visited throughout the course of the game.
