RetroGaming

I kind of love the GBA Fellowship of the Ring game. My parents got me a GBA SP when I was very young, and this was the first game I ever had on it. The beautifully crafted world, especially in the early part of the game, sucked me in. I'd find out later that every NPC's name is based on an actual book characer in Tolkien's lore. I loved the riddles, I loved the puzzles, I loved having to play music on stumps to summon Tom Bombadil and the elves. I figured out the money duplication glitch all on my own, without the internet or guides.

The SNES and GBA eras of games were a wonderful era where games were text-heavy without voice acting, and this game along with any others jump-started learning to read, and actually really helped me out in school. Eventually this game would get me to read the Lord of the Rings books, which is to this day my favorite book series ever.

I wouldn't have gotten into turned-based RPGs without this game. It's a little janky, sure, but I really like how the minimalist mechanics encouraged an almost Resident Evil-style resource management mindset. And, especially by the time you got to the Barrow Downs, every encounter was a serious threat and you would want to avoid them whenever possible, unless they were blocking where you needed to go. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this game is one of the better-executed, um, horror RPGs that I've played, and it did a wonderful job of invoking the same dread the Hobbits felt in the books when they left the shire.

Still stressed about the part where you're trying to avoid ring wraiths while sneaking out of the shire.

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 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 it for the PC. Don't think I ever got actually out of the Shire. Still have fond memories of it.

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!

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 had this on GBA, and about 2 hours in the whole game would crash every time. Amazing stuff.

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