#unhinged lotr mobile game saga

[rohirric-hunter]

Okay so there is one glitch that occasionally crops up in the unhinged lotr mobile game that interferes with gameplay: the Mordor Engineer/Rókma has an attack where he throws an explosive at an enemy, which damages that enemy and adjacent enemies. Now, normally this isn't an issue, since when facing off against him he's typically my absolute first priority to take down, specifically because this attack is so devastating.

However, it's also devastating in an unintended way; occasionally he will somehow miss with this attack, the projectile will fly off the screen, and then the battle will be locked. Everyone will just stand there. No more enemies will attack and the player will not have the option to take their turn. You can't even retreat. The only way to get out of this is to force quit the game and load it up again.

[rohirric-hunter]

I'm gonna get kicked out of my guild on the unhinged LotR mobile game when they realize that after I acquired Halbarad I immediately stopped leveling any other heroes and just started pouring all of my resources into leveling him.

[rohirric-hunter]

Okay so usually the character design is good in this game, but, uh

Who needs to see faces? Distracting, if you ask me.

He did not at any point reposition his staff so that his face was visible.

[rohirric-hunter]

What does the skill do? It's a surprise!

[rohirric-hunter]

Okay so I was going to do a really involved review of the Unhinged LotR Mobile Game (otherwise known as LotR: Heroes of Middle-earth) but I'm tired and don't have energy for that, so here are the quick hits:

It's a gacha game, and it's published by EA. Draw your own conclusions.

This review is based off of 100% free gameplay. I have paid $0 for this game.

Lore: Good. 8/10. Game is based on the book and plot elements were clearly designed by someone familiar with the source material. Hero lineup consists of characters from the book, characters that were mentioned in passing in the book but have been a little bit fleshed out and expanded upon, and completely original characters. The latter fit in well with the lore and have convincing names that are, for the most part, based in Tolkien's actual languages or borrowed from elsewhere in the legendarium. Dialogue is lifted directly out of the book in general; when it deviates from these the language used is noticeably different. Minus one half point for that, minus one point for using a ring of power as a leveling mechanic, and minus one half point for female dwarves not having beards.

Gameplay: Typical. It's a gacha game. 6/10. There's never enough energy to actually get anything done in one sitting, as per usual, purchase packs are WAY overpriced, and no particular effort has been expended to make plotlines coincide with the combat mechanic especially well. There has been one special event since I've been playing, where they released Arwen as a hero. There were six stages to the event and I was able to complete five. The sixth required me to have leveled Arwen to five stars in order to complete, and in order to do that I would have had to have either paid $20 for the real world money Arwen pack or got incredibly lucky with the RNG on the in-game gems Arwen pack. However, I am not torn up about this as there was no plot to the event and the rewards were gold and upgrade materials; nice to have, but easy enough to get elsewhere. I am unsure if there are any plans to repeat this event or whether Arwen and other event characters will be available after their events have ended, and this information does have a significant impact on my final opinion of the game. However I'm overall satisfied; it seems to me that the highest levels of this character are locked behind a paywall, but I got a good solid hero that I'm actively using on one of my teams. Points added back for not locking auto-battle until you've manually completed the battle already and for forwarding uncollected daily rewards to your in-game inbox, great quality of life features that other gacha games would be wise to take note of.

Graphics. Fine. 6/10. This rating will doubtless go up over time, as the game is currently plagued by graphical glitches. No apparent impact on actual gameplay but there's quite a bit of A-posing (Frodo and Sam have a combo attack that seems to cause all goblins to A-pose), the Mordor Taskmaster/Úzhan occasionally interacts with the wrong character during one of his skill animations, sometimes when closing out a gear inspection window and going back to a hero's main page will cause them to sprout a second head, which is a bit terrifying, and a few other minor gltiches that are really weighing down the score in this department. But as I've said before, the art style is really fun and unique, I love almost all the character designs, and there are a lot of really good artistic choices (for example: the homepage link to the events page takes the form of a stained glass window, with a really pretty image of whichever character is in focus in the current event). The only probably permanent issue that drags this point down is that some of the combat backgrounds are a bit silly; the heroes are standing on water, or obviously about to run into a wall as they run from one combat stage to the next. But overall the game is really nice to look at. The music is nice too.

Plot. I'm not gonna give the plot a number rating because I like it, but it's not for everyone. You, the player, find a random ring on the ground and put it on because you're not genre-savvy I guess. This ring gives you the power to influence characters from LotR in order to direct them as heroes on the battlefield. How this works is not expounded upon, and it doesn't matter because it's a leveling mechanic. But some other nefarious person is also influencing characters from LotR and they're trying to change the plot, and you have to stop them. Or at any rate, that's what I was told? It seems that sometimes I'm also helping them -- but as this is all just an elaborate excuse to pit completely random teams of heroes together I expect it wasn't thought out quite as thoroughly as it it should have been. Or maybe I just haven't got far enough in the plot to understand it yet. I'm always open to that. Anyhow, I've gotten invested in the subplots mainly through the mechanics of 'it's really mean to Aragorn' and 'they made Uglúk really funny.'

Overall I'm not gonna give it a number rating. Would I recommend it? If you like gacha games, yes. If you like that kind of plot, I'd recommend it just to run through the light and shadow campaigns and look at the pretty graphics.

EDIT: forgot to mention before that this game has been out for roughly one (1) month so that's why I'm so forgiving of the graphical errors.

[rohirric-hunter]

Yes, the two essentials that every Dunedan keeps on their person in order to survive. Ink and a glass vial.

[rohirric-hunter]

Update on the mobile game: it censors "Shagrat" in chat.

Including the guild notification for when someone unlocks Shagrat. Who is a character. In the game.

[rohirric-hunter]

*nods sagely* Ah, yes, {decimal:children_heal}, objectively the best number

[rohirric-hunter]

This mobile game is so funny but like not on purpose. I mean it lifts a few jokes directly from the book, but hasn't really attempted any original humor of its own yet. But the game is legitimately so funny. Early on in the light campaign one of the battles is briefly interrupted by some dialogue, where Aragorn offers an impassioned and heartfelt plea to a mind-controlled Arwen to remember who she is and fight the evil controlling her. But I had autoplay on and the second the dialogue was over, without a moment's hesitation, Frodo ran past Aragorn and stabbed her right in the back. Not even the slightest concern for the fact that this person clearly means a lot to his friend. Stab first, ask questions later. When Halbarad first appears he and Aragorn exchange a few words remarking on how odd it is to see goblins this far north (this far north being, like, right outside of Rivendell, you know, a day's easy march from the Misty Mountains), and then as soon as the dialogue ends and the combat starts there are goblins all right, but there are also a bunch of completely unremarked-upon Haradrim, which is, in my opinion, a much stranger thing to see "this far north," but apparently of no concern to the characters. The use of Earendil as a tutorial framing device in a game that includes a light and dark campaign was possibly the funniest choice imaginable, due to the fact that at a certain point it has to be explained to the player that there is also a dark campaign (he said bitterly, with a bitter expression) that needs to be completed as well, and is super worth it, he promises, definitely, and he's definitely setting out to convince you and not himself.

This isn't an indictment of the game, BTW, good LotR adaptations take themselves very seriously, but maybe they also have a little more RNG control

[rohirric-hunter]

Well at least one video game here knows to give Halbarad a halberd

[rohirric-hunter]

So I downloaded this LotR mobile game expecting it to suck so I could sink maybe six hours into it, make fun of it on the internet, and then move on, but I actually kinda like it???? More detailed review to follow once I hit level 20 and unlock all the features but it's based primarily on the book (always a plus for a LotR game in my opinion), has a fun art style, and I'm already interested in the story in the light campaign.

[rohirric-hunter]

I see somebody's read the book

[rohirric-hunter]

Points deducted for having a crafting system that makes no damn sense

Points restored because I couldn't be bothered to pick up login rewards yesterday and instead of forcing me to miss out on rewards (which are often essential for advancement in this type of game) they just mailed them to me, removing the stress of needing to log in every day. IDK if this is something they'll always do or if it's some kind of new player boost but it's light years ahead of what any other games I've played in this genre do.

[rohirric-hunter]

It always annoys me when these hero collecting games have multiple versions of the same character with different abilities and styles, but I guess a LotR based game is more justified in that choice than most other places I've seen it.

[rohirric-hunter]

It's called having blorbos sir