J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: Volume One

Moby ID: 17911
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J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - Volume One is a video game adaptation of the famous book, which is quite different from the computer game of the same name.

The events that occur in the game roughly correspond to those depicted in the first volume of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, though the game ends before the final chapters of the first book. The player takes control of Frodo Baggins, who must find companions for his quest. The game's locations, individual objectives, missions, and quests are structured quite differently from those of the computer release. Most of the quests involve retrieving items for various NPCs, thus advancing the narrative.

The gameplay is also different from the computer version, being less heavy on character development (role-playing), and more oriented towards combat, which is action-based in this release. Though up to three characters join Frodo on his quest, one player can control only one character at a time. Multiplayer has been therefore added to the game, with up to four players controlling the characters in the party simultaneously.

The game cartridge does not contain any RAM/battery; games can only be saved by remembering a code. The code must later be entered into the game to continue.

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Credits (SNES version)

27 People (23 developers, 4 thanks) · View all

Executive Producer
Produced By
Designed By
Art Design
Art By
Sound
Music
Lead Programmer
Programming By
Head of QA
Assistant
Lead Tester
Testers
Manual Written By
Manual Layout By
Special Thanks To
The Creatures of Middle-Earth
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 52% (based on 15 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.7 out of 5 (based on 12 ratings with 2 reviews)

The best snes rpg games music

The Good
This game has an interesting game-play, is an action rpg with a game-play simillar to games like (zelda, lagoon, secret of mana). The fabulous aspect of this game is its music, it is maybe the best rpg game music i've ever listened in a snes game. The opening song is awesome, the first time you listen it you feel like listening one of those good celtic music cds, the game is good mainly by this aspect. If anybody has the music in spc format or any other, please let me know.

The Bad
You need to read the book for understanding and solving many things in the game.

The Bottom Line
Action rpg, awesome excellent music, good gameplay, not so easy to play need to read the book, repetitive graphics.

SNES · by Ramiro Serrato (2) · 2007

Worst Purchase I ever Made for my SNES

The Good
The music is pretty grand. Its bright for the town, somber for the plains, dark for the caves and the Mines of Moria. Unfortunately, there seems to about five tracks total in the game.

Character sprites are well animated.

The Bad
The plot is extremely Tolkien-light, you pretty much get the edited highlights. The game ends before the first part of the book ends. The characters are faceless and totally interchangeable. Although they have face portraits, you only see these on the subscreen, a screen you wish you could see as little of as possible. The four hobbits all use the same sprites, step in unison and are distinguished only by the color of their hoods.

The character graphics are also rather small in scale compared to the rest of the screen, which can make for difficulty in attacking small enemies. Background tiles get reused constantly, so every cave looks the same. The game also suffers from a lack of enemies early on, as you only seem to fight snakes, wolves and bats. There is one "boss" monster in the entire game as I recall.

The hit detection in this game is truly irksome. Since you have not quite a birds eye view, hitting anything when facing up or down is an exercise in frustration. Metal Gear has the same perspective, but only striking downward had the same issue. Also, enemies seemingly can only be hit in one way. You will curse because what seemed to be a good hit was not registered. Interestingly, it is easier to hit with the hobbits in the first half of the game than it is with Aragorn in the second due to their hit animations. Controlling multiple characters in the second half, when you have 8-9 members in the party, leads to unnecessary hits and deaths. (I have never tried this game with the multi-tap feature, but if I did, my friends would evaporate just like my enthusiasm did for this game).

The final insult is that it takes almost five seconds to bring up the subscreen. What is instantaneous in virtually every other game seems to take an eternity here. And you will need to bring up the subscreen more often than you would like to use items and check your experience points. More than anything else, this shows a lack of attention to detail.

Passwords in an RPG from 1994? That is just simply inexcusable.

The Bottom Line
While it is not a great game, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I for the PC is far superior to this. Licensed games in the 80s and 90s tended to be crap, and this is a good example of how a licensed property was treated.

Bottom line : Why play this atrocious game when there are so many great RPGs available on the SNES instead?

SNES · by Great Hierophant (559) · 2011

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Game added by Vincent van Beveren.

Game added May 30, 2005. Last modified December 16, 2023.