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.
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I drew something from my personal hc about Stricklake.
Like I said before, she 100% braids his hair.
And also he stole her glasses once.
And I LOVE to draw him in random clothes because he looks so good with it.
And yes Barb wears his blue turtleneck and if you look close enough then you see that she has her wedding ring!
Another small hc:
• Barbara gave him a bracelet (one of those that you can't get off because it will eventually fall off itself) and he is very careful because he dosen't want it to fall off.
• Barbara stole half of his cloths because she just wants to. And because she looks good in them-
And by the way I want to say thanks to all the people who found my account and liked some of my post! really I appreciate this :)
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