Last year’s GBA port of The Two Towers was a pretty good action game, an interesting blend of Diablo and Gauntlet: Legends set in the film version of Tolkien’s beloved book. Return of the King is pretty much more of the same, having almost exactly the same brand of hack and slash gameplay with a new storyline and a few new tweaks. However, last year’s game was quite good, so this doesn’t turn out to be much of a problem. While not much has been changed from last year’s installment, Return of the King is still a very fun and very solid action game.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King follows the plot of the film adaptation set to come out this December. You play as Aragorn, Gandalf, Eowyn, Gimli, Frodo, or Legolas (or two hidden characters) as you progress through the environments and events of the film, like the Black Gate, Minas Tirith, and the fight with Shelob. The storyline is told through movie stills and captions as you progress through the game.

The gameplay can be best described as Diablo on the GBA, only with less RPG elements. You guide your character through the game’s various levels and quests, fighting any and all Orcs and other baddies as they come your way. The game does feature some RPG elements. Your character will level up as they dispatch more foes, and you can find and purchase stronger weapons and items as you progress through the game.

Depending on which character you choose, you will go through different levels. Since the characters aren’t quite together during much of the movie, the levels for Frodo are quite different from the levels for Aragorn, and so forth. Characters with the same levels are paired up during the game, so if you are playing the Aragorn levels a CPU controlled Gandalf will be there to help you out.

The gameplay is straight hack and slash, and although characters have different abilities (like Legolas’ ability to shoot arrows from a distance), the game pretty much plays the same for each character. After a while, the constant fighting can grow quite repetitive.

The graphics are a step up from The Two Towers. The character sprites look more detailed and move a little smoother, and there are some notable special effects like water reflections. The environments look pretty good, although not much different from last year’s game.

The sound effects are quite good as well. The music is pulled from the films (in limited form, of course) and sounds pretty good on the GBA. The sound and voice effects are digitized, with realistic clangs and battle cries every which way.

Return of the King doesn’t really innovate over last year’s title, and the gameplay can get repetitive after a while, but all in all this is solid action game that I can wholeheartedly recommend for gamers who loved The Two Towers and want more of the same brand of hack and slash action.

Gameplay: 8.0
The same gameplay that made The Two Towers so fun is back, albeit with a few tweaks. There are a few additions to the experience system that give you more traits to level up and some new playable characters, but nothing that is too much of a deviation from last year’s game.

Graphics: 8.5
The graphics are very good. The sprite models are nicely detailed and very well-animated, and the environments look great. New to this version are some pretty impressive special effects, like reflections in pools of water.

Sound: 8.5
The music is brooding and appropriate for the mood of the game and sounds great. The sound effects also sound very good.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.5
Aside from the new storyline, a few new playable characters, and some graphical and sound tweaks, this is essentially the same game you played last year. Luckily, it’s still a good one.

Multiplayer: 8.5
The game has a pretty deep two-player co-op mode allowing you and a friend to stick your characters (keeping their experience points accumulated through the single player mode) into the fray together.

Overall: 8.3
While not a dramatic change from its predecessor, Return of the King is a solid action game that Tolkien fans would do well to check out.