The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest offers a streamlined, family-friendly take on the epic fantasy world of Middle-earth. Retelling key moments from the films through the eyes of Aragorn, the game features accessible hack-and-slash combat, simplified exploration, and even a co-op mode where a second player can control Gandalf. While it lacks the nuanced storytelling and depth of other Lord of the Rings titles, Aragorn's Quest serves as a lighthearted adventure for younger fans or those wanting casual action within a beloved universe.
Why? I would say making an Aragorn game designed for a very young audience is the worst LOTR gaming decision, but Gollum exists, so I can't. I was 10 when I played this and it still felt too young for me and a massive fan of LOTR and Aragorn was disappointed.
Seriously, what is this game?
Who was thinking, "Man, you know what the world REALLY needs right now? An Aragorn game! Surely there's a stone that was left unturned with this character!"
If you want to see Aragorn in his prime, watch the movies.
Who was thinking, "Man, you know what the world REALLY needs right now? An Aragorn game! Surely there's a stone that was left unturned with this character!"
If you want to see Aragorn in his prime, watch the movies.
A game that I was obsessed with as a kid and one that I don't think deserves nearly as much hate as it gets.
Like, yes, it's incredibly simple in terms of combat and story, but it was a game that was made for 7 year olds (which I was on its release), not grown man babies. And I thought it was an absolute hoot and a half.
Like, yes, it's incredibly simple in terms of combat and story, but it was a game that was made for 7 year olds (which I was on its release), not grown man babies. And I thought it was an absolute hoot and a half.
i remember tree yeha
Played this as a kid and they say I finished, but I dont remember lol
Another crappy DS port. PSP owners were fucked over again.
tenho um apreço especial pois joguei muito na infância, mas tenho q admitir q já achava maçante naquela época
meh
Aragorn’s Quest is a retelling of Lord of the Rings which, oddly enough, starts at the end – the battle at the Black Gates of Mordor. You take control of Aragorn right in the heat of battle, slashing right away with the Wii Remote. It’s a fairly short scene where you battle through a few waves of orcs, trolls. Then it’s boss time, and the Balrog steps through the Black Gates, ready for battle.
LotR fans may notice something wrong there, but don’t worry – Aragorn’s quest doesn’t mess around with the franchise that much. The scene cuts to Frodo Gamgee, son of Samwise Gamgee, stating that the Balrog was never at the Black Gates. Part of Aragorn’s Quest takes part in the Shire, fifteen years after the events of Return of the King. Samwise is getting a party ready for King Elessar and you help out as Frodo, wielding a wooden sword and shield, and can explore the shire completing quests and playing games with other young hobbits.
The shire is only a small part of the game – it serves as a tutorial for the combat, and you can take a break in between missions to complete more optional quests, which serves as a nice break from the main story. Aragorn’s Quest is a simplified tale of Strider’s role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as told by Samwise Gamgee (and actor Sean Astin). There are eight missions set throughout the events of the films, with a mixture of combat missions and fetch quests – with the beginning of the game containing a tiring amount of fetch quests before they completely vanish towards the end, leaving only combat.
Developers Headstrong Games (who you may know from Battalion Wars 2 and HotD: Overkill) have put a lot of effort into the combat system. Basic sword attacks are performed by swinging the Wii Remote in one of for directions or thrusting it forward. Unlike a lot of hack-n-slash games on the Wii, Aragorn’s Quest rarely misinterprits your actions – the moves perform on screen are exactly what you want. The nunchuck takes care of your shield, and shaking it performs a shield bash, similar to Twilight Princess. As you progress, you unlock extra weapons to replace your shield: a torch, a spear and a bow. The bow works wonderfully – when you select it you point the Wii Remote at the screen to aim and use B to fire. Most of the time the camera shows the targets you want so using the bow never interrupts the gameplay.
Along with special attacks, pick-ups and horseback combat, the fighting is a well-thought-out system that works beautifully. Alas, there is one main problem: as it’s aimed towards kids, the difficulty (even on the highest settings) means that the full depth of the brilliant combat system is rarely used. For most of the game flailing your arms wildly will work, but it’s more fun to use the advanced moves.
While some closed areas, such as Moria, look rather bland, Aragorn’s Quests graphics literally shine in outdoor levels. Lots of long, flowing grass, plenty of foliage and rays of sunlight make for some gorgeous levels – riding through Rohan on horseback is a particular highlight. The stylised look (which reminds me of The Hobbit back on the GameCube) lets the game take advantage of the Wii’s hardware. The engine can also manage hundreds of enemies on screen at once without any slowdown, enabling some massive and busy fights later on.
The main quests can take between 8 and 10 hours to complete. It can get a bit repetitive at times, but the game paces out new items and enemies so there’s always something new to look forward to. In the unlikely event that you’re still eager for more after completing the game, you can explore the rest of the shire, complete side-quests in the story mode and find all the collectibles – some of which require a bit of exploration.
Aragorn’s Quest is a bit of an oddball – and in a surprising way. On the surface it seems like a short re-telling of Lord of the Rings for kids, and due to that you would expect the developers would be able to churn out any old rubbish. Despite this, Headstrong Games have put a lot of work into the graphics and in creating excellent controls and a great combat system – it’s just a shame that the nature of the game makes these go to waste. Aragorn’s Quest is a fun and entertaining romp through Lord of the Rings, and is perfect for playing over a rainy weekend.
LotR fans may notice something wrong there, but don’t worry – Aragorn’s quest doesn’t mess around with the franchise that much. The scene cuts to Frodo Gamgee, son of Samwise Gamgee, stating that the Balrog was never at the Black Gates. Part of Aragorn’s Quest takes part in the Shire, fifteen years after the events of Return of the King. Samwise is getting a party ready for King Elessar and you help out as Frodo, wielding a wooden sword and shield, and can explore the shire completing quests and playing games with other young hobbits.
The shire is only a small part of the game – it serves as a tutorial for the combat, and you can take a break in between missions to complete more optional quests, which serves as a nice break from the main story. Aragorn’s Quest is a simplified tale of Strider’s role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as told by Samwise Gamgee (and actor Sean Astin). There are eight missions set throughout the events of the films, with a mixture of combat missions and fetch quests – with the beginning of the game containing a tiring amount of fetch quests before they completely vanish towards the end, leaving only combat.
Developers Headstrong Games (who you may know from Battalion Wars 2 and HotD: Overkill) have put a lot of effort into the combat system. Basic sword attacks are performed by swinging the Wii Remote in one of for directions or thrusting it forward. Unlike a lot of hack-n-slash games on the Wii, Aragorn’s Quest rarely misinterprits your actions – the moves perform on screen are exactly what you want. The nunchuck takes care of your shield, and shaking it performs a shield bash, similar to Twilight Princess. As you progress, you unlock extra weapons to replace your shield: a torch, a spear and a bow. The bow works wonderfully – when you select it you point the Wii Remote at the screen to aim and use B to fire. Most of the time the camera shows the targets you want so using the bow never interrupts the gameplay.
Along with special attacks, pick-ups and horseback combat, the fighting is a well-thought-out system that works beautifully. Alas, there is one main problem: as it’s aimed towards kids, the difficulty (even on the highest settings) means that the full depth of the brilliant combat system is rarely used. For most of the game flailing your arms wildly will work, but it’s more fun to use the advanced moves.
While some closed areas, such as Moria, look rather bland, Aragorn’s Quests graphics literally shine in outdoor levels. Lots of long, flowing grass, plenty of foliage and rays of sunlight make for some gorgeous levels – riding through Rohan on horseback is a particular highlight. The stylised look (which reminds me of The Hobbit back on the GameCube) lets the game take advantage of the Wii’s hardware. The engine can also manage hundreds of enemies on screen at once without any slowdown, enabling some massive and busy fights later on.
The main quests can take between 8 and 10 hours to complete. It can get a bit repetitive at times, but the game paces out new items and enemies so there’s always something new to look forward to. In the unlikely event that you’re still eager for more after completing the game, you can explore the rest of the shire, complete side-quests in the story mode and find all the collectibles – some of which require a bit of exploration.
Aragorn’s Quest is a bit of an oddball – and in a surprising way. On the surface it seems like a short re-telling of Lord of the Rings for kids, and due to that you would expect the developers would be able to churn out any old rubbish. Despite this, Headstrong Games have put a lot of work into the graphics and in creating excellent controls and a great combat system – it’s just a shame that the nature of the game makes these go to waste. Aragorn’s Quest is a fun and entertaining romp through Lord of the Rings, and is perfect for playing over a rainy weekend.
Hoy día lo veo con peores ojos pero para nada me parece mal juego.
It may be a strange game, but it's my strange game
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.
joguei quando eu era criança e juro que parecia muito melhor
The LOTR franchise has been struggling in the games department since the movies came out. While there have been amazing LoTR games the adventure games have been slacking since Return of the King. Aragorn’s Quest is a sneaky thing because it just retells the story of the movies in Aragorn’s eyes using the movie actors and it’s kind of lame. While the movies are great please let’s move away from there and do something original.
The combat is lackluster and is pretty disappointing. You can find abilities and equip them and these come in pretty handy for more powerful enemies. You can buy new attacks, find new weapons, armor, and bows and these are all pretty useful. You can level up by killing enemies, but you can’t distribute the points at all. The whole RPG thing is very bare bones and I would have liked to see more depth here and more customization, but it’s not there.
Actually doing the combat is boring since you just mash heavy and light attacks and most enemies are dumb and are easy to kill. You can parry and counter-attack, and use your bow for far-off enemies, but it’s been done before so many times. Every enemy attacks almost the same, and while there are a few good moments there just aren’t enough. Running around highly linear levels and hitting this switch, find four stones to open this door, hit that switch is really annoying.
The game doesn’t look very good either with an isometric perspective and doesn’t sound too hot either. The game is just boring, and easy, and drags on longer than it should. I was really looking forward to this game, but with just a few more months this game could have been something epic.
The combat is lackluster and is pretty disappointing. You can find abilities and equip them and these come in pretty handy for more powerful enemies. You can buy new attacks, find new weapons, armor, and bows and these are all pretty useful. You can level up by killing enemies, but you can’t distribute the points at all. The whole RPG thing is very bare bones and I would have liked to see more depth here and more customization, but it’s not there.
Actually doing the combat is boring since you just mash heavy and light attacks and most enemies are dumb and are easy to kill. You can parry and counter-attack, and use your bow for far-off enemies, but it’s been done before so many times. Every enemy attacks almost the same, and while there are a few good moments there just aren’t enough. Running around highly linear levels and hitting this switch, find four stones to open this door, hit that switch is really annoying.
The game doesn’t look very good either with an isometric perspective and doesn’t sound too hot either. The game is just boring, and easy, and drags on longer than it should. I was really looking forward to this game, but with just a few more months this game could have been something epic.
Lol, what can I say about this game other than "I only subjected myself to this for the easy platinum trophy". This is not only clearly a game for children, but clearly a game meant to be played on the Wii. The pointer controls with a Dualshock 3 are unbearable, and I had to rely on glitches and bugs simply to get through certain parts of the game without motion controls. Not to mention the performance. A PS2-looking game running badly on the PS3? That's certainly something, isn't it?
Oh, I forgot to mention - I'm pretty sure this game BROKE MY PLAYSTATION 3. I was getting frequent freezes and crashes when I started playing Aragorn's Quest that I didn't get with previous games at all, and then one day the whole console simply couldn't boot up a game without completely freezing. So thanks, Aragorn, for that. This game originally cost me $7 but ended up costing $137 because of the WHOLE NEW CONSOLE I had to get after playing it.
Still got the platinum trophy though lol.
Oh, I forgot to mention - I'm pretty sure this game BROKE MY PLAYSTATION 3. I was getting frequent freezes and crashes when I started playing Aragorn's Quest that I didn't get with previous games at all, and then one day the whole console simply couldn't boot up a game without completely freezing. So thanks, Aragorn, for that. This game originally cost me $7 but ended up costing $137 because of the WHOLE NEW CONSOLE I had to get after playing it.
Still got the platinum trophy though lol.