3. How to play
Gems and Shrines
----------------
Gems are the currency of this game. Gems are frequently
dropped by enemies and can be spent at shrines. Shrines
are scattered throughout the levels and can be accessed
by pressing the R shoulder button. At shrines you can
sell your collected items, or purchase things.
Shrines:
Forge - Whetstones : Increases damage of your weapons.
Random Items : Buy a random item.
Shrine - Attribute Point : Buy an attribute point
Skill Point : Buy a skill point
Entwater - Ent Water : But Ent water, which will restore
Pool a killed character without any
penalties.
Liquid Pools
------------
Throughout the game are scattered various pools of
variously colored liquids that help your character.
Here is what they do:
Red - Fully restore your hit points
Blue- Fully restory your spirit points
White Pool 1 - Gives you an experience bonus
White Pool 2 - Gives you a temporary strength bonus
(White Pool #1 has a fancier design than White Pool #2)
Corruption (Eye of Sauron)
----------
The Eye of Sauron in the upper righthand corner of the
screen represents your character's amount of corruption.
The larger the eye becomes, the tougher and stronger your
enemies become. Creatures like Crebain (crows) and Goblin
Drummers can alert Sauron to your presence, thus making
the eye even bigger. If the eye begins to pulsate, Nazgul,
or Ringwraiths will appear. They are tough enemies that
will destroy lower level adventurers. To prevent this
from happening, you can use these tips:
- If your corruption is too high and the enemies are too
hard, wait a while and your corruption will fall.
- Kill all crows and drummers that your find. Legolas and
Gandalf can hit crows even before they take flight.
- Don't wear items that reduce your purity.
- Increase skills that increase your resistance to
corruption.
- Don't overuse skills that increase your corruption.
- Don't use the One Ring skill with Frodo too often.
- Don't overuse the higher level magic abilities of
Gandalf.
Difficulty
----------
In this game you can change the difficulty from the
default normal to two others, Hard and Grueling. These
can be changed in game by pressing select. When you
change the difficulty the monsters become faster, hit
harder, have more defense, and have more health. There
are bonuses:
Experience gained (Out of 100%)
Normal: 100%
Hard: 120%
Grueling: 150%
I can't prove if or if not item drops improve with each
difficulty. I highly doubt it though.
Stuck in a Level
----------------
If you are stuck in a level there are several things you
can do you beat it. Here are some tips that can help you
pass some of the harder levels. No level is impossible,
because this game is pretty straightfoward. If you stand
still, a flashing arrow will direct you and tell you
where you need to go next. If you are stuck in a level
then this could be your best chance. Here are some other
hints:
- In outdoor levels there are usually paths which you
can follow. More often then not (especially in the early
levels), this paths will lead you directly to the end.
- If you are Gandalf and searching for the Balrog, his
footprints act like a path. If you just generally follow
the footprints you will find the end.
- When rocks fall in an area blocking a path a new path
is created where there used to be rocks.
- In Moria, closed doors are always opened with a lever
or a switch.
Bugs
----
Even though this game is great and is very fun, it does
have a fair amount of bugs and errors. While none are
crippling, knowing some them can help prevent some
problems with your characters. Other bugs (like the
Overdraw and item throw bugs) can actually help your
characters and be exploited to make the game easier.
List:
The Whetstone Bug: after buying the final whetstone
(for 12,000 gems), stat points can no longer be purchased
from Shrines. Watch out for this one. You also can't
buy Ent Water if you buy the last whetstone.The last
whetstone is called the Mithril Whetstone.
The Secret Movie Save Bug: If you press select and save
during the secret ending movie with the cave troll, the
save file becomes "corrupted" and the character becomes
stuck, which means his data is lost and must be restarted.
The Legolas Overdraw Bug: As Legolas, if you charge up
your normal shot and hold the overdraw button, and
release the normal shot, Legolas can walk around with a
fully charged overdraw which can be released at any time.
The Nonexistent Weapon Throw Bug: Aragorn can use sword
throw with no sword equipped. I'm pretty sure this works
with Frodo, too. It looks pretty comical and can do some
major damage.
The Item Duplication Bug: This bug works in many linked
games, where one player sends an item to another but
doesn't save his game. Voila.
Safe Spot from Balrog: There are a couple spots you can
stand in during the Balrog fight that make you take 0
damage from the Balrog. Just an ordinary spot near the
bottom of the room.
Disappearing Crow: There is one part in Amon Hen (the boat
area after you go to the shrine) with Frodo, theres a crow
that disappears and gives you corruption instantly, it's
sitting on a wall near the bottom-right.
Strange ladder in Amon Hen - There is a strange ladder
coming out of the ground... Like the ones from the Helm's
Deep stages when you have to destroy them, except theres
a ladder in Amon Hen... and its coming out of the ground!!
You can destroy it and it will look like the ones at
Helms Deep. Weird...
Pointless Gandalf Bug - (Lord Ragnoroks)
When playing as Gandalf: In the level where you must fight
and kill the Balrog, all you must do is kill him. But
before Gandalf says his last lines in the level after the
Balrog is dead, quickly press SELECT and save the game.
Quit the game and load it again. You will start the Balrog
level again. However, note that Gandalf is no longer grey.
He will be white instead.
Rollback of Skill Points Bug - If you accumulate over 255
skill or attribute points (a very hard feat w/o using a
cheating device), then the number will reset to 0. You may
want to watch out for this one if you cheat, but I guess
it serves you right... ;)
Funky-looking Characters - This bug has happened to many
people (including myself), where the enemies will become
different colored for some unknown reason. In my specific
case, the Uruk-Hai became flashing white blobs. Hmmm...
It doesn't seem to affect save data though, and the next
time through the level they were back to normal, so this
bug should be considered an oddity and not a risk.
** Questionable bugs **
Resist One Ring having no effect - Many people have
complained that Frodo's passive Resist One Ring skill
doesn't actually do anything. I'm not sure if it does
NOTHING, but I would recommend putting in more than just
a few points in before judging it. |
Gameboy-Games.com Home Page 
