Review for The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game. Game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 29/08/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 05/11/2019 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 05/11/2019 The version for Xbox One came out on 05/11/2019
Fantasy Flight Games, after the great success obtained by the board game of The Lord Of The Rings, he decided to transform his board game into a digital content by exploiting the experience of Asmodee Digital. Initially released on PC using the Steam vault, LOTR: Adventure Card Game arrives on the gaming market in a cross-play system between the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch consoles.
The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game tells an unprecedented story in Middle-earth, set between the adventures of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The prologue, which serves as a very long tutorial on game mechanics, tells the exploration of Bilbo Baggins, intent on reaching Beorn's abode to meet the dwarf Glòin. As he advances into Mirkwood, a swarm of spiders kidnaps him and a group of heroes, consisting of Aragorn, Arwen and Gimli, organize to save the hobbit. Having so many characters inspired by Tolkien's works certainly encourages the purchase of LOTR: Adventure Card Game in all fans of this fantasy work.
Going into the details of this title, it should be specified that The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game is an intensely narrative video game, in which the battles between decks play an important part of the gameplay. Once the long tutorial is over, we will have the opportunity to create a deck or use some pre-built decks. Each deck begins with the choice of three heroes, different in type and characteristics: Tactics, Traditions, Spirit and Command. Each character, or cameo as it is defined in the video game, has a specific characterization and passive ability: Aragorn, for example, can spend a unit to activate the Wave ability, Arwen allows you to heal an energy at the beginning of each turn, Gimli increases his attack by one if an ally takes offensive damage. Once you have chosen the initial heroes, you will have to compose a deck of thirty cards from the collection.
In addition to these characters, each deck of The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game is complemented by Allied cards, such as a Rohirrim Lancer attacking from a distance; Ability, which offers the possibility to increase the will of a character; Traps, which affect the field of the player and Sauron; ed Equipment, like the Dwarven Ax which increases the attack of each compatible card by one. Each character can equip up to four different objects, although these must have a different type of assignment, it is therefore not possible to equip different weapons to the same card.
We mentioned the spirit, this together with the attack strength and energy make up the three characteristics that each card is equipped with: attack is the offensive value that marks the amount of damage each offensive action does to the enemy, spirit is the value that allows you to unlock certain events and increase the player's bar, energy is the amount of damage a card can suffer before to be beaten. The player bar, called the Destiny bar, allows you to activate bonuses and peculiar attacks once a certain number is reached.
Our opponent, always played by Sauron, in turn has a bar of Terror at his disposal, which if it reaches its peak marks the defeat in the level. The rank of Sauron's bar will initially depend on the Heroes chosen in the player's deck, Aragorn makes it significantly increase more than a Bilbo who has the characteristic of being a stealthy character.
Coming to the gameplay of The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game, each campaign is divided into multiple chapters and each chapter is divided into multiple duels, only by winning all the duels at once is it possible to unlock the next level. This increases the difficulty of the title, considering that the player's cards do not recover energy between a duel and the other, while those of Sauron do.
After each duel, an English narrator tells the story, which can still be followed by a translation into Spanish. At the beginning of each level, you are allowed to choose the difficulty level between storytelling, adventure and challenge. Each difficulty varies Sauron's skill and the number of additional units at the start of each turn. Whatever the difficulty level choice, Sauron always has a full hand and entire units at the start of each turn, making the challenge level very high.
Once you have drawn your starting hand, you are given the opportunity to change cards by randomly drawing new ones from the deck. Each turn is divided into several phases: upkeep, attack and final phase. In the upkeep phase the passive abilities of the cards are activated, while in the attack phase the offensive actions take place. During each turn, as mentioned, you start with a certain number of units that allow you to play the cards from the hand to the playing field, stronger cameos need to spend more units, this means that sometimes it is necessary to limit yourself to attacking without play new cards for a chance to use a more complete one the next turn, as the number of unused units is added up each turn.
Once all the units are consumed, no cameos can be played for that turn, except those already active on the battlefield. After making an attack, except for cards that have a passive ability that allows multiple attacks during the same turn, a cameo becomes unusable until the start of the new turn. Some cards have the ability to fly, so they can only be attacked by cameos that have a ranged attack, such as spearmen or archers. Once the flying cards have performed their action, they descend onto the battlefield and therefore can also be attacked by melee attacks. Each card also has the ability to attract attacks on itself, very useful when you want to preserve a Hero from the enemy's offensive. Once each duel is over, you will receive an in-game coin and rewards.
This coin, called a fellowship, allows you to purchase new cards, new illustrations and various items in the in-game shop. In the title, Asmodee Digital has not included a microtransaction system, so the only way to unlock additional items is to replay each level several times. However, if you are not connected to the internet, rewards cannot be obtained. The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game can be used in cooperative multiplayer, combining the deck with another player's to challenge Sauron. The cooperative challenge offers a much easier level of difficulty than the classic adventure.
The illustrations of the cards are really interesting, some of which, as mentioned, can be purchased as additional elements, as well as the soundtrack that is quite similar to the music of Peter Jackson's film trilogy. A point against, however, for the length of the title. LOTR: Adventure Card Game campaigns are few and Asmodee Digital has stated that they intend to add more by releasing free DLCs. The narrative level is excellent, which frames the whole adventure in Middle-earth, inspired and at times decidedly realistic.
The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game is a very inspired title, which has tons of references to the original book, from characters to settings. A deep gameplay, combined with a decidedly consistent difficulty, allow an adequate level of challenge and together with the translation into Spanish, with the exception of the dialogues in English, make this work a complete and must-have title. We recommend purchasing on a PC, unlike the Switch, as a stable internet connection is required to take full advantage of the video game. LOTR: Adventure Card Game has been able to carve out its space in that section of the videogame market of digital card titles.
► The Lord Of The Rings: Adventure Card Game is an RPG-Strategy-Turn-Based-Adventure-Casual-Party Game-Card Game developed by Fantasy Flight Games and published by Asmodee Digital for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 29/08/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 05/11/2019 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 05/11/2019 The version for Xbox One came out on 05/11/2019
