One way only

Just a few days ago we discovered that the third and final film inspired by JKK Tolkien's novel of the same name, The Hobbit, has suddenly changed its title. It will no longer be called Round trip as originally announced, but The Battle of the Five Armies: a high-sounding title that will certainly attract much more attention in the name of the god of money.

One way only

It is the umpteenth choice that made Tolkenian purists turn up their noses, after the decision to transform a more or less short story into three films of three hours each and to add a female figure absent in the original story to grab an audience. more varied. And these are not the problems of Peter Jackson's two excellent films, which, ten years later, has returned to materialize Middle-earth in our cinemas as only he knows how to do: between drops in rhythm and questionable editing, We liked An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, but with some reservations. We could say the exact same thing about LEGO The Hobbit, which appears to be faithful to the source in all its strengths and weaknesses.



LEGO The Hobbit is a good title but suffers from the same slowdowns in pace as the movies it inspired

A trip that is a bit taken for granted

The fact that LEGO The Hobbit has been released now, straddling the success of the second film, is probably the cause of all the problems of the game: the development seems to have been hasty and uninspired, the title itself is actually incomplete.



One way only

The Desolation of Smaug has just come out on DVD and Blu-ray and we will have to wait until next December to know how it will turn out - unless you've already read The Hobbit, sure, and if you haven't, try to fix it - but the same goes for the TT Games tie-in which, to avoid anticipations of the sequel, ends exactly like the film, with Smaug flying towards Pontelagolungo. "What did we do?" Bilbo wonders in the last scene of the film and the game: well, we went through sixteen brick-filled levels, eight per film, destroying and building everything as we passed environmental puzzles and battled enemies and bosses. Any "LEGO game" in short, why LEGO The Hobbit does not differ from the formula that TT Games has accustomed us to, if not for some news that we will focus on shortly. LEGO The Hobbit, on the other hand, is a faithful adaptation of the film that employs the same ruse as LEGO The Lord of the Rings: the ironic cutscenes are accompanied by the original dub of the film (subtitled in Spanish, of course) and the superlative soundtrack of Howard Shore. They basically serve to link the various levels and condense the story, but we found them less hilarious and original than those admired in LEGO The Lord of the Rings due above all to a timing and originality of the gags that are not exactly optimal.

One way only

The characters, however, are all there, as well as the most significant locations of the two films in which the stages are set: from Bilbo's house in Rivendell, passing through the Misty Mountains and Moria up to Pontelagolungo and, of course, Smaug's lair. . Just like in LEGO The Lord of the Rings there is a miniature version of Middle-earth to explore freely between levels and to focus on once the story levels have been completed: as per tradition, at that point it is possible to control all minifigs unlocked to find every hidden treasure, object and secret, enabling additional characters and employing their peculiar abilities to reach otherwise inaccessible points. The technical picture is more than satisfactory and further confirms what has already been suggested by the latest multi-platform LEGO games: TT Games seems to be at ease on next gen consoles, definitely the best and most stable versions among those proposed. The next gen game graphically has very little, attention, but the frame rate is much more stable and the amount of details and elements on the screen from time to time appears impressive. Thumbs up, in short, and from this point of view LEGO The Hobbit seems to be a tasty appetizer of what we will see in the years to come.



PlayStation 4 Trophies

Also this time it will not be difficult to unlock the forty trophies of the game: twenty-seven bronze, eight silver, four gold and platinum. It will only take a lot of patience, because for example you will have to complete the story, of course, and collect all the minifigs and millions of bricks.

To be concluded

Coming out so far in advance of the end of the film trilogy, offering only the tie-ins of the first two films, was a risky strategy on the part of Warner Bros. Interactive, but then it was discovered the beard: The Battle of the Five Armies levels will arrive at the end of the year, coinciding with the cinematic conclusion, in the form of DLC. Whether it will be free or paid is still unclear, but we doubt those eight new levels are a Christmas present for players. After all, LEGO The Hobbit is not exactly a content-poor title, even if it turned out to be one of the shorter LEGO games. If anything, the problem lies in the downtime that dot the game sessions and in the not-so-interesting minifig roster. Starting from the second problem, LEGO The Hobbit offers a good number of memorable cloths to wear, but there are many more simple extras or characters borrowed from the rest of the Tolkenian saga if not recycled from LEGO The Lord of the Rings. Even the skills shared by the various minifigs are definitely less than the super powers seen in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, for example, but some environmental puzzles we particularly liked for their originality, even if some turned out to be less clear than usual, forcing us to change character a bit at random in search of the right one.



One way only

The company of the dwarves alone offers no little variety in terms of skills, including Bombur who "transforms" into a trampoline, Dwalin who can fix objects with a hammer and so on. To spice up the gameplay, however, TT Games has not limited itself to implementing "combined attacks" inspired by scenes from the film or a whole series of quests scattered around the huge hub that is Middle-earth, but also a kind of crafting system which, on balance, turned out to be the worst feature of the game. Practically, in addition to the canonical "stud", materials and precious stones will now be collected that can be consumed to build objects to equip or use to complete missions or unlock new paths. Sometimes it will be mandatory to devote ourselves to crafting to continue in the main quest, and not infrequently we have found ourselves short of raw materials and therefore having to go far and wide to collect them or exchange them with some NPCs. As interesting as it is, this mechanic causes quite annoying drops in pace that already interrupt the not particularly hectic one of the various levels. Definitely something that we could do without in the next LEGO games, if not revised and corrected to perfection.

Comment

Version tested: PlayStation 4 Resources4Gaming.com

7.0

Readers (15)

7.3

Your vote

Here we are at the third "LEGO game" released in six months: on the occasion of the review of The LEGO Movie Videogame we had expressed our concerns regarding the frequency with which TT Games was publishing its tie-ins, and LEGO The Hobbit confirms our opinion. The brand needs a break period that allows TT Games to regenerate it and return to amaze us. LEGO The Hobbit is certainly not a bad game, but it lacks that quid that made LEGO The Lord of the Rings or the most recent LEGO Marvel Super Heroes unmissable. And the fact that it is to be concluded with a DLC definitely left a bad taste in our mouth.

PRO

  • Faithful and hilarious tie-in of the two films of the same name
  • Some interesting news is not missing
  • Visually it is one of the best games from TT Games
AGAINST
  • Heavy drops in rhythm
  • There is also some disappointing news
  • It is practically incomplete
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