this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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I really disliked the lore, but it’s a great assassin’s creed style power fantasy type game.
Inspired choice to take Tolkien’s work and shoehorn in a “my dead family” narrative instead of engaging with anything interesting.
I appreciate that they tried to tell their own story within the existing world. I don't want to see LotR become a static, dead thing. A lot of their choices... were... uh... Sexy Shelob? wth? But I appreciate that they tried. The way they portrayed the Orcs was just gorgeous storytelling. Every single one of them is an irredeemably evil monster but they're all dripping with charisma, character, humor, weirdness. The first time a Troubadour Orc showed up to sing a diss track and beat me to death with a lute I couldn't stop laughing. It was so much better of a depiction of orcs than I've ever seen anywhere else. They understood and accepted that Tolkien's Orcs were smart. Industrious. Organized. Mordor had the strongest industrial and agricultural base in Middle Earth during the War of the Ring and the game reflects that. The Orcs weren't mindless brutes and only barely disguised racial slurs, and the game reflects that.
They had a lot of story beats that absolutely missed, but I really liked a lot of what they did. The idea of Celebrimbor building a final ring in secret to try to contest with Sauron was a very interesting idea and it ties in thematically with the existing story of the Rings; There is only one ruling Ring and Sauron is it's master. Celebrimbor's attempt to contest with Sauron using Sauron's own methods was doomed to fail. While the Three were created to protect and preserve Celebrimbor's ring was built to dominate and enslave, and so was doomed to failure according to the rules of Tolkien's world; You cannot defeat the enemy by the enemy's methods.
So, it's a mixed bag, but I like a lot of what they did and I do appreciate that they tried, and in some ways succeeded, to make Arda larger and stranger in ways that understood much of what Tolkien was saying.
The orcs are without a question the ABSOLUTE highlight of these games. Everything else is just - whatever. They realllly cooked with the orcs in their games though.
The nemesis system deserves some credit, too. The orcs themselves were terrific, but the combination of the top-notch character design with a system that gave those characters a context based on the player’s interactions with them took it to the next level. It was fun seeing an orc rise in the ranks because you killed his boss, or having an orc that you thought you’d killed return unexpectedly wanting revenge. The game even made losing to an orc fun. The orcs and the nemesis system gave those games so much replay value. A truly worthy use of an open world setting.
You are right but I consider the nemesis system kinda part of the whole orc thing like thats (as you said) part of what makes the orcs so great in combination with the writing etc. Like basically everything that had to do with the Orcs was gold.
Yeah, it’s the whole experience. Everything about it works together to make the orcs the best part of the game by a mile.
I love them so much. Even if gameplay was awful the orcs would be worth it.
Yeah absolute props to the writers and the folks that did the animations/faces etc.
Sexy Shelob would've worked if she hadn't been so dull.
The Shadow of War is less about the dead family, I don't even remember if they talk about that. But nothing justify Shelob as hot brunette girl.
Cowards, give us a hot spider if you insist on making Shelob hot.
I think there was a theme of Celebrimbor losing track of why he was even seeking revenge, and Talion trying to hold on to what he was fighting for, but I haven't played it in years and I didn't finish the game.