There are several video games that over the decades have drawn on the immense fantastic imagination born from the pen of J. R. R. Tolkien to give life to experiences embroidered within the universe of The Lord of the Rings and, although many times we have seen productions reach the market very distant from each other, from the excellent Shadow of Mordor to the less successful Gollum, it is inevitable to think about how much the developers and publishers have just scratched the surface of the British author's extraordinary literary heritage with their creativity.
This is demonstrated by The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, a game that no one had ever thought of making, but that contains within it a very suggestive promise, that of launching us into the exploration of one of the most emblematic places. throughout the Tolkien anthology. In fact, the mines of Moria represent a cardinal chapter of the adventure faced by the Company and since the announcement, the idea of a survival focused on the reconquest of the lost homeland of the dwarves had easily managed to conquer all our enthusiasm. , even if it were a small studio like Free Range Games, making his absolute debut with a production of this stature.
If you too have been involved in the possibility of playing a survival game set in the world of The Lord of the Rings, say "friends" and enter our Review of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, before the Watcher in the water catches you!
In Moria there is still a breathing dwarf
Being a cooperative survival game in which gameplay is the undisputed protagonist, we did not expect Return to Moria to boast who knows what narrative ambitions, but the work of Free Range Games does not completely renounce the ambition of wanting to tell. an original story, woven by the developers with the sole purpose of providing a solid prelude to the exploration of the lost kingdom of Khazad-dûm. We find ourselves in the Fourth Age, which opens with the destruction of the One Ring and the subsequent defeat of Sauron, an era of peace and reconstruction in which Gimli, the dwarf member of the Fellowship of the Ring, presumably before leaving for Valinor In the company of Legolas he decides to gather contingents from all over Middle-earth with the sole objective of recovering Moria and delivering it to his people.
After some vicissitudes, we will find ourselves living Gimli's aspirations as absolute protagonists, in the role of a customizable dwarf through an editor that is not too deep, but effective in giving the character his own personality. After confirming the options, what awaited us after the introductory film is not at all a pure and simple survival, but to our surprise a third-person adventure with some very strong elements of that type, which however develops linearly, between main and secondary missions, between rooms and mines of a Moria often indistinguishable from the one described by Tolkien in the books and shown by Peter Jackson's camera in the 2001 film.
Lots of exploration, very little agriculture.
We talk about adventure for a reason, since although Return to Moria has all the Classic features of a typical survival game. - such as crafting items, carefully managing your dwarf's energy, hunger and sleep - its structure requires players to delve deeper and deeper into the procedurally generated underground city, trying to find the reason why all the Entrances to Moria are sealed by a mysterious curse. Exploration is, therefore, the key component of the offer developed by Free Range Games, while farming takes a backseat throughout the adventure, given that the resources necessary to improve equipment are not at all difficult to accumulate. , but they are found only and exclusively. when the developers deem it appropriate.
In fact, the entire experience seems calibrated from a very precise point of view. progression mechanism, which aims to put constant pressure on players, who are constantly faced with threats that go beyond their capabilities. In fact, Moria is infested with orcs, goblins, and every other type of monstrosity, and each enemy is always disproportionate in terms of danger to the character's abilities, at least the first time you venture into a new section of the world. In Return to Moria, therefore, it is not about accumulating the right amount of iron, steel or gold to forge that weapon that makes the enemies in a specific area more manageable, but rather about finding within it those deposits of resources that we need. . had not yet been found, and that unlock access to weapons and armor with which to defeat increasingly stronger categories of adversaries.
Taking into account that the focus of all the work developed by Free Range Games falls precisely on exploration, we generally appreciate some stratagems that the developers have conceived to make it more challenging, but also considerably more rewarding. For example, we really liked the option of entrusting a good part of the navigation within the dwarven city to paths that players can create with absolute freedom, using simple wooden platforms. These are placed on the stage in a very intuitive way and can be essential to continue the adventure, but also to reach a deposit of materials apparently out of reach.
If on the one hand it is extraordinarily satisfying to make your own way through the deteriorated rooms of the mines of Moria, on the other we will be continually tested by some survival dynamics designed with the sole purpose of making exploration very dangerous. for the less astute dwarves. Return to Moria is an exceptionally punishing survival game, and in addition to having to control the character's hunger and fatigue to prevent him from running out of strength, the game entrusts us with the management of another statistic, specifically linked to the oppressive evil that still resides. inside the mountain. The city is a dark place, a very sad page for the dwarven civilization, so staying in the dark for too long is never a good idea, since the character little by little begins to lose clarity before falling into total despair, a state that slowly depletes your health. Of course, the multiple recipes available on the creation tables offer excellent solutions to the problem, since we will not only have the opportunity to cook excellent meals to take with us during the exploration, but also tasty beers and natural infusions that will always prove to be an excellent remedy to the evil that has settled in Moria.
The shadows of Moria
In addition to these positive aspects, we cannot fail to highlight the flaws in the work carried out by the small Californian studio. Return to Moria is an experience undoubtedly capable of creating excellent atmospheres, however the game is plagued by a series of defects which unfortunately affect key aspects of production, in those fields where a survival game should not make mistakes at all. Let's start by telling you about the combat system, which simply highlights all the limitations of a studio in its first major project.
Facing goblins, orcs and other creatures is the most common activity of all in the corridors of the lost city, so it caught our attention to find A crude and imprecise combat system., governed by a set of clunky animations and insufficient AI across the board, getting stuck and derailed in almost every crash. The entire sector is created with a disarming superficiality, exactly like everything related to housing, which in Return to Moria seems to have been left half-finished, lacking ideas and solutions capable of guaranteeing a satisfactory experience while building an outpost.
The adventure developed by Free Range Games, as we have said, is exquisitely linear, however it is still essential to establish a settlement, in order to centralize the accumulation of materials and the object creation stations. Returning to the outpost is very easy thanks to a well thought out fast travel system, however, the entire construction system The base is barely outlined, since despite the good number of stations, everything else is missing. There is no furniture, no decorations, there is not even the possibility of creating a real home, since there is not even the shadow of a roof on the menu. Ultimately, the only thing players can do is develop a wall around their camp, which is not the best for a survival game that comes to market after the standards set by experiences like Valheim.
Finally, it is necessary to emphasize how all technical sector Return to Moria is not at the level conferred by the license of The Lord of the Rings, because if it is true that the settings are well created and suggestive, the models and animations of enemies and creatures are very far from what we could have expected. In addition, we encountered a very annoying error related to the loading of assets in the game world, which produces an insurmountable barrier when trying to move between one area and another. The studio has already taken action with a corrective patch, but it doesn't seem like the situation has improved drastically yet.
Finally, the sound sector also reveals all the inexperience of the team: there are dubbing lines that are repeated without justification and sound errors are the order of the day, while there is no soundtrack that does not make you regret that of Peter's films Jackson. In short, many errors on the part of a studio of very modest dimensions, a real shame considering how Free Range Games was really close to creating a title of absolute quality.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Epic Games Store Price 39,99 € Holygamerz.com 6.5 Readers (27) 7.4 your voteThe Lord of the rings. The return to Moria is, above all, a splendid missed opportunity. The survival of Free Range Games, beneath the surface of its defects, hides a well-defined soul, which can be seen reflected in the gold and gems that occupy the belly of Moria, reconstructed here in a fantastic way, also thanks to the atmospheres that Fans of Tolkien's works will only appreciate it. Therefore, if you are a fan of survival and The Lord of the Rings, we still advise you to put yourself in the shoes of a dwarf and live the experience created by the Californian studio, aware that at the moment the game is very far from being one. . modern standards of survival experiences and for this reason could hardly be appreciated by fans of the genre.
PRO
- The atmospheres of Moria are reproduced perfectly.
- The choice to focus everything on exploration is very appropriate.
- Lots of references to the book and movies.
AGAINST
- The combat system is crude.
- The dynamics with which settlements are built are barely mentioned.
- Technical section that highlights all the inexperience of the development team
