Here are the things you can learn by playing Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth:
- to play a campaign, not forgetting the game on the shelf after one, two or at most three games;
- to live the atmosphere of one of the best fantasy worlds that have ever been created (I'm not saying the best, because the taste is personal, but that it is among the best is unquestionable!);
- to live an adventure, on the basis of a collective imagination, but with something new and different, which expands the imagination itself;
- to experience the mixture of APP / board game.
PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS / IMPRESSIONS
The game has a really spectacular APP, very well designed, detailed, functional, intuitive (ah, I work as a computer programmer), in short really super-promised evaluated as APP in itself: it never happened to me that I crashed, the graphics of the APP is nice and follows the atmosphere of the game, there are five SLOT rescue and the adventure is accompanied by beautiful music
original (although Lorenzo thinks they're disturbing and makes me turn down the phone's sound). There are, of course, small details that could be improved: the first need I heard is to have a voice narrating, to enable or disable, so that players are not forced to stay with their eyes on the display of the phone for too long (Lorenzo again tells me "No, but I like to read Dad, makes us understand more things"), another thing is that it is forbidden to make mistakes, there is no way back and when it happens (and to me a couple of times it happened) you have to get by somehow. The APP manages the master in an excellent way, but sometimes, at least to my personal taste, you have the impression of spending a little 'too much to interact with this rather than with the map of the game and with the miniatures.
One of the points in part sore, especially in relation to other games in which there are thumbnails, is the average quality standard of the thumbnails of this game. Those of the company are sufficiently characterized and even without being painted know how to be very distinctive, but perhaps missing something to make the player be amazed and, in general, those of the heroes are better than the characters of the shadow, which - say - get enough, but do not go far beyond the same. Also noteworthy is the fact that there are no 3D scenic elements, replaced by cardboard tokens: personally I have not particularly suffered the choice, but perhaps this could make someone turn up the nose, especially in this historical moment where the visual impact is worth more than much else (even in relation to price, not cheap).
The game is really very fun, the atmosphere of Middle-earth are recreated very well and, I speak to fans of the Tolkian world (and something my nickname might suggest), I really felt immersed in Middle-earth: the details have often made the difference to increase the sense of travel and adventure within this. Here a choice not to be shared - and the only real fault of the game, in my opinion - harms the setting a bit: the cards are in a very small format, penalizing the beautiful drawings and making it not too easy to read the text on them, especially on those that contain several lines. The thickness of the cards is adequate, but even I, who am not a serial bagger, am seriously considering this option, given the high number of times they are shuffled with each game. Cards with larger dimensions would have been useful from different points of view.
The characters have predefined roles: Bilbo is the burglar, Elena the singer, Gimli the guardian and so on ... but nothing prohibits changing the roles of the characters, indeed it is also fun to know new decks and to increase the difficulties of the game, since the cards may not be optimized and the tests more difficult to overcome.
Personally, as is increasingly used today, I would have done a zero adventure to learn about the characters, the cards and how to operate, it is true that the first adventure is quite simple, but still is not a zero adventure, especially considering the fact that at the end of the mission that is assigned, whether this has been completed successfully or not, you can advance to the next trip of the campaign, but risking to get to the final mission badly.
equipped and unprepared to deal with the threats facing Middle-earth. In addition, the way in which we complete the different missions will influence the progress of the next ones, making them easier or difficult to deal with, and move on the map in a certain way, exploring it more and facing more challenges, while on the one hand increases the risks of failure on the other allows you to take better equipment and increase the level of experience; will then be the players, from time to time, to decide how much to risk (in some cases and with a bit of luck you understand quite easily how to complete the mission) before succeeding in the purpose that has been assigned to us (thus modulating in some way even the duration of the game).
In this area I like the growth of the character with the advance of the journey and in general the improvements of the Company, the growth of the character is perceived and is certainly useful to address the various missions that follow.
The game is, overall, a nice cooperative, which, like several other co-ops, lends itself well to be played in solitaire mode. I stress as absolutely positive the fact of having, alongside the manual, a compendium of rules, which will help ... and not a little, especially in the first games and that will certainly be opened more than once.