LEGO The Hobbit

Genre: Open-World 3D Action-Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

.

Review:

LEGO The Hobbit is a family-friendly Open-World 3D Action-Platformer released in 2014 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U, with an entirely different game bearing the same title also coming to PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS in 2014. As the title indicates, this game takes the usual Traveller’s Tales formula for making LEGO videogames and applies it to the Hobbit film trilogy (and to a lesser extent, the book that trilogy is based on). Well, to be more accurate, this game is based on the first two films out of the trilogy, as this game came out over a half a year before the release of the third Hobbit film.

In many ways, this game feels like a retread of LEGO The Lord of the Rings, a game that skipped Nintendo consoles (with a version of that game coming to Nintendo DS and 3DS without the Open-World elements). Add to this the fact that it’s generally agreed upon that the Hobbit trilogy of films just wasn’t as good as the Lord of the Ring trilogy, and one could certainly view this game as a lesser retread of sorts.

At the very least, the visuals in this game are excellent, with some wonderful detail in the game’s natural-looking environments adorned with plastic LEGO blocks, and some really nice lighting and shadow effects. There’s some pop-in here, but it’s fairly tolerable. This is all backed by music and voice work pulled directly from the films, which does a great job lending gravitas to the game, despite the simplistic and silly-looking characters.

For the gameplay, you have the standard LEGO 3D Action-Platformer stuff that is well-established in Traveller’s Tales’ games at this point, as well as a decent-sized Open World… well, okay, as an Open-World, this is sorta’ borderline, being more a series of interconnected open areas, and with access to parts of the world locked off until you reach that part of the story. However, while it’s a bit debatable, I tend to lean in favor of this qualifying as “Open World”.

Having said that, I do have some issues with a lot of the busywork this Open World is filled with. As you’re running around breaking stuff and completing tasks for various characters, you won’t only be collecting the little LEGO “studs” and content-unlocking glowing bricks, you’ll also be collecting a variety of different materials, ranging from wood and ores to fish. These are used to bet past certain obstacles, where you’ll be given a laundry list of items to obtain before being allowed to pass. The game even has traders dotting the world who will give you one type of material in exchange for another.

I wish I could tell you that this makes for a thrilling search for the proper materials leading to a sense of accomplishment, or that this game has a deep crafting system where your face will light up at finding the last component you need to forge an incredible new weapon. Sadly, nothing like that happens, and this just feels like more busywork.

There’s also a new element to combat, with your characters able to team up either side-by-side or in a “totem pole” fashion to unleash more powerful attacks on enemies and breakable objects. While this was clearly intended to add more nuance to the simple combat system, it’s often frustrating to try to line up the characters you want to join together and get them to actually do it, especially when you’re swarmed by enemies.

In the end, I think LEGO The Hobbit is still a fun game, but so much of what it did that’s great was already done previously in LEGO The Lord of the Rings, and the additions made here, while sound in theory, ultimately detract from the experience more than they add to it. If you’re a fan of the Hobbit films, I think you’ll find this an excellent companion to those films. Otherwise, you may be better off sticking with other LEGO games.

tl;dr – LEGO The Hobbit on Wii U is yet another Open-World 3D Action-RPG in Traveller’s Tales’ family-friendly LEGO franchise. This game has many of the same elements as the console version of LEGO The Lord of the Ring, but it adds in some new elements that just make for more busywork and tedium. This is still an enjoyable game that will be a great choice for those who are fans of the Hobbit films, but if those films didn’t thrill you, I think there are other better LEGO games that will be a better choice for you.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}