Went back to it a couple weeks ago having left around Isengard (thank you life sub). The nostalgia is real, I find the downscaled Middle-Earth as enchanting as ever. Looking forward to visiting Minas Tirith, Mordor, Dale, Erebor and all the stuff in the middle. I'll just have to get over Rohan and what is possibly the shittiest ever mounted combat implementation.
You can see how much of a product of its era the game is, it's funny. Shitloads of stupidly clunky/grindy systems all on top of each other, stats everywhere, 42309 skills, "stealable" mining nodes and chests... There's some merit in customisation, but here the driving force seems to be obscurity and time-wasting. Thankfully none of it really matters for casual tourism and overworld questing.
You can see how much of a product of its era the game is, it's funny. Shitloads of stupidly clunky/grindy systems all on top of each other, stats everywhere, 42309 skills, "stealable" mining nodes and chests... There's some merit in customisation, but here the driving force seems to be obscurity and time-wasting. Thankfully none of it really matters for casual tourism and overworld questing.