The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition is a Rated M for Mature action RPG of ages past brought back for a new generation. Check out our The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition review!
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The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition is a Rated M for Mature action RPG of ages past brought back for a new generation. It brings us the untold tale of Agandaûr, a Black Númenórean and servant of Sauron who has rallied a huge force at the ruins of Fornost. It’s because of this that a new Fellowship must rise to the occasion and defend the North before it’s too late. The game was originally released for the PlayStation 3 way back in 2011. That version was developed by Snowblind Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and we’re now getting a Nintendo Switch 2 port thanks to Aspyr.
You’ll be playing as Farin, Andriel, and Eradan. Farin is a dwarven champion who’s built like a tank, allowing him to take a ton of damage while also dishing out a beating. Andriel is an elven loremaster, and she will focus on using area-of-effect spells and healing magic. As for Eradan, he’s a Dúnedain ranger who can use stealth in his favor, battling with swords or using bows to attack from a safer distance. And while they won’t be the focus of this adventure, you will get to see some familiar faces from the series, such as Gandalf, Elrond, and Aragorn.
As the name suggests, this one is not going to be a remaster or a remake, staying a bit more truthful to the original release while also giving us some quality-of-life improvements. These include, for example, being able to hot-swap between the three characters with great ease, being able to trigger other characters’ secrets no matter who you’re playing as, being able to lock onto enemies, optimized UI/UX, autosaves, extra save slots, and gyro and motion aiming.
What’s different when comparing this Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition with the Nintendo Switch version? For the Nintendo Switch 2 version, we’re getting local co-op splitscreen, a target of 60 frames per second, as well as improved lighting and shadows and HDR support.
After the intro cutscene is over, you’ll be taking control of your character with the left analog stick as you use the right analog stick to move the camera around you as needed. Sprint by pressing and holding down the R button. Interact and perform context actions by pressing the B button. Lock onto targets by pressing in on the right analog stick. Perform regular attacks with the Y button, or land a heavy attack with the X button.
Melee skills are set to the ZR button, which you can combine with the face buttons to activate a character’s class skill, area of effect weapon skill, or heavy weapon skill. You can also press and hold down the ZR button and press left or right on the D-Pad to switch between the trio of available characters. Defensive skills are set to the L button. Hold down the L button to block incoming attacks. Press the L and B buttons to perform a push.
Ranged attacks can be used with the R button and other button combinations. Regular ranged attacks are used by pressing the ZL and ZR buttons. Ranged skills are mapped to the ZL and X button combination. Area of effect ranged skills are set to the ZL and Y button combinations. The last option is the heavy ranged skill, which is used by pressing the ZL and R buttons at the same time.
Press the – button to access your inventory. From there, you’ll be able to switch your equipment loadout so that you can try to stay one step ahead of your enemies with more powerful equipment. Be sure to add equipment in the slots for headpiece, shoulders, body, amulets, gloves, ranged weapons, left and right hand weapon, left and right hand ring, leggings, and boots! Press left on the D-Pad to use a power potion. Press right on the D-Pad to use a healing potion to restore some of your lost health.
As you defeat enemies and complete main quests and sidequests, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. Once you’ve obtained enough experience points, you’ll get a chance to level up. When this happens, you’ll be rewarded with 3 stat points as well as a single skill point. You can allocate these stat points to a character’s strength, dexterity, stamina, or will. As for skill points, they’re used to unlock additional nodes in the skill tree to secure new abilities and boosts, such as dual-wielding for one-handed weapons, an evasion technique, or a special quick attack that deals extra damage to a single enemy.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition is a Rated M for Mature action RPG of ages past brought back for a new generation. It brings us the untold tale of Agandaûr, a Black Númenórean and servant of Sauron who has rallied a huge force at the ruins of Fornost. It’s because of this that a new Fellowship must rise to the occasion and defend the North before it’s too late.
You can play through this one on your own, or make the most of the two-player online co-op, or the local splitscreen co-op, which is only available on Nintendo Switch 2 and not on Nintendo Switch. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition is out on Nintendo Switch 2 with a $19.99 price tag. There’s also a Nintendo Switch version of the game available for the same price as a separate purchase. Save files for one version are not compatible with the other one.
Disclaimer
This The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Aspyr.
