Quote Originally Posted by Big D
Ah, so you got to play the game while it was still in development...
I've read through all the major sections on your site. I like the idea of the character-specific ability trees - seems to provide the freedom of FFX Sphere Grid, while still ensuring that the characters each have their own specific set of skills.

Any info on Wizards? I'm hoping that either Radagast the Brown, or one of the Blue twins might show up, seeing as they did absolutely nothing in the books.

I'm a big fan of 'underdog' characters... where the original LotR stories focussed on the greatest heroes and the greatest quest, TTA turns the spotlight to a less significant, but no less real crew with their own objectives and motives. Nice.

Edit: How's the voice-acting? I heard a few lines during a brief preview on Gamer TV, and it didn't seem all that remarkable... but then, I didn't get to hear much at all.
There are a few skills that more than one character has, but for the most part they're very character specific. By the time I was done with FFX, all my characters had the same abilities. My own fault of course, but I've always prefered character specific things, in which FF has been rather lacking for quite some time.

If you didnt see the characters in the movies, they wont be in the games. It sucks, and it's a let down for the hard-core LotR tabletop guys behind this (you should have seen the table set up, I think there's some pictures on EA's official site, in the community day section), but that's copyright laws for ya, or whatever. I didnt see any wizards, excluding of course Gandalf and Saruman.

I agree about the underdog thing, my main enjoyment in this comes from the different perspective this game offers. I've always wondered what everyone else in Middle Earth was doing at the time. How long before they knew what was happening? What'd they think? Didnt anyone else want to do anything about it? That sort of stuff.

The voice acting seems pretty decent. Of course the voice overs by Gandalf are beautiful, the voice actors for the characters seem pretty good. It's not anything that knocked me out of my seat, but they seem to fit; in particular I remember Idrial's voice, it seemed very fitting of an Elven maiden.

As for the comment about 'making your own characters' from Sephiroth., I cant really thing of any traditional RPG that lets you do that, so why would this one? Anyway, Battle for Middle Earth should satisfy that craving, and in TTA, the characters are pretty customizable, and the armor is so extensive that you can really have a hand in the way your character appears.

Some more things I liked, now that my mind is clear -
-The armor includes all the things recent FF's have been lacking; helmets, full armor, greaves, etc, and they actually appear on the character at all times, even in the cutscenes.
-Lots of customization in general
-All the neat things more 'hardcore' RPers want, but enough normalicy to entice first timers. Your starting characters are rather basic, you aquire cooler (in abilities and what not) people as time goes on.
-Very faithful to the LotR story

And more to come, I'm sure.