Tech note: For this gaming blog I'd been using the emulator Visual Boy Advance M-64 (64 bits).
The Hobbit for Game Boy Advance (Synopsis).
On 24 October 2003, developers Saffire brought us The Hobbit for the Game Boy Advance, a videogame based on J.R.R. Tolkien's wonderful literary work of the same name. This videogame was published under the protection of the then very famous company: Sierra Entertainment. The Hobbit is an action-adventure videogame with an isometric view, in which the player controls the main character of Tolkien's literary work, Bilbo Baggins, and in which we will explore the story of The Hobbit with sufficient fidelity to the book, but with some variations in the story, such as the existence of characters that do not exist in the original work from which this videogame is inspired. Combat is hack and slash style, where we can manage our equipment and items through a very well-designed inventory.
The introduction we are given in The Hobbit is truly worthy of Tolkien's work, and by this I mean that from the very beginning we are given a clear picture of the map of Middle-earth, in the Hobbit author's characteristic style. We are quickly given a brief tour, and we see how we start in the iconic village of The Shire, home of the Hobbits.
An unexpected visit: For the very famous wizard, Gandalf the Grey, has arrived at Bilbo's house, where he kindly asks the Hobbit to enlist for a very important adventure for which he needs our services. He also indicates that the reward if Bilbo survives this adventure is incalculable.... He then asks us to prepare a feast because the wizard is waiting for other companions.
The next thing to do is to enter Bilbo's house and start searching through all the chests and storages inside the house in order to find pieces of food to prepare the welcome feast for Gandalf and company. Inside the house I was able to find two pieces of meat which would not be enough, so I have to keep looking outside the house.
Bilbo's diary says that he is to 'meet Groco Proudfoot at the Green Dragon Inn in about an hour'. Then I met a hobbit boy who was playing with some firecrackers that Gandalf had given him, so he decided to give me some too.
Entering the game inventory. Really one of the most striking features of this Game Boy Advance release of The Hobbit is the inventory it offers, with a very well designed, intuitive and easy to use interface. The first use I had for this inventory was to manage the use of firecrackers to try to break a blockage in a water well.
The firecracker was useful to destroy the blockade that had the water well, but I immediately fell to the bottom of it, I guess those Gandalf firecrackers were broken or something lol because they exploded too fast.
I found a Rune Shield inside a chest in the interior of the water well. These Rune shield works as an increase in the Defense points of Bilbo Baggins.
What a great job the developers did on the character movement. Look at that moves! Omg the smooth movements of Bilbo are just amazing, considering that this game was made for the Game Boy Advance and under an isometric view style, the fact that this game has such fluid and diverse movements just seems impressive to me. What a great job the developers did on the character movement.
When I left the water well, I visited Grandma Boffin's house, and found that she was ill, so she assigned us the mission of looking inside her house for a healing potion to cure her, and in return she promised us a good reward if I helped her.
I had to search Grandma Boffin's house extensively to find the healing potion, which I found and gave her. It turns out that Grandma Boffin got better, and as a reward she gave me a bag with 25 tokens, which for every 50 tokens I manage to collect will grant me an extra life :)
Ha ha ha look at those stealth moves :D . Bilbo looks really funny when he uses the stealth feature. The game starts to show this mechanic when you have to pass through a sleeping dog without waking the dog in order to open the small gate of the fence and advance in the map. You can activate the Stealth mode just by pressing the L button in your GBA or the keyword that you assigned in your emulator for the L-button game settings.
And my day is spent helping the Hobbit community of The Shrine, as another grandmother in trouble asked me to help her with a wagon that got stuck in the mud of a lake in The Shire. So I decide to help her and push the cart out of the mud, so that the troubled grandmother can then give me another piece of meat, which I can of course use for the feast I have to prepare.
Without a doubt, Bilbo's loading mechanics reminded me a lot of the mechanics of our beloved Super Mario World on SNES :D . Later on I had to continue doing favours for the hobbits of The Shire, and in this case I had to get rid of some kind of vases that had vermin in them and the owner of the vase gave us more food and a token.
Food is used to recover hit points, or health in the game, so it will be vital from here on in to be mindful of always having food in your inventory.
When I arrived at the Green Dragon Inn I spoke to Groco Proudfoot and he told me that he had seen a large group of Dwarves and that they told him that they were going to my house in the Shire. So I went straight to my house and found a great surprise.
At last Gandalf was in the house waiting for his Dwarf companions, who soon arrived. And it's really comical how they arrive in a disorganized way, just like in the book and even in the fim :D I really liked this because it felt very close to Tolkien's work. Among other things Gandalf informs us that they would be leaving in the morning and that it would be up to Bilbo whether he wanted to join them on the adventure or not.
And so we come to the end of this first blog about The Hobbit games for GBA. I'm really enjoying this first sip of the retro adventure, especially in the narrative section so attached to J.R.R's work and in addition to the excellent gameplay that this video game from 2003 is presenting.
First of all, thank you very much for giving me some of your time and reading this post. I hope to continue bringing more Hobbit content to the GBA as soon as possible. For now until next time ;)
All the screenshots are taken from my PC - Screen & Emulator.
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