Lord of the Rings: War in the North

• It is pretty straight forward. The three characters have a few twists, but are more or less identical in effect, if not in style. The story is surprisingly good, actually.

-After a while you can respec, so don't sweat what you pick in your talents or stats.

-Some secrets can only be detected by a certain character (the elf can open elf doors, the dwarf can bash down certain walls, the ranger can find arrow stashes), and you will only see the secrets of the character you play. You'll have to replay the level as another character to find the rest. They just have normal treasure chest loot in them, however, and not all levels have secrets for all three.

-The dwarf cannot pick up herbs for potions (only the elf can), and they can be handy for some of the harder fights, even if they do clog up your inventory. You can make bonus XP potions that doubles your XP gain for a minute. Take it before you kill a boss and get mad XP.

-AI controlled PCs automatically level up their gear. I have not noticed any difference after trying to give them items, so I recommend just selling what you don't need if you do play solo.

-The item selection is a bit wonky, especially when it comes to the boxes with "pick your own quest reward". If you examine an item, but do not pick it, the selection will be "stuck" on that item, meaning you will pick it even if you have another item highlighted. Either pick directly upon first opening, or be sure to examine something before you pick it. This only applies to the multi-reward boxes.

-"Hero Mode" isn't very well explained in the game. Basically it means hit the enemy until the little yellow arrow shows up, then use a heavy attack. If that connects, besides stunning the enemy, you also do substantially more damage to everything you attack, so long as you don't get hit.

-Also, learn to dodge.

-The ranger's secrets only ever contain arrows and maybe a bow only ever for him while the other 2 create different drops for every human player in there, so don't feel like you're missing out on anything without his secrets.

-The ranger has a skill that makes headshots do more damage, and is a party-wide skill, so the dwarf and elf also do headshot damage. If you're playing with a friend who's playing the ranger, try and convince him to go down the archery tree to at least get one point in that skill. It makes a lot of bosses way easier since a number of them require ranged attacks at first.

-You can talk to a hobbit in the starting bar, and he'll ask you riddles after you make a bet. They're pretty easy riddles, and it is timed but it's pretty lenient, so you can look up the answers if you want. Bet the max you can and he'll keep wanting to double or nothing. By the end you'll have about 1k silver which will let you buy a pretty sweet weapon or at least armor before you head out.

-There are areas where you just have to kill things until the game says you're done before you can progress. If the game isn't basically screaming at you to pull a lever or something and you don't know how to continue, you're in one of those areas.

-Item sets are pretty different than in most games. Whereas in most dungeon crawlers/ARPGs an itemset is very specific gear, in WotN any armor can wind up being part of a set. I had a full set of Marksman gear by the third chapter, and would find new marksman gear to replace it. So find a set you like and start at least saving them because the bonuses may be worth more than the armor loss.

-Play with a friend if at all possible. The AI isn't really great at anything other than killing the kamikaze dudes and getting themselves killed trying to revive you. Be warned there is no way to disable in-game voice however, so if you want to use skype or some other VOIP you'll just have to mute the entire game.

-Seriously, learn to dodge.