Apparently, the company that made this had the rights to make a game based on the books, not the new line cinema films. So it was more directly inspired by the books. I remember borrowing it in high school for the GBA and thinking it wasn't bad. Wandering in Moria for ages. There's something charming about it and the graphics are more fairytale inspired which is interesting. If you google the PC version there's a lot of that early 2000s charm. Obviously most people would have played the EA published two towers game which featured events from the fellowship.
I recently started replaying the 1990 Interplay LotR game, which I have fond memories of playing as a kid. I also discovered they made a sequel which I never played, but intend to!
It's a top-down, party-based rpg with turn-based combat, and a fairly robust keyword-based dialogue system. Pretty clunky by today's standard, but it's chock full of loving detail. There are a number of deviations from the books for the sake of gameplay, but it's quite faithful to the spirit of the text.
You can find it on various abandonware sites, and apparently someone's also rewritten the engine!
I had the snes version of this which was more like a Zelda game but it had 4 person coop once you recruited the other hobbits. Was really good in my minds eye... Which means I should never attempt to replay it...
https://www.mobygames.com/game/17911/jrr-tolkiens-the-lord-of-the-rings-volume-1/
Interesting! Never got a snes growing up; my parents thought we played the nes too much, so it eventually went into the closet, and I transitioned to pc games. Looking at the screenshots, it seems to be a completely different game.
I think the pc version is still worth playing, for Tolkien fans that are willing to put up with a bit of jank.
I love abandonware. So many old and beloved titles.
Ive got the original box, CD and docs. I should break it out and see if it runs on dosbox. As I recall they used some Bakshi clips in it.