I’ve long thought that aside from the co-op gameplay, the handheld versions of the Lego games have offered a better, more polished experience. Is that still true in this game? Yes and no.

For a start, this has more bugs than I’m used to in the handheld games. Characters and scenery turning invisible, the character switcher not working properly, quest markers not being marked, and even a crash to homescreen, seldom seen on 3DS. Some of these are clearly the result of poor testing and QA on the game, which is a disappointment but not wholly unexpected from Lego games given my experience with them.

I mentioned the quest markers, but the whole system is also confusing. There’s no map as the “bit that’s not levels” is part open world hub, part Donkey Kong Country-style routed map, but you have the ability to pan around it. The system works well enough when you get used to how to control it, but the game gives you no way to keep track of quests or quest-related items. It’s a bit of a mess, and the rewards are a tad unsatisfying. (Also: the text is riddled with typos.)

On the other hand, the gameplay may be the best yet of these scaled-down titles. We have the “smaller levels and more of them” structure, varied between “puzzle”-solving levels and more combat-oriented ones. But the combat is more fun than the console game, with super moves, a dodge/charge, and ranged attacks on a different button that give you more options to keep it fresh. They’ve cut jumping, which sounds odd but gives them an extra button to work with and the levels are designed to require it only contextually, a smart move. Boss battles are also less QTE-heavy, which was the worst part of the main game.

Each level has a set of 10 challenges, which may be finding hidden items, completing under a certain time, not taking damage, etc. It’s a great idea to give you different objectives depending on the focus of the level, and really makes replays feel worthwhile.

I’ve heard that these design ideas that make this stand out from the previous simple scaled-down console ports were introduced in Lego Marvel Super Heroes (handheld), and further refined in The Lego Movie game (handheld). These aspects (the level structure and combat) have thus come out feeling good, but it leaves the quest system feeling half-baked as it hasn’t been used since Lego Lord of the Rings, and in fact may be worse than it was then.

Having now seen the third movie, my concerns about not including it have dissolved. There’s only a couple of new locations, which are included in the “hubs” of both versions of this game, and the only significant events are some battle scenes which I’m not too sad on missing out on. In fact, now that I’ve completed both games, I hope they don’t have any plans for DLC or another game.

Overall I’m quite happy with this one. Struggling through iOS versions has taught me to appreciate physical buttons and the second screen, not to mention the lack of in-app purchases, which made playing this on 3DS much more pleasant. The controls and interface are less clunky, and the characters and their abilities more balanced than the console version, making each one feel useful and cool at different times. Galadriel has wizard powers! No awkward item switching! Ahem.

These types of games tend to be overlooked; the big console release is accompanied by sometimes a very different game coming to less powerful systems, and sometimes that smaller version is ignored. In this case, I reckon that once again the handheld version is a better game; apart from, of course, the ability to play with a loved one co-operatively, which is such a valuable experience that it balances out the sloppiness of the console game. Maybe one day we’ll have the best of both worlds, or maybe they’ll let TT Fusion handle the main event for once. Well, I’ve been there and back again on Middle-Earth Lego games so until Lego The Silmarillion, farewell.