4. Enemies and other dangers | LEGO The Hobbit LEGO The Hobbit Guide
Last update: 25 September 2019
Fights with enemies and monsters are not a rarity, in the case of LEGO The Hobbit, but the majority of them are not too demanding. In spite of that, it is worth knowing several important things, which have been discussed later in this chapter.
Definitely, most frequently in the game, you will be running into groups of orcs and goblins, which are similar to each other. First of all, it is worth knowing that goblins and orcs come in several varieties. The one that you run into most frequently is warriors and they can come without additional equipment or use a more or less durable armor. Of course, you will have more fun with the ones that do wear armors, because this kind of monster cannot be defeated after one or two attacks. What is even more, it may turn out that you also need to play a short minigame, which consists in wrestling. The premises of such duels, one on one, are always the same and they require you to tap, rhythmically, one of the indicated keys ( to learn more about minigames, see step 8).
Warriors are not the only type of enemies that you need to handle during the game. At the specific moments, you will also have to deal with archers and, regardless if the circumstances of the battle, it is a good idea to target then in the first place, because they can very quickly deprive you of your health hearts. Strive for battle at close quarters then, at which point the enemy archers are, virtually, defenseless.
Important note - some of the battles that you fight have an additional handicap, which consists in respawning of the enemies. This is undesirable, of course, because prolonged battles increase the risk of losing the entire health bar. The only way to break the cycle is to perform an activity required by the game, e.g. activation of a mechanism or reaching a ledge above.
Another category of opponents, which is quite common, are wargs, i.e. big wolves. What is interesting, these monsters are quite often ridden by the orcs and, for obvious reasons, this increases the threat that they pose. The presence of the "tamed" wargs can be used to your advantage, though. After you throw the rider off the animal, you can try to mount the warg yourself (by pressing the character switch key). At the same point, it is worth knowing that the game does not allow you to eliminate wargs, because they are easy to drive away, with one or two hits, landed in melee.
Finally, what is worth mentioning is the spiders, which you will be running into on a regular basis, since the moment at which you visit the Mirkwood Forest for the first time. Spiders are, usually, very aggressive so, you should not ignore them and elimination of them has the highest priority. The majority of spiders can be neutralized in the regular ways, although there appear, in the select locations of the game, ones that you can weaken only through a surprise attack. In such a situation, you need to switch to Bilbo, put on The Ring and approach the monster only then. Note - many fights with spiders are also participated by the much smaller varieties. Do not ignore them, because they too, can deprive you of health points!
Regardless of the type of the enemies that you encounter, pay attention to the hearts that they drop. If your character's health bar is not full, try to pick them up, thanks to which will return you to full health. At this point, it is worth pointing out that the health bar is COMMON for all of the party members. Therefore, replacing a wounded character with another one will not do the job. The good news, though, is the fact that the game does not recognize damage taken by the AI-controlled characters (therefore, do not worry if they have not been doing that well without your support), but only by the player-controlled one.
Battles with enemies are not the only situations, in which you risk losing your health. Just as important is to avoid improper interaction with the environment. What I mean here are, mainly, falls into chasms, which result from incautious movement along ledges or poorly-aimed jumps. Apart from that, you should watch out for traps, whose springing may have grave consequences. Fortunately, not all of the missteps mean instantaneous depletion of the health bar. An important piece of information is, e.g. that the game takes lightly to falling into streams that flow across the Middle Earth. Accidental falling into a stream results in a short cutscene of drowning, after which the character returns, sound and safe, to the nearest bank.
In LEGO The Hobbit the characters that you control cannot die so, losing all of the hearts in your health bar does not mean the necessity to start the game from the most recent checkpoint. However, this does not mean that there is no way, in which you are being punished for careless playing because, each depleting of the entire health bar, means the loss of 1000 studs (coins). I recommend, therefore, that you avoid making mistakes and watch your back during battles. This will allow you to gather studs faster and reach the Master Burglar status in the consecutive stages.