Ah, Lord of the Rings—a timeless tale of friendship, bravery, and magical rings… unless you played it on the ZX Spectrum. Then it was a tale of pixelated doom, cryptic commands, and Nazgûl-induced trauma.
Let’s talk about that part of the game. You know the one.
The bridge.
The Wraiths.
The soul-crushing futility of it all.
You’re Frodo. You’ve got a ring. You’re feeling hopeful. You’ve maybe even avoided dying to a random bush or a confused goat earlier in the game. Things are looking up! And then you get to the bridge.
Suddenly—WRAITHS.
Plural.
No warning. No strategy guide. Just death.
Now, you might be thinking: “But Frodo has the Ring!”
Yes. And it’s very pretty.
It also does absolutely nothing to stop these spectral lunatics from treating Frodo like he’s trying to skip a toll booth on their haunted overpass.
I tried everything.
Walking. Running. Praying. Throwing imaginary lembas bread.
Nothing worked. The Wraiths were like, “Nice try, halfling,” and sent me back to the loading screen that took 4 years to render from cassette tape.
I must’ve tried to cross that bridge more times than Frodo’s actually walked in the books.
Each attempt chipped away a little more of my childhood joy, until I realized something important:
The true Lord of the Rings wasn’t Sauron. It was the ZX Spectrum itself.
It ruled over my afternoons. It held dominion over my patience. And it taught me that Frodo might’ve made it to Mordor—but I sure as heck wasn’t getting past that bridge.
If you’ve ever suffered this same fate, know that you’re not alone.
Somewhere out there, there’s a fellowship of us—battle-worn, joystick-weary, and forever stuck on that cursed bridge.
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