Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Gametries to do a lot of ambitious things with its fantastical setting and systems, and certainly achieves some of them, but many other areas feel a bit half-baked. The way the game taps into the cozy allure of the Hobbit lifestyle through shared meals and slow-paced, small village values will certainly still be enough for some fans - it just doesn’t achieve its maximum potential.
Tales of the Shirebrings players to Bywater,set between the events ofThe HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings. It’s the home of places like The Green Dragon, an establishment eventually frequented by patrons like Frodo and Samwise Gamgee, and features a lot of familiar family names as residents like Cotton and Hornblower. Though the game does cultivate some cozy cooking vibes and features a charming group of characters with fun ties to existing lore, it simply feels undercooked.
Tales Of The Shire’s Story
It Takes A Village To Become A Village
Players can customize their Hobbit in the usual ways, and a name generator immediately sets the tone for the game - it feels a little less like a self-insert situation, the kind I might have making a new character in agame likeStardew Valley, andmore like painting one’s own fantasy story. I chose the name Amaranth and set off on my journey to Bywater from my home in Bree, immediately crossing paths with Gandalf, who gave me a ride to town.
Soon after my arrival, the residents discovered that Bywater isn’t technically considered its own village and set out to rectify this, of course, roping in my hobbit. This largely boils down to cooking different meals and fetch quests followed by waiting for a letter about the next task, though a good deal of the cutscene writing is quite funny and makes the menial tasks a bit more engaging.
Something odd aboutTales of the Shireis thatit gets better after its main story is finished. In the game’s epilogue stage, all the main mechanics like clubs are unlocked, giving much more day-to-day variety when it comes to goals to pursue. The main narrative and its surrounding gameplay simply aren’t that compelling, telling a short, basic story that feels almost more like a very elongated tutorial, but after about 12 or so hours, the village establishes itself, and it feels like things truly begin.
Cooking In Tales Of The Shire
Crafting Haute Hobbit Cuisine
There are two main components of cooking a good meal inTales of the Shire:flavor and texture. There are four main flavors - sweet, spicy, sour, and bitter - and balancing them well in dishes will net combo points. Ingredients themselves have flavor profiles, as do seasonings, which can be added through unlockable auxiliary cooking stations like a sauté pan and mixing bowl. These stations affect how tender or crisp a dish is, and how players chop determines whether it’s more chunky or smooth.
Hitting a target point on an axis of all four of these qualities will result in an overall better meal. The efficacy of meals can also be affected by the quality of the ingredients, which players will largely grow and forage themselves, except for some harder-to-find components. The game has a large number of recipes, and offers a good amount of leeway to be creative with different flavor combinations within each.
Though I did find it relaxing to a point and genuinely enjoyed crafting inventive and high-quality meals,the cooking minigame mechanics are very simplistic, and the overall process can start feeling dull fast. Considering that the cooking minigame and overall flavor formulation are such a core part of the game, it’s disappointing that the former feels very surface level and the latter lacks some quality of life features, like sorting ingredients according to flavor.
Shared Meals Are Of The Utmost Importance
Satisfying Bywater Residents’ Cravings Is Key
From breakfast to elevenses to supper, hobbits can hold meals at any time of day in a variety of locations, both indoors and outdoors. Holding frequent shared meals is essential to life in Bywater -it’s the only way to progress character relationships, and if residents go too long without being invited over, they’ll become upset with the player.
Each chosen guest will have a dish or two they’re specifically craving, but on the morning of the meal, they’ll also send a letter sharing the flavor they’re looking for that day. The quality of the meal and whether it satisfies their craving will determine the overall relationship gain. Raising relationships is the source of many milestones in the game, from house expansions to being able to buy better quality goods.
There’sno way to progress individual relationships outside shared meals, so if players focus more on the main story, milestone cutscenes between characters later on become odd. After spending weeks being integral to the village campaign, I got cutscenes with my neighbors about how I’d just arrived and that they knew nothing about me. My relationship didn’t rise with anyone through any of the quests I worked on with them, which feels like a real oversight for any players who tend to focus on the main storyline first.
Finding ways to satisfy every guest was a fun sort of puzzle, but the shared meals themselves are quite a bland experience. There’s never any conversation between the guests, and the dishes never look very appetizing because of the game’s graphics.Tales of the Shireis all about delicious meals, and it’s so disappointing that thein-game food doesn’t look appealingat all.
Day-To-Day Life In Bywater
The World Is At Your (Bare) Feet
On any given day, there’s a lot for players to do in Bywater, andTales of the Shiredoes feel different in some ways from the typical cozy game archetype. The game calls growing ingredients “gardening” instead of “farming,” and it’s a much smaller scale than in many genre entries. Making money in general is much less integral to overall progression - nothing isthatexpensive, even Sandyman’s overpriced flour.
Most days, I dedicate some time to completing tasks for the four clubs in town, which focus on gardening, cooking, foraging, and fishing. These are simple things, such as catching fish or cooking with a specific ingredient. Leveling up these clubs comes with significant benefits, including extra gardening space, more cooking equipment, larger inventory space, and stronger fishing rods.
It’s genuinely fun to get to know Bywater’s residents better.
Of course, planning for future meals is almost always on the schedule, especially since cutscenes often unlock when friendships are leveled up. It’s genuinely fun to get to know Bywater’s residents better,many of whom have ties to importantLotRcharacters. Rosie Cotton, Samwise’s future wife, lives on a farm nearby with her family, for instance. Many of them run shops or will trade with the player, and having such a prominent barter economy is refreshing.
It’s also easy to lose oneself in the game’s decorating, which is one of its most extensive features. There are tons of furniture and decor, including matching sets that can be gifted by different villagers, and there’s an entire separate mode dedicated to decorating with free placement and customization of almost every part of the hobbit hole. Some of the art is hard to discern the details of, but the system overall is quite enjoyable.
Tales Of The Shire Is Underseasoned
A Relaxing But Bland Take On Lord Of The Rings
During my playthrough, I encountered several technical issues. I was playing on the Nintendo Switch, so it’s possible that some of these flaws were simply due to the console. The game crashed several times, the graphics were sub-par, and there was an aggressive amount of pop-in. Additionally, the usage of music was confusingly sporadic - there would be long stretches of almost dead silence save for a few chirping birds, then other moments with an orchestral score, which is presumably another bug.
Tales of the Shirehad previously been delayed in its development, so I can understand the reticence to announce another date change, but I can’t help but feel as though the game could’ve used a bit more time in the oven.I don’t want to give the impression that there was nothing I enjoyed about this game- the care shown in areas like the dialogue, decorating, and flavor mechanics is so lovely, and I genuinely enjoyed finding new recipes and crafting meals.
However, the detail shown in these areas makes the overlooked aspects of the game even more disappointing, as there was so much more potential there. The cutscenes are great, for example, but those same endearing characters have no dialogue outside those scenes. When spoken to otherwise, the only dialogue option is “goodbye,” and there are several other noninteractive, nameless NPCs I saw every day in my travels that seem to only be there to fill space.
The Shire is still a welcoming, relaxing place to be.
However, if players - especiallyLotRfans - can overlook some oversights, The Shire is still a welcoming, relaxing place to be. There are a slew of little details I love about this game - the way birds guide you to map markers, the fact that your pantry visually grows as you put ingredients away, recipes named things like “Old Noakes’ Stew! Rest are Rubbish!" and so many more things endeared me toTales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Gameand showed what it could’ve been with a little more time to cook.
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game
Reviewed on Switch
ScreenRantreceived a Nintendo Switch code for the purpose of this review.
