Tales of the Shire is a complicated game to review.
It feels like the game got really close to being finished, but then it was released, and now it's frozen in a sort of semi-unfinished state forever. Which is a tragedy, really, because this game has a lot going for it.
If you're into cozy games, this one is a treat, as cozy as it gets. And if you're a LotR fan, you'll love the story easter eggs and the chance to visit Bywater. For me, a lover of cozy games who has always wanted to live as a hobbit? This game was created for me.
First off, this game is about food. Cooking food, growing food, feeding people and about how food and community can go hand in hand (true in many cultures). No where is this more true than with hobbits, and this game really leans into that.
You spend your days gardening, foraging, fishing, cooking and inviting some of the NPCs over for meals, hoping to satisfy their palates and grow the friendship between you. The dishes look divine; you can tell a lot of effort went into the 120 dishes you can make, and they look amazing. It's so satisfying to see one of your hobbit neighbors happily eat your food and smile with delight, especially after all the effort you put into it.
One of the most amazing parts of the game is the house decorating. I've never seen such elaborate customization in a game before with where you can place items; maybe only in The Sims, and even then, only when using a cheat. You can place books on shelves, adjust artwork on the walls, and you get more and more beautiful furniture pieces from your neighbors as your friendships bloom. You can even choose the look of the windows, the doors, the support beams, the archways. Decorating really made me wish I were more creative when it came to interior design.
If you're a Tolkien fan, some of the names are familiar - Farmer Cotton, Bywater, the Green Dragon, and of course, a few appearances by a certain fan-favorite wizard. There are even some mentions that you wouldn't know unless you are deep in the lore of Middle Earth.
And this game is fun to play. I really enjoyed myself and I spent over 100 hours finishing this game. You can even keep playing, gardening, cooking and decorating your hobbit hole long after you finish the main quest.
And now for the not so fun part; with all the good, there was quite a bit of bad.
Little things add up here - features that are missing, writing that misses the mark...little things that add up and taste like a bad stew in your mouth.
This game could definitely have benefitted from a romance system. I honestly think this is one of the biggest disappointments of this game; what point is my beautiful, cozy hobbit hole if my hobbit has no one to share it with? And there were options; if there had been a romance feature, Orlo would have found himself wifed up in an instant. The twins, Delphinium, Young Tom...if you like LotR, you know Rosie Cotton is off the table, but there were definitely options.
Another sore spot; you have all this furniture and your hobbit cannot sit. So that oh-so-comfy chair you just placed next to the fire? You'll never see your hobbit sit in it. The hobbits at the Green Dragon stand around their tables, despite there being plenty of seating.
Other small annoyances:
- The clothing was just "ok"
- You couldn't talk to the NPCs around the village - they just said random lines around you. You also couldn't stop and talk with the "friend" NPCs, because there was nothing for you to say. It feels wrong just running past them in the village square.
- A mini-map and compass would have been lovely
- Some of the furniture doesn't allow other things to be placed near it
- Nefi, the only dwarf in the game, talks like she's stupid for some reason? She was such a cool character, but her writing was so poor
- It drove me nuts that my doors were always open, even in the mid winter
- There needed to be some sort of system to see plant stats, like how much longer until they were grown
- This game is SO cozy, but there is a TERRIFYING sound near our hobbit hole in the winter? I can't tell you how many times it scared me
- The flavor of the cooking ingredients wasn't explained well enough; I've seen many people think the flavors aren't defined at all
- Why is there only one child in all the village?
- You can finish the main quest in less than a year. I realized in winter that I was almost finished, and I hadn't even been through a Spring yet (it starts in Summer)
- There is no way to buy any out of season produce
But the worst, most egregious violation in all of this game; they give you chickens...and you cannot pet or greet them. That is DIABOLICAL. You can greet most animals and they will acknowledge you, but your chickens? The only animals that can live at your home? They run from you. Pure evil.
But these complaints will fall on deaf ears, because this game is unfortunately finished and on its own now, despite how unfinished it feels. There's an article from The Verge ("Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game") that details all the bad luck Weta Workshop had creating this game, including that their publisher went under and was bought by someone else. As a result, they have seemingly cancelled the DLC they were working on and there is no more money to pay the team, so no updates are forthcoming.
There's a really awful bug where the furniture you get from NPCs disappears from your inventory when you try to place it. I lost about half my furniture I had gotten from friend NPCs because of that bug. But if you write someone from Weta about the issue (or any issue really), you'll get a canned response back about how it's a known issue, but no future updates are planned, so looks like we're on our own here.
There are a lot of really great small details in the game, too. The characters are likeable, the story is interesting, and they really thought about the sound design. Running with the fishing pole, you can hear the bobber and reel making noises. The emote system is incredible and expressive, and the beautiful landscape they created for Bywater makes the photo mode very satisfying.
It's just that the feeling is a bit like being in the Shire during Frodo and Sam's quest to Mordor; things are lovely and calm and peaceful, but something feels just slightly off. There's a strange taste in this delicious stew, and it makes it a little less enjoyable.
I could see me coming back to this game in the future, once I've forgotten some of the plot, and I'd definitely enjoy it then, too. For now, my journeys see me elsewhere, and I'll hope I can come home to the Shire again someday.
