Over the past week or so, I’ve spent nearly 30 hours withTales of the Shire: A Lord of the RingsGamefor review, and I’ve learned a lot from my time with it. Set in Bywater between the events ofThe HobbitandLord of the Rings, the title largely focuses on cooking for and dining with residents, though there are many other things to discover in this slice-of-life Shire experience.
Now that I’ve wrapped up myreview of the cozy Hobbit life sim, I’ve had time to reflect on how much better my experience might have been had I known some things ahead of time. While it may not be a perfect game, there’s still a lot of joy to be found in it for fans, especially if they have some hints for a head start. If you’re picking this one up, here’s what you should know beforehand.
9Meals Are Of The Utmost Importance
Individual Storylines Can’t Progress Without Shared Meals
When I first beganTales of the Shire, I knew the shared meal system was important, but I didn’t realize justhowintegral it is to any sort of real narrative progression.Having shared meals is the only way to raise relationships with Bywater residents- nothing in the main storyline moves things forward with them individually, and can make for some odd interactions later on.
After I finished the main storyline and began hosting more meals, I got several milestone cutscenes with villagers about me being the “newcomer” and how they knew next to nothing about me. It was odd to say the least, and those incongruous aspects aren’t even the biggest issue - raising relationships is also key to several in-game progression elements.
8How To Get More Inventory Space
Additional Slots Mean More Fishing & Foraging
Like with many games where collecting, foraging, and fishing are big components, there never seems to be enough inventory space inTales of the Shire. This is especially true at the beginning of the title, when Hobbits have but a meager 10 slots in their bag. In order to procure a bigger inventory,players need to complete tasks for the Foraging Club.
Things like finding a certain number of seasonal mushrooms or berries make up most of these, which can be found on the task board near the Ivy Bush Inn after a plot point in the main story. Once enough tasks are redeemed with club leader Delphinium, player bag size will expand. This is honestly one of the first milestones I recommend working towards, as it makes almost everything else easier.
7How To Expand The In-Game Garden
Clubs Are Key To Getting More Greenery
The game begins with what seems like ample garden space, with several planter boxes available, but after seeing the size required for some plants, it quickly becomes clear much more is necessary. This is another instance in which clubs are critical, specifically the Gardening Club.
Shared meals are still the only thing that raises relationships - completing club quests doesn’t bump up a player’s friendship with the leader.
By doing tasks like harvesting or planting certain amounts of crops, Rosie, the club’s leader,will eventually unblock backyard pathways to provide more gardening space. More planter boxes themselves will occasionally be gifted by villagers after a shared meal, especially by the Cotton family, or can be purchased from Farmer Cotton in the village square.
6Keep Your Crops - Money Isn’t That Important
Using Them In Meals Is Much More Meaningful
With so many cozy games that revolve around crop-based profits, it’s natural for many fans of the genre to assume the same aboutTales of the Shire, but that’s definitely not the case. Not only does thegame have much less farmingthan usual, but money in general is much less important, andcrops are much better saved for cooking.
Though villagers crave certain dishes, they’ll also offer players a preferred flavor profile for each meal - having a variety of Salty, Sweet, Bitter, and Spicy ingredients is key!
Earning money solely through fishing is more than enough to buy all the seeds, ingredients, and other goods players could want. Meals are such an integral part of the game that the money earned by selling them just isn’t worth it - having an ingredient on hand for a villager’s craving is way more useful than making a quick buck.
5Keep An Eye On Plant & Animal Happiness
Better Crops Mean Better Meals
Though there are several factors that contribute to the overall rating of a dish, like flavor combinations and texture, the quality of the ingredients themselves is where the foundation for any food begins. If players pay close attention and note which crops enjoy cohabitating, which is indicated by smiley or frowny faces when planting,the final product will be much better.
The same thing goes for chickens, which players acquire later on - always remembering to feed them will drastically improve the eggs laid over time. This will give players a stronger starting rating for any meal, and the better the meal, the more it increases the relationship with whomever eats it.
4How To Improve Your Dilapidated Hobbit Hole
A Fixer-Upper Built On Friendship
When players arrive at their Bywater hobbit hole, it’s very worse for wear - they can’t even utilize the front door at first, and must instead go around to the backdoor. This particular property improvement isn’t linked to clubs;instead, it’s linked to a player’s relationship with Willow Tooks, the village carpenter.
After inviting Willow to enough shared meals to increase the friendship to level three, she’ll fix the front door and unlock a whole new entryway and front room area. This offers a ton of new space todecorate in the game, and even more rooms can be opened up over time at higher relationship levels to allow for even more creativity.
3Trade With Bywater’s Villagers
The Barter Economy Is Strong In Tales Of The Shire
Earlier I mentioned how saving up money to buy things isn’t a huge part ofTales of the Shire, and while part of that is because of overall cheap prices, it’s also because the barter economy is alive and well in Bywater. Many villagers can be traded with, andhave a lot of items players can’t get any other way.
Rosie Cotton, for example, trades many different rare flower seeds in exchange for jam, and Old Noakes trades hard-to-find fish for vegetables, particularly potatoes. It’s not available from the start, but players can unlock trading through raising relationships with villagers - yet another reason doing so is of the utmost importance.
2Manually Save After Important Events
(Especially If Playing On Nintendo Switch)
I playedTales of the Shireon the Nintendo Switch, so I can mostly speak to my own experience of how the game runs, but crashes were a frequent issue, often wiping out an entire day’s worth of work. While a patch for these sorts of issues may be coming, and experiences vary between platforms,my life got a lot better when I started manually saving after big events.
Crashes, in my experience, had no discernible pattern of when they’d happen, so trying to remember at least a few saves a day felt safest.
It can be done at any time from the settings menu, and takes only a few seconds. I would do so after lots of cooking, a good shared meal, and right before going to bed at night. Is it something that, ideally, I won’t have to do in the future? Sure, but in the present incarnation of the game, having saves to fall back on saved me countless headaches, and can do the same for other players who still want to experience the game.
1So Many Bywater Residents Tie Into LotR Lore
Narrative Connections Make Villagers More Meaningful
A lotaboutTales of the Shirewas secretive before release, including a lot of its characters. It was known that Gandalf would be there, for example, but it wasn’t clear justhow many residents of Bywater would have ties to theLord of the Ringsstories fans know, and the game’s lore absolutely shouldn’t be ignored.
The links are everywhere: Rosie Cotton, Samwise Gamgee’s future wife, lives just down the road, players can frequent Sandyman’s mill for flour, and town blacksmith Nefi comes from a long line of Moria dwarves, to name a few. The more I delved into all the connections included inTales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game, the more I came to really appreciate the attention to detail there.
