Alright, so let’s dive into this little adventure of a review. Hang on, it might get a bit bumpy—kinda like a rollercoaster that forgot it’s supposed to have tracks.
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Hobbits, man. They’re like the OG comfort-craving creatures, right? Living the dream with tidy hobbit holes and those meals—oh, the meals! So when this game, Tales of the Shire, pops up, you’re thinking it’s gonna be a cozy trip through Middle-Earth munchies. Well, hang on there, buddy, because it’s more of a half-baked cake in reality.
So, picture this: you’re plopped into the gap years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and who do you run into first? Gandalf himself. Guess they wanted to reel us in with familiar faces. “Hey, remember this guy?” Anyway, you’re this newbie hobbit in Bywater—tiny place but feels like a maze sometimes. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves sprucing up Bywater to get it on the Hobbiton map. Mostly it’s a lot of running around, talking to locals, doing odd jobs, and—surprise!—cooking. Oh, the cooking. I actually found myself oddly hooked on these little quests. Maybe it’s the whimsy of it all, wooing me in like a shiny object.
Cooking is your bread and butter in this game—literally and figuratively. You’re growing veggies, picking herbs, the whole farm-to-table thing. Cooking up grub for hobbit pals is like the go-to quest here. But every time you serve them a meal, it loops the same little scene. Charming the first few times, sure, but you start wishing for more spice, you know?
Now, though hobbits might have bottomless stomachs in lore, your character doesn’t get peckish. Weird, right? Despite all that serene gameplay, you might just call this the chillest game ever. Nothing goes wrong, nothing stretches you. Just vibes.
The game ticks by days, much like other farmy-life sims. Do your thing: cook, chat, fish, farm, rinse and repeat. If you dawdle till too late, no biggie—you just sleep in a bit. Early days, I kept running outta stuff to do and found myself fishing just to kill time. Ever fish just to catch some patience? Yeah, I did.
It’s out on the Nintendo Switch, both of ’em. Tried it on both consoles, and it’s all the same-ish? Graphics are, well, thematically nice but nothing that’ll blow your mismatched socks off. The hobbits themselves were… let’s say an acquired taste. Full marks for the bearded lady dwarf, though. Switch 1 had its stutters like a bad dance partner, and surprisingly, the fancy Switch 2 didn’t fix that entirely. Oh, and the sky went all “Red October” on me once. Couldn’t make that happen twice, though. Probably the hardware throwing a tantrum, but who knows?
It crashed—a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. Every 20 minutes, BAM, back to square one. Manual saving became my new religion. Lost track of how many times I almost threw the console out the window. Frustration levels were high, my friends.
So yeah, Tales of the Shire—great ideas floating around in there. Feels like they’re cooking something special, just forgot to check the oven timer. With the bugs and crashes, can’t say I’d tell anyone to rush out and buy it. Really want it to be better, and maybe, one day, it will be. Just not today.
