Good morning.
No no no, the title is Sophia & Shire and these are the names of the protagonists of this adventure. It is not the Shire, as I misread the first time, anyway I must tell you that I hated Mr. Shire. A lot. But I will explain this later, ok?

Sophia & Shire is a 2022 RPG Maker VX Ace that follows the usual style of the games made by the developer Zorga: short and often self-contained stories with many dialogues and some puzzles. Custom made assets, nice portraits and small compact but well made maps. Also generic characters represented in a stylized wasy compared to the starts/main actors of the story.


Things are never easy, but do not worry! No battles, just chores that are puzzles, and puzzles that aren't a chore!

This time, unlike for the games of two series I reviewed before, Sweet Middleground (lighthearted slice of life/romance adventures with puzzles) and Repent Loci (dark mystery/horror adventures with puzzles) that are both set in a more or less contemporary setting, the game takes place in a sort of 1900-1920 (I do not know if the year is ever mentioned) town in England, and this is also underlined by the use of a scale of grey that reminds of the old black and white movies, and this is also enforced by the use of piano as a background music.

In this game we play as Sophia, the housemaid of the Sinclair family, and the game begins with the rather innocent day-to-day routine where we have both dialogues and puzzles like "chair dragging" ... but soon things go bad when one of the characters we met dies.
Oh yes, Sophia & Shire is a murder investigation game, and that's when the second protagonist, Shire, comes into play: this guy is probably the shyest man on earth, but also a clever investigator and dedicated policeman. Anyway he needs Sophia (alias OUR) help to get the things done, and this leads to some amusing moments and dialogues despite the theme of murder.


You are envious, aren't you, madame? Many people have simply a pet, but a conestable pet? That is surely better!

Did I say dialogues? Well yes, there are lots of them, and sometimes we have multiple choices, some of these are also only unlocked after performing some particular actions or obtaining informations. In any case there are no ways to do the bad thing since you may always re-try and select until you find the best options. And yes, this is a really dialogue-heavy game with also lots of walking, luckily Shire will let us use his car, and this will let Sophia fast travel/teleport to the various points of interest. Cool!
I also liked how the dialogues are written since the developer made them credible: these 1900-1920s people do not talk as we talk today, and this is reflected by the use of some archaic words or old-styled expressions.

All good? Well unfortunately not! As I wrote before there is no way to fail selectind the wrong dialogues choices, BUT you CAN fail if you don't pay attention to one particular thing: Shire! Ok, I like this guy, I mean, he is a really well made and funny character, BUT he kept trapping me in some maps! And there is NO way to push him away (interactions will just let you talk with him)... EXCEPT pressing "S", but this thing is mentioned just once and I totally missed it, so I was forced to reload. Sigh. I'm so sad!


Sigh! Here we are I just tried to check the library and now you're blocking me! Bad conestable! I guess that Mrs Sinclair was right!

And even if Sophia & Shire, like Sweet Middleground gives the possibility to save anywhere and anytime, the same lack of dangerous situations meant that I did that very rarely. The game takes place during a week, andyou can start your game by selecting the day and time of the day! Yes! You may start your game skipping half of the game or even go and watch immediately the ending. That's stupid but it can be done anyway!

In any case the annoying presence of Shire was only problem I had with the game, for the rest it was a good and more or less linear experience (like for Sweet Middleground you have the freedom to explore the surroundings, but in the end you will have to complete the tasks and solve the puzzles, nothing too difficult or problematic). One thing I especially liked of this game is how the game progressively expands, adding more visitable locations and options like the possibility to select music by interacting with the gramophone or the already mentioned possibility to fast travel using Shire's car. I'd also like to explain whats the investigation board that is unlocked later, but I want to leave this to be discovered by players. Ok?


Ok, the review is over! Let's take the car and read the...

Final Verdict
Sophia & Shire is a pretty nice game with just that problem I mentioned before (funny thing that this reminds to me of the "pushing moments" of Sweet Middleground!), Zorga's style is pretty much recognizable and I like that. I admit I have a terrible personal problem playing monochromatic games since my eyes hurts after a while, but in this case it was ok, on the contrary I absolutely loved graphics and music, and some details. The portraits are especially well done and even better than the ones from the previous games, mapping is realistic and good also from a gameplay point of view since you cannot waste time in wrong places or getting lost.

The story is very good and while I had two theories, in the end the culprit wasn't who I expected to be in the beginning... I won't (OBVIOUSLY!) say anything else except that one of the first sentences spoken by this person could have sound humorous... sadly I cannot make that pun! Sigh!

A nice and enjoyable game. Just to not let Shire get in the way!