Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores, but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, all whilst including some lengthy gameplay, to give you, the reader, the chance to form your own impressions and views while reading and watching.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Cuisineer by developer BattleBrew Productions:
Cuisineer: (Nintendo Switch)
In 2023, BattleBrew Productions and Marvelous (XSEED) released the charming dungeon crawler Cuisineer on Steam. In the game you play as Pom a young adventurer who has returned home to run her family’s restaurant. It won’t be a walk in the park though as ingredients can’t just be bought. Instead, you will need to fight for your food, literally, in the neigbouring areas and bring the ingredients back where you can then prepare tasty culinary delights for your patrons. Reviews have been mainly positive (over 75%) for the Steam version and now after two years of waiting, it is now available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
So, let’s jump into the story of Cuisineer. The game follows an adventure named Pom who has returned home to the village of Paell to see her parents before they leave on an around the world trip. Pom arrives home but her parents have already left and awaiting her arrival is Pom’s friend Biscotti. Biscotti fills Pom in about her parents and tells her that their restaurant has been closed down. Pom is bequeathed the restaurant in her parent’s absence and reopens the business.
Upon having some success on opening the restaurant and having a profitable day, a portly villager greets Pom and to congratulate her on her success and then promptly informs her of her parent’s debt in the same breath. The debt has to be paid as soon as possible or the restaurant will be acquired by the tax office. It falls on Pom’s shoulders to pay of her Parent’s debts which as the game goes on, Pom finds out that the first debt is just one of many that her parent’s have racked up and if she is going to keep the restaurant open, she will need to pay back every penny.
In terms of gameplay, Cuisineer is a game of two halves. On one side, it is a restaurant management game where you must use the different cooking stations to prepare meals requested by your patrons. Each cooking station can prepare a specific assortment of dishes. The cooking pot can boil meats and cook soups. The frying pan can be used to fry certain foods. The oven is for grilling and for roasting and the prepping table is for cold dishes like salads. When you open up your restaurant for the day, the local villagers will come in gradually and ask you to prepare their preferred dish.
When the food is cooked, it will sit on the serving table where the patrons will get up from their tables and collect their food. They will then eat it and move to the collection table so you can recieve payment. Not everyone who comes to your restaurant will collect their food. Noblefolk will wait for you to serve them their food. Other folk are also quite lightfooted and will attempt to dine and dash unless you stop them to collect payment. It is quite a easy going mechanic and while most kitchen/restaurant mini games in other games would certainly be more manic, this is quite a chill experience and never seems to get out of hand or too hectic.
The other half of this game is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler. The ingredients that you require to serve your patrons can’t be bought. It has to be killed and gathered first. This means you need to fight wild boars, oxes, chickens, as well as sentient crops, vegetation, and trees. Oh, and Giant Chickens! Can’t forget them and other big nasties that await you in the dungeons. There are a number of areas with different biomes like a woodland, volcano, etc, that have their own kinds of resources that you can farm and enemies to encounter.
In order to attack your enemies, you are not armed with traditional weapons but with cooking utensils and food items like a spatula, meat tenderizer, cooking knife, kebab skewer, plates, egg bombs, and even a swordfish. All weapons have a standard attack that can be used all the time and a special attack that has a cooldown upon activation before you can use it again. You can purchase weapons in the village of Paell or in chests when looting dungeons and each can have varying affects like buffs and debuffs to help burn, poison, or freeze enemies for example (there are many other effects but it would take a good while to explain them all).
I did quite enjoy traversing through the dungeons to collect ingredients and things. Even though it was mainly to get stuff to fill up my food stocks and materials required to upgrade the the restaurant, it never really felt like a grind. In about 10 minutes or so, I would be happily on my way back home so I could open up my restaurant the next day and rake in that cold hard cash I can earn selling food to my customers.
At any time during your adventures, should you wish to return to the village because you are done for the day or your backpack is full to the brim with items, you have a special amulet that you can activate by holding the D-pad button down for a few seconds. should you get defeated whilst dungeon crawling, you will simply return home although you will lose a lot of your hard earned gains. It might not be a lot when your backpack holds 10 different items but when you upgrade its capacity to a maximum of 40 and lose 30 different items, it hits a lot different.
Between running the restaurant and looting dungeons in Cuisineer, you can take on side quests for the local villagers. They normally require ingredients or dishes and will give you recipes and other items in exchange with the former opening up your cooking repetoire further and increasing your menu for your patrons. Some quests can be quite straightforward and you probably have the ingredient already in storage but other items may require you to venture away for a few in-game days before you get the require amount needed to complete a quest.
As we come towards the end of our Explain & Play Review, I must say that has been a very enjoyable experience. Cuisineer is a culinary delight that is easily digestible that leaves you wanting seconds. I love that I can customize and upgrade my restaurant and food stations, change the fixtures and furniture for other designs, and really make it my own. It is a great game to just get lost in for a few hours and then come back another day and do it all again. I found it to be a very cozy yet enjoyable and would definitely reccomened it to those who looking for an Roguelite RPG that is isn’t stressful and can easily take their time with it.
Game Specifications:
Developer: BattleBrew Productions
Publisher: Marvelous (XSEED)
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Platformer, Action
No. of Players: 1 (Single System)
Release Date: January 28, 2025
Price: $29.99
File Size: 2.3 GB
Nintendo.com Listing
