Cuisineer was a game that I noticed while at Pax West in 2023. Ever since, I had my eye on the title but didn’t get a chance when it first got released on Steam last year. The console ports was the best time to get into it for me.
Game Name: Cuisineer
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC
Developer(s): BattleBrew Productions
Publisher(s): Marvelous Europe, XSeed Games
Release Date: January 28th, 2025
Price: $29.99
Cuisineer follows the character known as Pom, as she returns from her life of adventure to see her parents off as they start traveling around the world. Sadly she arrives late and her parents are already gone. The thing they left behind was the restaurant that was part of the family business. The problem is they left it completely barren by selling all the furniture and cookware to pay for food and other amenities as they are traveling the world. It is now up to Pom to rebuild her family’s restaurant and improve its reputation. She decides to tackle this the only way she knows how, adventure. Pom travels to ruins, frozen tundra and other locations to find ingredients and resources to upgrade your restaurant and unlock more recipes.
The Good
The thing that pops out the most in Cuisineer is the incredible art design. Each character is unique and has a different silhouette. I loved learning and talking to each named NPC due to seeing a new character and new design. From the Boba sisters to the tailor each one had a cool design. There is a lot of charm and personality in their artwork. Even the layout and HUD is designed well.
Controls in Cuisineer for the combat and exploration feels amazing. You have normal attacks and skills you can utilize with your spatula that has nice animation and effects. Combine this with the constant changing of the dungeons and resources you can gather and you have a fantastic formula for an addicting gameplay loop.
Having newer recipes usually cost more money from the customer gives a nice incentive for finding more and more of them. I also really enjoyed getting more cookware to utilize more recipes. The progression system especially in the beginning gives you a lot of satisfaction in getting more and more recipes and building up the restaurant more and more.
The Bad
Cuisineer has a weird sense of enemy balance. There will be tons of say chickens on the screen that won’t be a threat, then the next small enemy will have one or two only. These two small enemies will have a butt load of HP and requires you to dodge flame or spit, but if you get caught in one it sticks for a while. Then there will be a giant enemy that will attack you and once you dodge you can do a simple combo and instantly take it out. Then you wonder why this big enemy had much less health than those smaller enemies that were ranged attackers. It doesn’t help that your special moves don’t really stun or take an enemy out of their combos. I would see a red small enemy breathe fire at you and you can attack him from the back, but he instantly turns around and the fire follows you now instantly locking you into his fire breath damage.
Alongside the enemy balance are some enemy types feel unfair. Some feel like they have range of the whole dungeon. They can attack from a pretty long ways away and I would be attacking enemies who are coming after me and see a projectile coming at me out of nowhere.
Building up and seeing your restaurant become bigger and amass more tables and chairs is a satisfying sight to behold. However, when it is time to open up your restaurant, all sense of control flies by the wayside. People come into the restaurant and seat themselves, then ask for a specific meal and you go and make it by just selecting it on the correct cookware. After it is done, the customers come grab it themselves, sit down, and eat it. They will then go to the register and wait for you to grab their money. The only way to really change what people want is helping the RNG. The better quality your table and chairs are, the better the shot you have at getting more luxurious customers. Though they might want a recipe you don’t have so they just leave.
The Verdict
Cuisineer is a weird game in the sense that I would recommend it but also would not recommend it. There is a good selection of difficulty modes and accessibility features for this cozy game. Though with how all over it feels with player agency and control, its hard to say you should grab this. It is a good price and I do think the content does deliver, but it can be frustrating. There are a lot of great characters but you can’t really bond with them. There are features that work and some that could work better.
Overall I did enjoy aspects of Cuisineer and there were times I was hoping I could do something that I couldn’t. It can be cozy especially if you only play a few hours at a time. If you spend a lot of time at once on this game you will start seeing the frustration seep in of the enemy balance and the things that I wish I could do. Things like bond with characters in some way, give some more purpose to side quests that aren’t just recipes or resources, and control your menu and prices.
Cuisineer is already on PC but will be released on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S on January 28th, 2025
Review Disclosure Statement: Cuisineer was provided to us by XSeed Games for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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Summary
Cuisineer has a very addicting gameplay loop of delving into dungeons and finding resources and ingredients. It does suffer from some of the choices made for enemies and the restaurant aspect.
Pros
- Combat is addicting and feels great
- Art design is phenomenal
- Good sense of progression
Cons
- Restaurant deals with itself
- Enemy types can feel unfair
- Characters in the town are just quest givers after you meet them.
