Cooking Simulator Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Cooking Simulator
Genre: Simulation, Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers|Publishers: Forever Entertainment
Price: UK £17.99| EU € 19.99| CAD $26.24| USD $19.99| AUD $30.00
Age Rating: EU 3+|US E
Release Date: 14th May 2020

Review code provided by Forever Entertainment.

This ain’t Cooking Mama

Like many gamers, I spent quite a bit of time in my youth scratching away on the touch screen of my Nintendo DS. I put a lot of effort in trying to eloquently arrange my french fry clusters on my plate. I would even constantly draw and redraw the perfect ketchup smiley face onto my digital hamburger.

Cooking Mama was always proud of my culinary skills (a skill that definitely did not translate into the real world), and so was I. Thus, I was quite looking forward to spending a few relaxing hours reliving my youth by running a restaurant that served only the best. Now, after truly sinking my teeth into this game, I realize what a fool I was for expecting Cooking Simulator to be anything like Cooking Mama.

Restaurant de Disaster

I’ve always been quite a fan of simulation games like The Sims or games where the focus isn’t to save the world via a dramatic adventure but to instead, say, save your ill mother by running her café and raising a dragon (Little Dragon’s Café, a fun game where cooking is executed through a rhythm mechanic).

The introduction of Cooking Simulator sets the scene with you being the, seemingly, one and only employee who must save your manager’s business. Success or failure is all riding on your shoulders (and not on the managers, for some reason…).

To begin with, I was surprised with the amount of detail and responsibility you are given off the bat. I wanted to jump right into cooking, something you do in Cooking Mama, but instead my manager had me placing calls, ordering supplies and ingredients, and downloading recipes off the laptop.

My clueless self wandered around the kitchen trying to figure out where the phone was in order to complete my first task: calling maintenance to fix all the broken utilities! I’m not sure why the manager couldn’t do this, but it was certainly stressful having oil leak from an oven while having to scroll through the extensive list of services one could contact to fix everything. I was seriously stressed out before I even began cooking!

Though I am as equally dim in this virtual kitchen as I am in a real kitchen, the game did offer somewhat helpful guides like arrows pointing to where things were located in the kitchen. That, along with my manager constantly repeating my task in a speech bubble on the upper-left screen, is some of the only guidance you get. Well, hold on, I’m forgetting about Gordon Ramsey.

Your mentor, Gordon Ramsay

So, once you finally get to start cooking, your manager says she’ll invite her old friend to help you with a practice dish or two. She doesn’t explicitly say his name is Ramsay, but the character is pretty obviously him.

Luckily for me, it’s a version of Ramsay that doesn’t come with all the salty language. If this were truly Hell’s Kitchen, I think I would have been first up on the chopping block. I’m a hopeless cook in real life, but the slippery mechanics of this game really emphasized my worst qualities.

Regardless, for the first couple of recipes you have the Gordon Ramsay-esque character helping you learn what to do until you get the hang of things. That was actually something I found really interesting in this game: you really do learn how to cook these recipes.

The mechanics of the game are not all that difficult. They certainly do feel “slippery” at first, but before long you begin to unlock skills that allow you to, for example, have a steady hand while chopping fruits and veggies. This can be done on the laptop. You also earn skill points that allow you to try out new recipes. This brings me back to what I was saying before. Based on the recipes you’ve acquired, you can set them as items people can order from your menu.

Early on, I had only about three different dishes. I made the same broiled fish so often that I actually memorized the ingredients and instructions and could get it made without the need to constantly reference the recipe. Of course, the more you add to the menu, the more difficult it becomes in trying to remember how to cook a variety of dishes. The nice thing is that you don’t have to have a huge variety of food off the bat; you can pace the game however you’d like.

At its core

In a lot of games that feature cooking, the secret to a great dish is some simple good ol’ fashioned button mashing. In this game, one has to be careful and conscious of every move.

You can’t pick up hot fish off the floor with bare hands (trust me, I tried), or expect tomato soup to be neatly poured from the pot to the bowl without spilling (trust me, I tried), or even for messes to easily and magically disappear once the next virtual day has elapsed (yes, I tried this as well).

No, instead you have to be constantly checking the recipe that appears on the screen in the kitchen to ensure you have the correct amount of grams of salt on your potatoes before baking them. You can’t just throw them in the cooker either. The game has you tilting them off the cutting board and onto the baking sheet before placing it in the oven. Oh, and be sure you cook them for the appropriate amount of time while simultaneously trying to flip some pork chops by, again, having to carefully tilt them from your pan. And certainly you can’t forget to ensure you have the correct amount of sunflower oil. Oh, what’s that, you don’t? Then go order some right now! Oh, look the potatoes are done, better grab them before they overcook. While you’re carefully getting them out, be sure to transfer them onto a plate. Meanwhile that timer has been ringing forever now, aren’t you going to tend to those pork chops? You’re kidding me, right; did you seriously just leave the oven on and the oven door open and walk away? Did I mention you exceeded the time limit? No, this is not Hell’s Kitchen, this is Cooking Simulator.

This game had me stressed, running around my kitchen (virtually, of course), spilling food stuffs everywhere, and sacrificing flavor for efficiency. But that’s just me. The fun of this game is that you can choose to manage your kitchen however you’d like. At its core, however, this game can be really stressful. But it’s that rushing around and trying to do a job well done that makes this game pretty darn fun.

I do have to say, though, for parents interested in getting this for their kids, I think this game is more fun for older children. The mechanics are a lot more complicated and careful than something like Cooking Mama. This isn’t to say a younger child wouldn’t have fun, but the fun in this game is derived from the stress of trying to get things done (like cleaning or organizing your utensils) than the satisfaction derived from cooking up a good meal. For some good cooking games for kids (or that are overall just more light-hearted), check out our reviews for Waku Waku Sweets and Little Dragons Café.

Conclusion

Cooking Simulator is a really fun game that I can definitely see players getting a lot of laughs out of. I know I certainly did. The road to getting great reviews from critics is a lot more complicated than it seems, as food must be served on time as well as be tasty, of course! I found this to be way easier said than done! If you’re looking for a game that will test your skills, give you a good laugh, or have you immersed in the chaotic culinary world, then Cooking Simulator might just be the game for you!

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot!