Cuisineer review

Have you ever played a game that fell short of its potential, only for something similar to come along and make good on the promises that original game made? That’s the case here, with Cuisineer – a fantasy-based restaurant management sim that involves dungeon crawling, ergo RPG elements – improving on 2024’s much-maligned Sword and Fairy Inn 2 in every way possible. It’s as if Cuisineer’s developers saw the untapped potential there and set about ensuring their own take on the genre didn’t make the same mistakes.

For such a multifaceted experience, Cuisineer isn’t difficult to get into, engaging from the start. We’re introduced to Pom, a petite girl with cat ears, who inherits their parent’s rundown restaurant – along with a load of debt. Talk about keeping it in the family. Teaming up with fellow female Biscotti (every character here is named after foodstuffs) they set about restoring the restaurant to its former glory by filling the bellies of the town’s citizens, all while running errands – usually in return for a new recipe – and partaking in the occasional holiday celebration.

Ingredients aren’t found growing in the wilderness, cultivated nearby, or even purchased from the town’s rotating market stalls but rather acquired by defeating enemies in multi-floored isometric dungeons, with Pom using her trusty spatulas, meat tenderisers and other equipment as weapons. Each upgradeable, of course. Dungeons feature mini-bosses ahead of a much larger boss, along with the occasional stat-boosting shrine and health fountain to look out for. If you die in battle, the majority of resources gathered are lost. Thankfully, Pom can exit dungeons at any time, allowing you to either gather goods or focus on beating that dungeon’s final boss.

Cuisineer review

There are minor elements of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons and Animal Crossing present too, with the game playing out on a day-to-day basis, complete with traders who only appear on certain days, annual events, a day to night cycle, and different seasons. Much like Animal Crossing, Pom finds mail in her mailbox most days, providing helpful hints, deeper explanations of mechanics, and general musings from the townsfolk. The town is small, thus easy to navigate, and quest givers are clearly indicated. It’s also here you’ll find the weapon smith and builder, with the latter able to expand Pom’s customizable restaurant, in addition to providing new equipment and furniture. For that extra touch, rug, painting, and vase vendors frequent the town often. It pays to tinker with the restaurant’s layout to ensure customers can collect food and pay promptly. Over time, the oven, stove and fridge can be improved so that more than a single dish can be cooked at once.   

Cuisineer, then, is a game of two halves – cooking and dungeon crawling. The cooking aspect, or restaurant management if you prefer, isn’t too taxing. Even when starting out with a small restaurant and a limited selection of dishes, customers pour in. They take a seat before requesting a dish, which simply requires Pom to fulfil the order via a single button press. There’s no cooking mini-game, or anything of the sort; a little bit of further interaction here would’ve lent some needed tact. The only intervention thereon is to collect payment along with a potential tip. Customers become frustrated if not enough tables are available and may get a little annoyed if a full menu isn’t available, but other than that, it’s smooth running. The restaurant can be opened and (hastily) closed any time you see fit, allowing a great deal of flexibility. You can even skip opening it entirely, focusing on resource gathering or reaching a final floor of a dungeon instead. Ingredients don’t go out of date, and most are easy to acquire.

Cuisineer review

Dungeon crawling is the ‘meat’ of the experience, in that it’s far more rewarding than cooking as well as being more demanding. There’s even a degree of risk involved, forever forcing you to think about retreating or carrying on. Pom can equip two different weapons along with boots and gloves, all of which can be infused with elemental or magical abilities. More powerful attacks are on a cooldown, lasting around ten seconds or so. During boss battles, avoiding attacks while waiting for cooldowns to expire is a commonly used tactic. Combat is of the pleasingly chaotic variety, with enemies attacking in number yet can be dealt with one with swift whack of Pom’s frying pan. It’s even possible to force gaggles of enemies to give chase before rounding them up and delivering a delicious powerful blow. They can be harmed by spike traps and other hazards too. Enemy designs are fun, going for a fantastical theme, and despite being randomised it’s still possible to learn dungeon layouts, making educated guesses as to where to head next. Arena battles and boss fights bestow treasure chests containing resources, ingredients, and new weapons. New equipment, however, will always be ranked one star; there’s no getting ahead without visiting the smithy. The variety of weapons allows for some experimentation, although initially it’s unclear if you should be upgrading the starting weapons or looking for something more substantial.

The two gameplay styles complement each other well, with Pom able to cook a stat boosting meal before heading into a dungeon, or purchase HP boosting boba-tea from the village café.

Cuisineer review

It’s the relaxed paced and amount of freedom that seals the deal. After waking up each day, it’s entirely up to you where to focus your time. You may want to improve the restaurant’s size and rating by gathering wood and stone or accumulate a stockpile of cash by running the restaurant for a few days…although if the fridge is low on stock, you’ll need to head into a dungeon too. Or you could try and clear off a few of the townsfolk’s fetch quests, which sometimes entail cooking several dishes of a specific type, or the main debt-centric main quest. Knuckling down on dungeoneering is another pursuit, spending all Pom’s money and blowing resources on upgrading weapons, finding the perfect fusion of elemental abilities, and saving up for a bigger backpack. The townsfolk will just have to go hungry. While all this is happening, the town undergoes seasonal changes and the townsfolk often provide new quests.

While the cooking aspect ideally needed a little extra spice, other faults are relatively few. The music, while far from terrible, does grate after a while – especially the restaurant theme, which never changes. The amount of backpack and fridge storage space is small at first, making it feel as if Cuisineer is based around upgrading and expanding more so than exploring and conquering. Once the restaurant has 3-4 tables though, cashflow doesn’t become an issue, allowing you to progress quite swiftly.  

Cuisineer is the bendy banana of the action RPG world. Flexible, exotic, and pretty sweet. While hardened dungeon crawler fans may wish for something juicer, there’s no denying that Cuisineer doesn’t leave a pleasant aftertaste once you’ve savoured every morsel.

Battlebrew’s Cuisineer is out 28th Jan on all formats. Published by Marvelous/XSEED. A PC version is also available.

SCORE
8