Cooking Up a Cosy Adventure
The cosy game bubble has recently proven that its mechanics can fit into any game, even a dungeon crawler. The fantastic Moonlighter proved that.
Whilst we wait for the sequel to arrive, Cuisineer is here with a similar gameplay cycle. Unlike Moonlighter, you are opening a restaurant with the loot you collect. Also, unlike Moonlighter, the shallow gameplay reveals itself very quickly indeed.

A very familiar tale
Any cosy game worth its salt will have a way to get you to arrive back at your childhood town. And Cuisineer is no different; as Pom you return to the town of Paell to look after your parents’ restaurant. They’ve decided to start their retirement early with a tour of the world. They’re also running away from a substantial debt that they have racked up, and unfortunately, you have to pay it off.
The Tom Nook in this case is a pompous loan shark called Iberico. Everyone in the town of Paell has a food-related name, not least the town itself. If there is one thing that Cuisineer gets right is its charm. It’s a town you would want to live in, even if it is a little dull.
The first payment to Iberico isn’t too much. But his demands will only increase over time, in line with your patience decreasing.
Money is earned through preparing meals, but more on how hands-off the meal prep is later. Your ingredients are gathered from the dungeons, with all enemies designed off an actual ingredient. Some are self-explanatory like chickens that will drop eggs and chicken meat when defeated, similar too for the hog-like Peegies. There are also errant Cheelees, Pewtatos and Tommays that drop chilis, potatoes and tomatoes respectively. In total, there are 20 ingredients to collect, with an impressive amount of mileage in terms of number of recipes that can be made from this relatively small number.
The dungeons themselves are all procedurally generated, and there are a few different biomes to delve through with unique obstacles in each. You can run in equipped with a melee and a ranged weapon that have several different moves to utilise. Such is the nature of the majority of enemies just charging at you though, that simply spamming your basic attack is enough to cull them all, even some of the larger boss enemies.

The laziest town
When not crawling through dungeons or preparing meals for punters, there are a wealth of side quests to undertake. Completing these will reward you with new recipes for the restaurant, and is the main way to expand your menu. However, these side quests are nothing more than fetch quests. Granted, these are only asking you for items you should otherwise be collecting anyways, but it is more the volume of the requests themselves that irks me. If you’re asking me for 25 of an ingredient, surely it must cross your mind that that is more than a simple request and you should probably just get a large amount of it yourself. If you are one or two ingredients short, then sure I will help, but some of these requests are taking the proverbial. One townsperson even had the audacity to ask for 25 of one item and 15 of another, IN THE SAME SINGULAR QUEST.
All joking aside, these side quests can put severe dents into your pantry, causing a frustrating set of consequences. I need money to pay off my debt, but the only meals I can prepare aren’t bringing in enough money because I either don’t have the ingredients to cook more exotic meals, or my miniscule kitchen can’t yet make that type of meal. Then I have customers coming into the restaurant but there are no more seats available so I need to expand my restaurant and my kitchen but to be able to do either I need money – which I am saving to pay off a rather large debt – and resources – which I have just given 25 of away in order to get a new recipe that is too advanced for my one-star kitchen.
The laziest restaurateur
Your restaurant opening hours are essentially up to you to decide. You may choose to open all day or not at all and simply go dungeon crawling. You’re the boss so you are in charge. But also as the owner, you have decided upon a controversial serving method.
Your customers will seat themselves – if there is space – and a pop-up bubble will show you what they are ordering. Then it is a case of you going to the required cooking apparatus and selecting the right meal. This then magically appears on the counter, where the customer has to go and collect it themselves. It feels weird doing it this way, especially when you start to encounter those customers that want you to deliver the food to them. If you can do it for some, why not for all? It would be preferable to be honest, because the main method is just so hands-off it doesn’t give any substance to this large section of the gameplay.

When not serving customers or serving enemies with their comeuppances, the town of Paell has a few stalls to visit and residents to talk to. The carpenter can upgrade the restaurant, the blacksmith your weapons. There is also a boba shop which you can invest in, if you have the spare cash. These bubble teas are your potions to take into the dungeons. Unsurprisingly, to upgrade one or research a new one requires cash and ingredients. The lemon bubble tea for instance requires 800 gold, three roast chickens, three fried eggs, three fried rice and three roti pratas just to unlock. At this point I feel that Pom is being taken for a fool by these freeloading residents.
A Bland Dish with a Side of Wasted Potential
Unlike the tasty looking food you are making, Cuisineer on Xbox is a very bland game. It’s definitely a looker, with some really pretty visuals and a very cute aesthetic throughout. But the gameplay itself is basic with little substance to it. It borrows ideas liberally from other similar titles but doesn’t do nearly enough with them and instead feels lacklustre.
Cuisineer has a lot of promise, but doesn’t deliver nearly enough.
Cooking Up Some Links
Cuisineer: A Culinary Caper Where Dungeon Crawling Meets Delicious Dishes – https://www.thexboxhub.com/cuisineer-a-culinary-caper-where-dungeon-crawling-meets-delicious-dishes/
Buy Cuisineer on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/Cuisineer/9NF6JPN1BW9L