Cook Serve Forever

Respect to the team for taking risks. This is a big leap from the rest of the series - there's more focus on simplicity and polish, and less on hours and hours of replayability. I found the new gameplay great fun, the story charming, and the music great. I don't want games to take 1000 hours and be my new hobby these days, so this complete 10-hour experience was great, for me.

I honestly don't understand the hate this game is getting. This is coming from someone who have had the pleasure of being part of the CSD community from the very first game when it was first launched. CSF is definitely using a different formula from its predecessors. This game is meant to be relaxing, hence no complicated keyboard combinations to complete a dish. No station feature as well, just one dish at a time. You pressed the wrong button? You can still get a perfect dish. Again, this game is SUPPOSED to be just cooking and relaxing. I feel this is more like a visual novel but cooking. CSF is very fun and rewarding once you get past the voices that keep telling you that this is not fun if you have had played the previous 3. I have, and this is such a fun title in the whole series. This game is only NOT FUN if you keep comparing CSF with the other CSD. At this point you might want to join the lobsters in the pot and put a lid on yourself.

The gameplay is such a downgrade from previous Cook Serve titles. Not at all what I expected and was disappointed.

They cut back on gameplay to focus on the story, but unfortunately, neither are good. [h1] The gameplay [/h1] Previous CSD games constantly forced you to make split-second decisions about which orders to prioritize based on recipe complexity and customer patience. In CSF, you only ever handle one order at a time, so that entire layer of time management is gone. The game simply presents a sequence of prompts and asks you to press the corresponding button. [b] See a button on the screen? Press that button. That's it. [/b] You never choose your menu, and moreover, every dish in CSF is cooked using the exact same sequences of button-presses, so they all feel the same. [h1] The story [/h1] There really isn't much there. There's [i]no antagonist[/i] until the last 30 minutes of the game, so the protagonists never really face any adversity. The plot mostly consists of travelling from place to place, and then they drop a bunch of big plot twists right before the final level. Most of the major characters share the same friendly, quirky demeanor, to the point that the two protagonists often feel interchangeable in conversation. Any dialogue from one could be given to the other with little to no consequences. [h1] It's short [/h1] If none of that put you off, I'll mention that I 100% completed the whole game (all main+side content) in about [u] 9 hours [/u]. The main story was about 6 hours. Let that determine how much you're willing to spend on this game. [h1] A rant about the ending [/h1] There's a lot of big twists at the end that just don't make sense, given everything that happened previously. [spoiler] At the very end, the world-famous chef sedates the main character, revealing that it was her plan from the very start to get revenge for something the latter's late mother did in the past. However, as a part of this "master plan", the famous chef gives the MC a spotlight on her TV show earlier in the game, back when the MC was still a nobody. So, she gave the MC her big break which essentially makes her career?? The problem is that the villain's plan depends on sabotaging the protagonist, yet earlier she personally gave the protagonist the publicity and opportunities that launched her career. Even if her final scheme had succeeded, she had already done more to help the protagonist than harm her. [/spoiler] In other words, all the big twists and everything that happens at the end of the game is completely invalidated by a seemingly inconsequential event in the mid-game. This is what I mean when I say that the story doesn't feel cohesive or thoroughly planned out. I actually liked the idea of a more story-based CSD game, but they didn't find a gameplay loop that's fun, and the story is weak at best. The CSD series is one of my favourites of all time, so I would strongly recommend purchasing CSD3 instead of this game.

I enjoyed this game in early access and was excited to come back for the full release, but apparently the devs completely overhauled the gameplay between now and then in a way that completely kills the fun. It's not the fast-paced CSD game you're used to, but it's also no longer a more cozy rhythm based game either.

I loved the Cook Serve series, and play the third one often (though I'll admit it's on Epic, not here). That's why I hate this game. It's not *like* the other CSD games, and I guess if you haven't played any of them, you probably might like it. I couldn't be bothered to care about the story, that's not the kind of game I expected to get with this title. PS: If you think that you'll ever stop seeing ads for CSF on CSD 3, you won't. It actually reminded me to write a bare minimum review, because I spent the bare minimum time in it before I knew I didn't like it. If I'd remembered, I'd have refunded it, but this many years later it's impossible lol

Cook Serve D.E.I.

Cook serve delicious is one of my all time favorite games. But yea, this one actually sucks because it just went full woke and removed a lot of the complexity. idk why, you guys had a great game