[b]Manita's Kitchen was featured on my YouTube channel[/b]
https://youtu.be/q0y30P7fApc
and now onto the short review
[h1]TL;DR Review[/h1]
//intro//
Hello, MF Kraven here- and welcome to a less than 10 mins review. A YouTube series where I take a look at niche titles, hidden gems & often overlooked games & tell you whether or not you should buy it, in less than 10 mins. So if that is the type of content that you like, consider subscribing, & liking this video.
Today I take a look at Manitas Kitchen, a cozy narrative driven casual cooking game about a T-Rex, & his dream of becoming the world's best pizza maker. Can you help Trexito fufill their dream? Or are they in over their head? Let's find out.
//Graphics, Sound & Artstyle//
The artstyle is what drew me in, and while the sounds are alright- seeing Trexito in all the different poses was what kept me going.
//Gameplay//
It's a very simplistic game you enter minigames for almost all the things you do, you knead dough & repeatedly press a key or button, you sauce the pie by getting the sauce in the right spot, put toppings by cutting ingredients as they come into the knife's vision, place it in the oven & take it out when it's ready to serve to customers. That's esentially it. You'll start with two simple pies, but the more ingredients you buy, & the more merits you achieve, the more recipes. With more recipes, you'll need more help. This is where the friends mechanic comes in (and no unfortunately like I said, it's a single player NARRATIVE driven game).
You'll first be introduced to an ankylosaurus named Freckles, who can slap dough out for you (up to 3 when fully upgraded). Eventually you'll also be introduced to Marsh the triceratops who will bake a pizza with their flamethrower & finally Collini the Pterodactyl who can sauce up to 3 slapped out pies for you. But not only will you use their powerups to help you out, Trexito has one of their own- the ability to skip the minigame of cutting ingredients nd will allow you to do the ingredients for the UPCOMING pizza.
Pizzas need to have precisely the right amount of ingredients, or risk being penalized by having your pizza rejected or only landing a "good" instead of perfect"
//Price//
12.99 USD
//How many hours estimated//
I finished the game in 9 hours.
//Is it Playable on Steamdeck?//
Yes, it became my preferred way of playing it!
//Final Thoughts//
So when the story was being played out, I was invested- but then days would go by and nothing would come of the story, it'll be just another day, more hustling & grinding. Eventually I bought everything in the store and all upgrades for my workers, so I just kept accumulating money I couldn't spend. What I'm trying to say is, the game hits a plateau- a few great details get thrown in and baam, back to wondering when the story will progress.
Which brings me to my next point, the story starts a bit boring but then when the flashback hits, I got invested... well by hour 7 I was just wishing the game would end & when it finally did, I was dissapointed.
Manitas Kitchen has an incredibly ambitious look to it, the same formula of an Overcooked but it's stunted by it's single player mechanic. And while I know it doesn't make sense to have anyone but Trexito cooking, the cozy/lax ambiance of the game would be perfect to play with kids or a significant other who doesn't want to feel like theyre playing a Souls Born game.
Now onto the bugs, I ran into a plethora of bugs, sometimes the same text would appear 3 days in a row, other times Trexito would just keep walking towards the pizza delivery station & even once I was completely out of bounds. While not exactly game breaking as, if you can't fulfill a day, you just close up shop due to stress earlier. The stress mechanic is kinda useful too, se e as a T-Rex, walking around stress free, feels clunky, which I like so I'm not docking points for that. But the more stressed they are, the faster they move, the faster they move the more pizzas you can make. Made me want to walk away from my PC to let him get a bit stressed to walk faster & would still whip out 11-13 pizzas (which is what you'll average per day if you're on top of it).
The night time levels have the illusion of being harder, because lights will go out making the pizza process harder, but you'll have no help either. Well, I would just slap out 5 pizzas, and make the one on screen, if another one pops up, sauce it while the pizza is baking and repeat the process, with the time it take to sauce & bake you'll only realistically be able to make 6 MAYBE 7 maximum so 5 is the sweet spot especially in late game when you have pizzas with 6 ingredients.
Even though I spent the last few mins berating the game, notice how much attention to detail i put into it. Why? Because at the beginning I was having a genuinely good time. I got the science of pizza making down, & the journey to get to that was great. But after the 7th hour, I just wanted to finish the game. The story doesn't need to be stretched out so long to seem like the game is longer than it actually is, I would've preferred if we could at least get some sort of indication that of how long it would take before the next cut-scene.
So to recap, it's full of bugs, it's a COZY game with no real consequences if you fail, learning the science behind it is fun, the characters are cute, the story is nice until it's not, I wish it was shorter & I really wish it had multiplayer or co-op.
For that on a rating of BUY IT NOW, WAIT FOR SALE or DO NOT BUY! I give this
A Wait for Sale, don't expect to be wow'd by Manitas Kitchen but it still feels like a nice introduction to casual cooking games. Personally this is one I'd probably let my kids play (even though there is a nefarious theme to the story), to train them to play Overcooked or Plate Up! Plus visually the game is pleasing. I just need some of those bugs ironed out, as the price isn't terrible for what this is, but in good conscious I just cant tell yall to just flat out buy it.
[h1]Wait For Sale![/h1]
