Culina: Hands in the Kitchen

I backed this on Kickstarter and was excited about it for a long time. I hadn't actually followed the development that closely, though? I just wanted a cooking/kitchen-themed dating sim. The dating sim part is pretty good. I thought the job interviews for the characters were a unique way to introduce them. But the recipe making part is tedious and annoying, and I hadn't realized how much of the game was dependent on it. I wish there was an option to skip that whole mechanic. I just wanted to play a dating sim, not run around to dozens of shops grabbing ingredients and trying to figure out the puzzle of what customers like what and the math of making sure I have enough money. I play dating sims to be lazy and enjoy a love story, and this aspect ruined the game for me. Running around town to shops all day meant that I missed out on scenes with my love interests because I wasn't spending time with them in the restaurant in order to trigger their flags. I wish there was a middle rating option... I think this is a case of "decent game, just not for me." If you like dating sims with an extra gameplay mechanic and that sounds fun for you, you'll probably like this. But if you are l…

This game is, quite frankly, impossible. It is unbalanced, and dull to boot. Even if you start off with the moneybags code, you will still lose more than you make. Ingredients cost an arm and a leg, and your parents take so much money from you after that that you may as well start selling your kidneys too. It really prevents you from enjoying the recipe creation at all, since you have to sweat over the cost of every single ingredient and usually have to default to the cheapest options possible. Which still isn't enough to help you scrape up enough to keep your head above water. There's a dating sim aspect to the game, but you have no time to enjoy it in the struggle to just survive. I like cooking in games. I like dating sims. But this game fails at both.

So, I am looking at my old library and ... well, might as well post something. I was one of the Kickstarter backers, that is how I got it. This game wasn't updated in last 10 years, so it is unlikely something changed. What I remember is that I liked the idea, but it just wasn't implamented properly. I like character design, it is very wholesome. But game was frustrating enough that I never bothered to finish it. So yea ... in retrospect, it would probably be nice if it could be just a simple dating sim, that is simple and that works. But it is not. Also ... it is 20 €? Ambitious.

I wish there was a middling rating, because that's about what this game is. In essence, it's a visual novel with dating sim and cooking sim smashed into one, which is right up my genre alley. Unfortunately, there are problems with both elements. Cooking: There isn't a lot of room for creativity here. Customers will either buy or not buy your products, and this metric determines whether you can advance past the weekly markers or not (there are four weeks total). At the end of the fourth week a food critic shows up who you are supposed to be able to impress. There are various ingredients you can combine in a multitude of ways, which would be fun if it mattered at all. It turns out there is, in fact, one right answer for each combo. The visual indicators as to which is more healthy, higher quality, etc, can be completely disregarded. If you combine lamb with cloves, people will pay $30 for it. That's the "correct" answer. Any other combo won't sell at a profit margin or won't sell at all. However, there's also a location where you can otherwise drive traffic to your restaurant. You can buy advertising, purchase tables or additional servers to increase the number of people you can se…

So, I liked this game, but I can understand a lot of the criticisms expressed in more negative reviews. So, let's lead this with a few caveats: 1) I helped back this game on Kickstarter. 2) The game is definitely not just an otome game like its prequel, The Spirit Of Cooking, if you were expecting that. 3) The additional restaurant management content is -not- easy to excel at, which in some ways actually makes it kind of accurate to actual restauranting? But yeah, that can be quite the turn-off; it took me three runs to get a not-bad ending. That said, I had an okay time once I got the hang of things, though even my best run came up nearly $1000 and several not-quite-established-enough social connections short of getting the actual good ending. There's just a lot to juggle and not much room for creativity if you're looking to excel; my recommendation is sticking to just a few dishes rather than trying to do some of everything, and make sure you've got stuff in as many price brackets as possible to make sure everyone's at least paying. I probably could've marked cheaper things up more, too, but it didn't feel right to me. As for the dating side, the choices made regarding that ar…

A lot of love went into this game, that's obvious. Fairly easy to get the grasp of - you use time to talk with people, learn things, improve your restaurant. It's a visual novel mixed in with an inventory management style game - worth giving a go if you're into those types of games.