The moment you are living on your own, chances are rather high you’ll need to cook for yourself or your partner. You can learn how to cook with the help of one of the countless cookbooks out there, or you can mimic the famous dishes of your mother. When the Cooking Mama franchise first released, it became very popular. Learning how to cook with the help of a virtual mama seemed to be a huge success. Now, years after the last Cooking Mama game, Sweet Shop arrives on Nintendo 3DS. Did the franchise lose its magic or is it still as good as ever? Let’s find out.
Get ready to cook
The moment you start the game, you’ll have several modes to choose from, the main attraction however is making different desserts to sell in your own shop. In order to create those desserts, you’ll need to successfully complete an amount of mini-games. It’s the same concept as the first Cooking Mama game and to be honest, the mini-games themselves haven’t changed that much. You’ll use the touchscreen to cut ingredients, melt chocolate, sprinkle sugar and a lot more.
At first, completing these mini-games does offer some fun since it’s new and fun to do. After a couple of recipes, you’ll notice that you’re constantly doing the same thing over and over again, resulting in boring gameplay. Based on your skills, you’ll earn a medal but even if you make some mistakes, grabbing the gold medal won’t be hard. It makes sense since the game aims at a young audience but an extra difficulty option would surely benefit the game for those with more gaming experience. As it is now, Sweet Shop is simply too easy to be enjoyable for the more experienced gamers.
Run your own shop
The second aspect of the game is running your own shop where you can sell your famous desserts. Don’ expect a lot of this mode since it’s all kept very easy. Unlike other shop managing games, you don’t need to worry about income and outcome. You just create your desserts and sell them to buy new decorations for the shop, future desserts or Mama. There’s no need to worry about spending money on ingredients since it’s never necessary. Clients walk into your store automatically and will eventually buy the dessert of their desire. Again, it’s kept extremely easy so the younger gamer will have fun but perhaps it’s all a little too easy, even for the young audience. A challenge never hurts.
Lazy presentation
The last thing I would like to mention is the presentation of the game. Everything is created using 3D models, to give the game a more modern feeling but it all looks less colorful and vibrant than the older Cooking Mama games, which is a shame. The game lacks details and the soundtrack isn’t memorable at all. It appears that this title is created with a lower budget but this is not the way to bring back the Cooking Mama franchise to the market. It could have been a lot better without a doubt.
Conclusion:
Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop doesn’t mark the glorious return of a forgotten franchise, instead it gives us a mediocre mini-game collection filled with repetitive games. It’s not the best looking game in the franchise and the mini-games all feel recycled. Young gamers might enjoy playing it but even for those, it isn’t the best option you have on Nintendo 3DS. If you’re a true fan of the franchise, give it a go. If not, don’t even bother trying it.
