Cooking Mama 5: Bon Appetit

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless, Download Play Supported)

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Review:

Cooking Mama 5, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014, is the second Nintendo 3DS installment in this series of Arcade-style games that have players playing through various minigames that roughly approximate the steps required to prepare various food dishes. This game features 60 different “new” unlockable recipes comprised of numerous minigames, with additional unlockable minigames for doing various household chores.

Much of this will feel like deja vu to fans of the series, and in fact I put “new” in quotes because at least a few recipes are eerily similar to those seen in Cooking Mama 5 (yeah, adding cheese in the exact same salisbury steak series of minigames that was in Cooking Mama 4 doesn’t qualify as “new”).

At the very least, the household chore minigames this time around are at least interesting, and overall the quality of minigames here makes this a better game than its predecessor… but not so much you’ll want to get this game if you already have Cooking Mama 4.

And once again, this game offers up the reheated low-quality cartoony cel-shaded 3D visuals of the prior game, along with a yet another grating cartoonish soundtrack and the usual highly-accented voiced exclamations of “Mama”. Yeah, they’re not impressing anyone with this.

Look, Cooking Mama 5 is a decent game that actually does improve on its predecessor (marginally), and will give fans of the series more or less what they’re looking for in a Cooking Mama game… at least if they don’t mind leftovers. Because despite the improvements, this just feels like a continuation of the previous game rather than an entirely new title.

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tl;dr – Cooking Mama 5 is the second mainline Nintendo 3DS entry in this Arcade-style minigame collection series themed after preparing various foods… but it really just feels like more of the previous game. The bonus minigames here are better than what we had before, making for an overall better game, but not a game worth getting if you already have Cooking Mama 4.

Grade: C+

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