Gourmet Dream

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

.

Review:

Gourmet Dream is a Management Simulation released on Nintendo 3DS in 2016. This game has players managing a restaurant to try and make it successful.

This game features a simple presentation that uses cartoony 2D graphics and an upbeat synthesized soundtrack that works well enough for the game, but does come across a bit like a mobile game.

When it comes to the gameplay, Gourmet Dream is at least by appearances a functional but unspectacular entry in its genre, but it unfortunately has multiple issues detracting from it. Firstly, the early hours of the game feel rigidly controlled so the player feels like they have little choice in how to manage their restaurant. To some extent this is understandable as a sort of tutorial to ensure players can get used to the gameplay and mechanics, but it gets to be absurd when I’m spending hours feeling like I’m just doing what the game is telling me to do.

On top of that, there just isn’t the level of control here that you would want out of a management simulation. You can’t set prices, you can’t even hire and fire employees at will – the only day during the week that you can hire employees is Monday for some reason, and you have an extremely limited pool of potential employees (sometimes just one) to choose from.

I suspect there will still be some people who will find Gourmet Dream to be a fun time-waster, and there are still some enjoyable management elements to engage with here. But for the most part this is a pretty disappointing entry in the genre that repeatedly limits players’ abilities to actually, you know, manage. In a Management Simulation, that’s not a good sign.

tl;dr – Gourmet Dream is a Management Simulation where players manage their own restaurant. Unfortunately, players aren’t given much freedom to manage the way they would want to, and there’s an overwhelming feeling throughout the game that you’re just doing what you’re being told what to do. The result is a game that’s still occasionally enjoyable, but which largely fails to be a truly engaging entry in the genre.

Grade: D+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}