Cooking Mama: Cookstar

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Competitive / Co-Op (Local)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

For a short while, Cooking Mama: Cookstar was one of the most fascinating mysteries on the Nintendo Switch. Originally titled Cooking Mama: Coming Home to Mama before a name change, the game was announced to be in the works for the Nintendo Switch for a while with very little information about the game, and what little information was revealed was puzzling. The game was touted by its publisher to make use of block chain technology, better known for its use in cryptocurrencies than videogames. The game was touted to have a vegetarian mode, despite little else being known about its gameplay. The game kept appearing and disappearing from its publisher’s website, and was never mentioned by the Japanese license holder’s websites at all. What the heck was going on with this game?

When the game was released on Nintendo Switch in 2020, it only added to the confusion, as it was quickly pulled from the eShop. Rumors began to spread – did Nintendo withdraw the game because it was discovered to be a secret cryptocurrency data-miner? Did it get removed because it was causing Nintendo Switch consoles to overheat and become potentially dangerous? Did this have something to do with a devious plan hatched by the infamous Republican billionaire donors, the Koch brothers?

The answer to all of these questions would turn out to be a big fat “no”. The block chain thing was just some empty bluster meant to look good to shareholders, and the final game apparently doesn’t contain anything to do with that technology or cryptocurrencies. The game did cause the Nintendo Switch to heat up, but not dangerously so (certainly no more than some of the more resource-intensive games on the platform), and its own developers spoke out and said this was due to poor optimization, not some evil data mining scheme. And while the game was published by a company owned by Koch Media, Koch Media has no relation to the aforementioned Koch brothers.

Rather, the real truth about the situation turned out to be both more mundane and yet only added to the fascinating tale of this outwardly innocuous-looking game. Evidently, the game being pulled from the eShop was a result of a spat between publisher Planet Entertainment and license holder Office Create, who threatened to sue Planet Entertainment claiming that they did not have the right to release the game in its current state.

None of that, of course, tells you anything about the quality of the game itself, but I felt it was such a fascinating series of events I couldn’t write this review without mentioning it. Indeed, the game is currently only available for purchase in physical form, and many see it as a potential collectors item and have snapped up the game solely for that purpose. But as for the game itself… well, the reality is far more mundane than the controversy surrounding it.

Like prior games in this long-running series (which started on the Nintendo DS in 2006), Cooking Mama: Cookstar is a family-friendly Arcade-style game that has players mimicking the steps for preparing various dishes, with each step being its own separate little mini-game, and with their performance in each of these steps contributing to the quality of the final dish, and as such, its final score.

The presentation here is surprisingly polished for a game with such controversy swirling around it, but also simple and unimpressive. Foods are rendered in a very slightly-cartoony 3D that still manages to make them look delicious, while mama herself is depicted in a very simple chibi 3D style. This is paired with an annoyingly perky soundtrack, and as per series norm, “Mama”’s extremely heavily Japanese-accented voice cheering you on. One thing I will note, though, is that this game does provide players with plenty of options to plate and photograph their dishes upon completion, which is a nice touch.

The minigames here are all fairly simple, and players have the option to play them using motion controls or more traditional gamepad controls (no touchscreen controls, sadly). The motion controls here vary from halfway-decent to terrible, which is a bit disappointing as the game depends heavily on the novelty of these motion controls.

Besides this, the gameplay here is pretty basic, and not in a fun way. The way the control schemes are constantly shifting from one minigame to the next sorta’ obligates the game to stop between every step to let you know how to play the next part, which really slows down the pacing – there’s no WarioWare-esque feel of barely-contained chaos here, sadly.

The game also contains a slew of multiplayer minigames, but once again these games are painfully simple, to the point where you’ll probably try out each of them once and never come back to them again. Most of these are competitive minigames, a few of them are co-op, nearly all of them require motion controls, and every last one of them is so painfully simple that you’ll tire of it within minutes.

Oh, and I don’t know where else to fit this in the review, but yes, the game does have a vegetarian mode for those who want to spare the lives of virtual animals.

Even after all these years, I still have a soft spot for the Cooking Mama series, because I like the idea these games are going for. Chaining together a series of minigames to recreate the general feel of making various foods just sounds like a lot of fun to me, and if done right I feel like this series could make for a great quirky game, much as I still feel the earliest games in the series were. Conversely, if this game were an outright dumpster fire, as the controversies swirling around it seemed to have indicated, it could have made for a fun spectacle at least. Sadly, it is neither of these things, settling instead for a mediocre game that, while not outright terrible, is too slow-paced and suffers from disappointing control issues that make it unsatisfying and keep it from meeting the potential of its concept and history, but also don’t make it the Worst Thing Ever.

This isn’t a culinary masterpiece or a flaming disaster, it’s an undercooked, lukewarm, and stale but still technically edible plate of leftovers.

tl;dr – Cooking Mama Cookstar is an Arcade-style game that has been surrounded by rumors and controversy, with the game pulled from the eShop shortly after its release. However, the reality of the situation is that this game is neither a hidden masterpiece nor an epic disaster. It’s just a mediocre game that neither meets its series’ potential nor is it an interesting enough train wreck to make for a fun spectacle. It is merely a mediocre but playable game with slow pacing, lackluster controls, and simple, boring gameplay.

Grade: C-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Cooking Mama: Cookstar

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Competitive / Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

As I’ve been playing through Nintendo Switch games on Nintendo Switch, I’ve looked at games that have received official updates on Nintendo Switch 2, “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition” games, some of the more significant and popular games on the original Nintendo Switch, games that seem like they might have the most potential for improvement, and games with interesting or unique features. I suppose you can consider Cooking Mama: Cookstar to be one of the latter – this is one of the Nintendo Switch’s more infamous disasters, and a game that was removed from storefronts almost immediately after it was released. Would such a game even be playable on Nintendo Switch 2?

Well, let’s get that out of the way right now. Yes, Cooking Mama: Cookstar plays just fine on Nintendo Switch 2. No, it doesn’t seem like it makes the system heat up any more than usual. And it certainly didn’t cause my Nintendo Switch 2 to explode. With all of that out of the way, the question then becomes, is the game improved at all?

Ehh.

I honestly didn’t notice much difference. On the one hand, I felt that the color seemed off on the lettuce in-game while I was preparing a hamburger, though everything else looked fine. On the other hand, the game’s gyroscopic motion controls were perhaps a bit more responsive. But in the end, this felt like much the same experience overall.

Which is to say, much like the Nintendo Switch experience playing this game, Cooking Mama Cookstar on Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t a Kitchen Nightmare, but neither would I say that this game “Nailed It!” in the Cutthroat Kitchen of cooking games on Nintendo Switch. Cooking Mama Cookstar may have been Chopped from the market when the franchise owners decided it broke My Kitchen Rules, but even though there’s no chance it’ll be The Next Iron Chef, it isn’t one of The Worst Cooks in America. Still, if you’re craving Good Eats on Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2, I think you’re better off looking for other Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

tl;dr – Cooking Mama Cookstar is an Arcade-style game that has been surrounded by rumors and controversy, with the game pulled from the eShop shortly after its release. However, the reality of the situation is that this game is neither a hidden masterpiece nor an epic disaster. It’s just a mediocre game that neither meets its series’ potential nor is it an interesting enough train wreck to make for a fun spectacle. It is merely a mediocre but playable game with slow pacing, lackluster controls, and simple, boring gameplay.

Grade: C-

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