Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr is an Arcade-style game much in the same vein as other “Cooking Tycoon” games like Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! and Food Truck Tycoon, where players are responding to customers’ orders and putting together meals behind the counter, trying to juggle multiple tasks at once. The twist is, this game takes place in a medieval fantasy world, your customers are mages, hobbits, and barbarians, and there’s some prophecy about how you’re going to save the world or something, but you’re too busy caretaking for this tavern you bought one night after getting wasted drunk.

It’s a clever twist that gives this game a healthy dose of personality, and it’s that one quality that pushes this game ahead of much of the rest of the competition in the genre. The game’s story is very tongue-in-cheek, and a part of what drives you to push on in the game is to find out more about the characters’ wacky story. That said, the visuals don’t quite live up to the same level as the game’s writing and overall theme – the way this game’s hand-drawn 2D visuals look just feels a tad generic to me, though I suppose at least it doesn’t look bad, just forgettable.

As for the gameplay itself, this is pretty standard fare for the genre, if a bit simplified. Once you get an order for X, Y, and Z, you must click on the stations that produce each of those items and then back on the patron while their timer ticks down. Some items require extra steps like waiting for a meter to fill or making a specific combination of other things, but mostly that’s it – the challenge comes from multitasking multiple instances of this at a time.

This is a game that plays a bit stiffly with a gamepad. It works, but it’s not ideal. However, when played in handheld mode, the touchscreen controls are perfect for the game, and make it flow much more smoothly. Here’s the issue with that, though – this game also has a surprisingly good 2-player co-op mode, with players needing to work together without getting in each others’ ways, and clearly you’re not going to be doing that in handheld mode with a touchscreen, so… what’s the best way to play this? Each way has its upside and downside.

In the end, Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr does a good job bringing a unique personality to the “food service tycoon”-style Arcade game that helps propel it ahead of many other games of its kind. It also has excellent co-op and superb touchscreen controls, though it sucks to have to choose one or the other. In the end, this is a decent entry in the genre that should be enjoyed by those who like this sort of game.

tl;dr – Barbarous: tavern of Emyr is an Arcade-style food service game where players piece together customer orders in a medieval fantasy setting. The game has a great amount of personality to it, a good co-op mode, and great touchscreen controls, although you can’t really do both of those at the same time. On the whole, this is a solid entry in the genre.

Grade: B-

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