Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade - Cooking Mama: Cuisine! - The First 45 Minutes

This fourteenth video in the new Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series is on Cooking Mama: Cuisine! I Played this as part of my Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series, i think this game is exclusive to the service.

I have never played a game from the Cooking Mama series before so i thought this would be the best opportunity to do so. i kinda knew what to expect going in as i've reported on games in this series before, like Cooking Mama 3. but Cooking Mama: Cuisine! still managed to surprise me.

Unlike the recent Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade games Simon's Cat: Story Time, https://youtu.be/SJtlwaqB-KI, and SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit, https://youtu.be/WXm7dhyASyg, where it's the player who determines how long they play the game for as both are full of content, Cooking Mama: Cuisine! has a daily limit. it's an interesting way to get players coming back for more, as each day has a different number of food items you can cook with. There is also an event happening right now, too.

this video is around 45 minutes but that wasn't because of the daily limit. i think i only did around a third of the daily content available. I don't know how that'll change when you start to repeat recipes. as it's my first time playing the game, everything was new and undiscovered. the only reason to redo recipes you had already done seems to be to get a "perfect" 3 star score. there are some cosmetic things you can buy so that's also another reason to do recipes again.

The artwork for the game is familiar. i recognise the main character, and her in-game model looks really good. but other than that, grapically this game looks inconsistent. there are times when flowers look really good, but they're just decorations and the food you've cooked looks ... well ... not like the description, putting it kindly. there are one or two food items that look good, i think the cucumber was an unlikely highlight.

Another inconsistent thing about the game was the controller support. i would suggest it's better to play the game using touch controls than a controller. there are some weird button choices, for example you press "B" to go to the back button but have to then press "A" to go back. a bigger problem i had was the analogue stick sensitivity. it felt like it went from 0 to 100 too fast. i could move the stick and nothing would happen, then i'd try to move it a little more and it had gone all the way. this meant that there were a couple of cooking mini games that were difficult, and one i nearly failed at.

For fans of the series, it's a good way to play the game a little each day and have it be a little different. but it's not a game that shows off the power of Apple Arcade or things like multiplayer. it is being supported and there seem to be themed events so it could be a good game to keep on a  phone and play now and then. but i think it'd be a bit of a  rough time to play the game on anything else, especially if there's no touch screen.