Recent reviews by Cappucirno

It's a fun little game at first but if you intend to get more than a few hours of messing around out of it I wouldn't recommend it. Fun concept but buggy, janky, not that much content and gameplay can get really annoying if you're trying to play well.

The gameplay itself is fun when you start in career and in free mode. However I find that career becomes more annoying than fun when you get to 4 stars and beyond. As for the controls, they're honestly pretty bad. You get used to how to work efficiently eventually but they're very unintuitive at first. First, every cut has to be done individually from the top, and sometimes require very specific weights, which you have no hint for while cutting despite ratings being sometimes really harsh for "wrong cutting technique" as they call it. You can rotate and move objects when you hold them but the controls are terrible and a huge waste of time so most of the time you'll just move things from one recipient to another with the transfer feature because anything else is asking for trouble, which is unfortunate because it's the more boring method. The game will also sometimes give you a recipe at the last minute which can't possibly be completed and penalize you for a cancelled order, leading to the player just sitting around waiting for time to advance while dishes are ready, just so that it's considered late enough to not give you those too late. Basically the game can become difficult but for all the wrong reasons.

The game is riddled with bugs which really grate over time. Some things the game will penalize you if you do which is never touched upon, for example if you put pasta in a dish first then pour a broth, it'll consider the pasta "drizzled" and rate you wrong, so most of the time you actually have to put the pasta last unlike what the recipe tells you. The physics are very janky and will sometimes break a plate you were just about to serve because you poked it a little too hard, or you'll open a door and it'll shatter whatever you're holding. There's also contests in the game in which you compete against other restaurants. But in reality, it's just random numbers generated at the end of it. And no matter how well you do, if you get 5 stars on everything it won't give you higher than a 4.5 score, which it can also give to competitors, after which it'll decide you lose because you're the player. I also got a gamebreaking bug which wouldn't load the next day in my save, effectively forcing me to restart from zero. Also this might just be a feature, but if you don't pick perks when you level, you lose those forever and you can't pick more in the future, which I thought was dumb enough to be a bug.

None, you level through 20 levels while gaining more stars to your restaurant and that's it. What dialogue you get I wouldn't count because it's just to warn you of things and sometimes berate you.

There's a radio with a couple short tunes but it's inaudible if you're not next to it, while all other sounds are way too loud.

Fine if you don't look too closely.

I honestly expected more but the base game only has some 40 recipes with "upgraded" versions that just add a few ingredients. You can get more with DLCs but I find all of them on top of the base game to be overpriced.

Note: this review is for New Genesis (NGS) which is an update to the base game PSO2, which is included in this game but has mostly finished releasing content and was sunset in favor of the former but can still be played

While the base of the game is good, it is plagued by huge issues. The servers have been lagging for a week straight, making it nearly unplayable. A 5 hour maintenance was supposed to fix it but only made it worse somehow. The game is riddled with game breaking bugs that can lock you out of story progression, make you lose meseta (in-game currency), reset the stats on the items you worked so hard for, make you waste multiple items when you try using a single one, constant crashes without reason, etc. The game has extremely little content, 20 being the maximum level and the story having about 3 hours of real content, padded with quests that force you to grind the same mobs in the same zones to make your character stronger, and no other quests except side quests which complete themselves as you grind. There is gathering in the game but the respawning seems bugged as several players have ran out of things to gather over days, which is terrible for two reasons: you need those materials to make your gear better, and you need to gather to complete dailies, which are required to complete weeklies. Which brings us to another point: there is no way for F2P players to make any meseta outside of weeklies and breaking the account-limited red boxes. This means you're locked at about 500k weekly from weeklies. Selling on the player shops is reserved for paying players, and not only that, but Sega thought it good to limit the minimum prices of some items at 500k, which means as a free player, you'll be limited to 1 of these items weekly, assuming they're not priced any higher, which is bound to happen in the future with paying players accumulating more and more money and keeping trading of such items between themselves to make more money. That aside, they made it a point that the game would be compatible with old PSO2 in terms of gear and fashion, but most outfits or weapon camos from the old game look like complete trash in the new game and the highest end gear from PSO2 gets quickly replaced by NGS gear. Another thing to note, is that despite making this whole new shiny game, they kept the abhorrent UI of the original game (special mention to the player shop for being the worst) which was one thing I'd hoped they at least updated, but nothing of the sort.

The gameplay itself is fun when servers aren't lagging. You don't get many Photon Arts (skills) which can make it a bit dull over time but you can switch class any time and try different class/subclass/multiweapon combos. The counter and dodging mechanics add a skill basis to the game and the movement is fluid and fast both for exploration and combat.

The controls are a bit dated with having only 6 PAs you can do at any time, 2 of which are usually taken by normal attack and weapon action, all bound to three mouse buttons. You can bind up to 10 skills on your subpalette but you can't have multiple at once and can't use modifier keys (shift/control/alt) to access more which is a big default.

In terms of difficulty there's not much. The game is usually fairly easy, the challenge being made by players that try to clear content solo or as fast as possible.

The world is nice but regions are mostly similar to each other and forgettable, with not much in the way of content throughout. You'll find the same mobs in most places and no towns or quests except in the city. You'll also spend most of your game time in the same three regions which are made for farming.

The story is extremely short, giving maybe 2 or 3 hours of content at maximum excluding the parts that force you to farm to get better Battle Power (BP). There are side quests which are optional but that you'll clear anyway since they can mostly be completed by farming.

The lore so far is your generic anime thing with some hints out in the world that there's more to it but that haven't been touched upon yet. The same goes for the characters which I didn't think were interesting.

The music is overall forgettable, except for maybe the main theme. The sounds in the game are fine except for the menu/UI which can get really annoying over time. The voice acting is average with only a couple characters being actually good.

The graphics are good and not too demanding surprisingly. The only negative comment I have is that some effects are extremely unoptimized and will suddenly drop a smoothly running 60 FPS to 5 FPS (any kind of large laser attack, any kind of fog).

As said above, the story is about 3 hours long, which is extremely short for such a game, and completes around level 13, leaving you wondering what you're supposed to do up to level 20. The answer is grind. Much like some of the uninspired quests, you're supposed to go to combat zones and just kill mobs mindlessly until you level, while maybe getting a couple rare drops in the process. There is also nothing more to the game. No gathering or crafting to level, a bit of exploration to be done but the world is somewhat small so you'll soon have been all over, no other kind of content to be farmed but the combat zones for XP and items. You could say it has some replayability if you want to try different classes but the content won't change.

The game is fun overall but definitely has some bad points. I enjoyed the exploration, survival, base building and progression. However the land parts of the game were way too lengthy and easy to get lost in, it's too easy to miss important blueprints or story points, and I found the leviathans weren't interesting in terms of gameplay (more details below).

The gameplay was good overall. Exploration was fun for the most part although I often got lost in the samey biomes and I had to constantly get out to check my seaglide map and get back in, or build and deconstruct scanner rooms just to have an idea where to go. The land sections were too long, easy to get lost in and boring. Land traversal was pretty bad as well: I often got stuck in terrain or props and had to reload a save or use the console to get out. I also managed to get to research center Zero by going over the ice cliffs from the sea with my prawn, which I thought was normal, but when I got there I actually clipped through terrain and got stuck in a mountain. I'll also add that I didn't care at all for the pengling parts.

Resource gathering, base building, item and vehicle progression were great and the highlight of the game along with exploration for me. I liked the new addition of the mineral detector to find what you wanted. However, I personally missed a lot of blueprints which locked me out of important features such as self defense (missed the perimeter defense upgrade and couldn't go back for it either), storage or fabrication modules for the seatruck (totally missed the deep parts of twisted bridges for the longest time), and alien containment which meant I never could use all the eggs I gathered.

The controls were fine overall. The snowfox seemed hard to control but I didn't really use it personally. The seatruck was a nice idea but felt too bulky in a lot of biomes as soon as you added modules, since you started bonking everywhere. I ended up just using the prawn for most of the late game since that's also the only way I could (badly) defend myself.

In terms of difficulty, the game was a bit lacking. I think dying should be more punishing. As it is, I didn't even realize what I lost when I did die. Also, the leviathans aren't interesting in their current state. It felt like a pointless struggle most of the time: I'd try to hide from them, they would see me through obstacles, I'd fruitlessly try to ward them off, they would clip through terrain to attack me, lose interest for a bit, I'd go out and repair my ship, rinse and repeat 30 seconds later.

The sea biomes were alright, although they didn't feel different enough at times that I would remember which were where. As I said above, the land biomes were even worse offenders, and for a game about exploring the sea I would've expected fewer of these. My favorite biomes were the twisted bridges and lilypad islands.

The story was rewritten halfway through and it shows. Glaring plot holes throughout: Why is everyone gone from the planet? Why does Robin stop caring about her sister as soon as AL-AN gets in the picture, with the game being completable without even finding out anything about her? Why is Sam able to create an antidote for a bacteria that neither the Architects or Alterra could, when she isn't even a biologist? Why does Robin not care that Marguerit basically send her sister on a suicide mission? And on that topic why does Marguerit basically stop existing as soon as you get your sister's PDA? Those plot holes aside, the story really does feel like two stories stitched together, and neither are particularly good or clear either since there's no linear progression. I didn't particularly like the ending either, for someone so bent on getting separated from an alien entity Robin sure agreed quickly to dropping her entire life to go off to some unknown world with someone she barely knows and didn't seem to grow closer to at all.

The characters are pretty bad. Robin was annoying with her needless comments about every little thing, her exaggerated optimistic takes about everything, or trying to lecture AL-AN on multiple occasions with her childish philosophies. On the other side of that AL-AN was incredibly dense for someone who's been alive for possibly hundreds of years connected to hundreds of other individuals. Marguerit was also annoying in her own way always trying to sound badass for no particular reason.

The ambient music was very nice and fitting of the multiple biomes you explore. However the complete opposite goes for the terrible jukebox music. I liked the default track and Die Peacefully, but couldn't stand the others. I would've liked more ambient or maybe electro tracks to jam to while working on a base. I had to turn it off after a while because it was just grating and I got bored of the first song on loop.

I don't have much to say about sound effects, except that Cryptosuchus are way too loud for how little of a threat they are, and leviathans are too quiet, with the Chelicerate's scream being completely muffled by the Cryptosuchus around it.

The voice acting honestly was kind of bad. I preferred the silent protagonist of the first and not having to hear any other character talk besides my PDA. The only VA I liked was AL-AN which felt on point, everything else was over the top and sounded forced. I stopped listening to the voiced logs and just read them because it was less painful.

Graphics are fine, and I was playing on medium too. The cutscenes feel a bit janky with how they forcefully take control of you and teleport you where you're supposed to be at the start though.

It took me around 30 hours to complete the game, taking my time to explore, build a couple bases, explore the sea and land and get lost in it multiple times. I'd say that's decent value for money, and if that's your cup of tea you could get some more hours in exploring parts you missed, getting all the blueprints or building more bases.

For the sake of being impartial, I reviewed this game for what it is without comparing too much, but the first one was much better in my opinion. If you haven't played it go play that instead. If you've played it already this is more like a badly written DLC with a new map, new fauna/flora and a couple extra features you may not even use.

Also some suggestions for devs:

• Do something about getting stuck in terrain. An unstuck button or something. Having to rely on hour old saves or using the console (and getting locked out of achievement progress) because of a stupid bug is terrible.
  
• Vehicles should have a small-range map like the seaglide instead of having to get in and out of it to find my way around.
  
• There should be multiple ways to get some of these blueprints, or have some sort of progression system that unlocked everything by the end, or easier ways to find them than happening on them by chance.
  
• Why can only the pengling grab fur? Why can't I do that with my knife or hands from a live or dead specimen? I realized this way too late and had no use for the cold suit by then.
  
• You need to be able to do something about leviathans, either make hiding actually work with them not having x-ray sight or clipping through everything to get you, or make weapons actually deter them, or make it possible to outrun them with a power/integrity cost. Anything that isn't just tanking a hit, repairing while they lose interest, and keeping on exploring until the next attack because that was really boring.
  
• Regarding character death, I think losing your inventory, respawning in your base and having to get it back would be more interesting and challenging and make it more important to avoid dying.

I've been wanting to get a DLC to support the devs and game further but didn't like any of the previous ones, but finally with this I feel like it's money well spent. The armors look cool and pair well with the glyphid weapons as well. Just make sure your fellow dwarves don't mistake you for a bug in the chaos.

As a disclaimer, I'm mostly writing this review comparing this game to the first one, which in my opinion was better.

To me it seems this game sacrifices a lot of what it had going for it to add more variety in restaurants, decoration and dishes. Some may find it worth it, but personally I don't. I'd recommend CSD over CSD2.

I like cooking, I like food, and I like seeing and making all the different dishes in thie game. However you may find it repetitive, as well as challenging if you don't have good typing skills. I can't talk for playing with the mouse or controller.

Gameplay is the same as before: you get orders from incoming clients, cook the food accordingly and serve it. The main new mechanic introduced is holding stations (not to be confused with prep stations): some dishes will require to be made beforehand but only need to be dished out once customers request it, while some other dishes can optionally be made beforehand but can also be made to order. Another new thing which ties into this is side dishes: having them at the ready will increase customer patience and income, but take up holding stations. You still get your rush hours at lunch and dinner time, cleaning chores, equipment upgrades, food catalog and all that. The gameplay is fun and satisfying still, a bit like a typing game, with many new foods to be cooked. You can also choose to play in your restaurant or catering. When working at CSD, you get to pick how many stations you use, as well as the meals you make. Catering will have you making specific foods with specific numbers of stations and buzz.

I personally play with a keyboard with default keybinds. This works fine most of the time after a little practice for memorization. The only issue I can think of is that some foods will have an ingredient named the same but have different keybinds depending on the dish being made due to key conflicts, which can lead to confusion when you don't have time to look at the keybinds.

As for difficulty, the game lets you play mostly however you want. Regular mode will be good for most people, some might prefer playing on Classic which brings back the old boosters and detractors from the first game which affect your buzz. Zen mode lets you play at a relaxed pace, taking away rush hours, and Stress mode is just plain ridiculous, starting you out at 140% buzz with customers filling your stations as soon as your doors open and losing their patience immediately. When working at CSD difficulty is customizable to your taste, while catering will start out slow for you to practice dishes and slowly ramp up as you get higher.

Graphics are pretty basic overall with most of it being 2D drawings just sliding around. What really matters in this game are the foods, which look appetizing, so that's good enough for me.

The songs are decent but pretty limited with one for each part of the day (morning, lunch, early afternoon, late afternoon, evening, night) and rush hours. However I quickly got tired of the menu song but thankfully you can turn that off. The customer and foods sounds are the same as before and satisfactory. I always like hearing the customers' satisfied mumblings.

This is where the game starts losing me. Unlike the first game which really made you feel like you had a restaurant that you progressively upgraded over time, this one just tosses you a restaurant which mostly stays the same function wise. All equipment only serves to make chores less frequent so you no longer need to unlock frying stations for fries for example. You can buy any food you want and serve anything you want no matter your star rating, which allows you to play how you want, but loses that progression feeling (the first prevented you from making basic foods once your rating got too high). By default boosters and detractors are off, which means you have no reason to switch out your menu. You no longer get bets through emails challenging you to use a specific menu or get higher combos. You no longer have any relevant emails for that matter so forget about dates, celebrities and special equipment funding. You no longer have special challenges like iron chef or hunger games (or whatever it was called) either. You can also decorate your restaurant however you want so it can stay looking like a dump the entire time if you'd like. Basically the game lets you do what you want entirely, which takes away a lot of the meaning its limitations had before.

Not really a game for levels and characters, but there are many different restaurants to cook at which varies the menu and the decoration, there are no NPCs that matter this time around but they do get fancier looking as your star rating increases.

CSD mode allows you to play infinitely however you want, and there are many different restaurants to cater for so definitely good length and replayability, however you may find it repetitive after a point, especially if you're trying to get gold medals on many shifts.

Not even worth on sale.

None to be had. Easy wack-a-mole game rewarded with moving pictures while a Japanese woman speaks over it.

Literally just wack-a-mole. Doesn't wack half the time, sometimes a panel will bug out and you'll have to restart the entire girl.

Girls look nice but there's only 8 of them. Just look at the game's preview that's already half of them. They're animated once you're done but it's mostly the drawing moving.

I forgot the music already. The voicing is your standard Japanese anime archetypes talking lewdly with no subs.

None.

None.

About 15 minutes to finish all in all, depending on how buggy it acts. No replay value.

At the price this game is at, it'd be insane of you not to get it.

Do you like rhythm games? Do you like upbeat Asian pop songs? Then you'll enjoy this without question.

Easy to get into, the game only uses two whole buttons. Very responsive, as it should be, and despite only having two buttons, the game finds interesting ways to use them to find multiple ways to beat your way through levels. You can use different characters/skins and pets (called elfins) to have different skills to help you in the game, depending on if you're trying to go for a high score, perfect notes, or just trying to survive.

Easy is a piece of cake, Hard can pose a bit of a challenge to some, but the real difficulty lies in Master. You will be left wondering how a game with two buttons can be so hard, and finally realizing the use of healing characters and elfins.

Absolutely gorgeous artstyle, extremely colorful, smooth and cute animations. You'll be wanting to unlock all characters so you can see them in action, as well as see their winning and losing poses just so you can see their respective art.

As said above, if you like upbeat pop you'll enjoy the music. A few pieces have a different style but that's it for the most part. The game starts you out at 40 songs (with 6 free unlockables) so you get a good bang for your buck. Aside from the music, the characters are all voiced in Japanese and very well done, giving them each their own personality.

Not much on this aspect, something about mirror images, the bosses seem like evil counterparts of the heroines, but it's not really explained nor is it a big part of the game.

The game finds interesting ways to use the two buttons to make very challenging levels on Master difficulty, requiring you to duck or jump over barriers in between hitting hits, alternating beats, switching between held notes, etc. As for the physical levels, there's a few different skins for variation but this doesn't change anything to actual gameplay although it's a nice change of pace, and the levels also try to fit the style of music.

Character design is done really well. There's only 3 characters, but multiple skins for each, and as said above they're each voiced as well. You'll learn their personalities as you unlock more skins, illustrations and talk to them in the home screen. All look cute as well of course and there's plenty of fan service to go around.

Took me about 10 hours to beat the free songs on at least Easy and Hard, some on Master. I've unlocked all songs, characters, elfins and illustrations. If you want to get into Master then there's definitely more mileage to be had, and there's also challenges on each song and global achievements, as well as ranking leaderboards if you want to get competitive. Overall the length is great for the price, and the replayability is good if you want to seriously get into it.

If you're gonna get the game because of the nudity tag, don't bother, it's only referring to some lascivious shots of characters in some outfits.

I'm not sure why the game is priced 3$ but the DLC 30$, while it only offers 72 songs versus the free 46. I'd like to get it but compared to the base price of the game it seems a little steep.

The game has no Steam achievements or Steam trading cards, although it would DEFINITELY greatly profit from having them, as I can imagine the cards would fetch quite a price on the marketplace.

Board game based entirely on luck. Make sure you have friends who will also be playing, and willing to not be your friends anymore. Don't buy just for the cute characters!