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.

As a disclaimer, I'm mostly writing this review comparing this game to the first one, which in my opinion was better. [h1]tl;dr[/h1] 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. [h1]Fun factor[/h1] 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. [h1]Gameplay, controls & difficulty[/h1] 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. [h1]Graphics & cinematics[/h1] 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. [h1]Music, sounds & voice[/h1] 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. [h1]Story & lore[/h1] 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. [h1]Level & character design[/h1] 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. [h1]Game length & replayability[/h1] 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.