Cookie Run: OvenBreak (season 6-present)
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Cookie Run: OvenBreak is an online mobile endless running game developed by DevSisters which serves as the successor to the now-defunct Cookie Run LINE. While the game was well-received in its first five seasons, it later received mixed-to-negative reception from fans with its season 6 and half of season 7 update.
Bad Qualities
- This season introduced the infamous Invocation Cards that can only be bought with its own new currency, Invocation Tokens, which in turn has to be bought either with Crystals in the Package Shop or Light Spheres in the Breakout Shop. However, you first need to get one of your Cookies to Level 12 to even unlock its Gacha shop and equip them, and to level up the cards you need Coins and Invocation Shards, which you get from either breaking down other cards or purchasing with Crystals. This system made the game even more pay-to-win and ultimately kickstarted the game pandering to pay-to-play players. Many fans protested against this new system before Devsisters silenced them, showing the whole system overall is a complete cash grab.
- Devsisters defended the update, claiming that they add more challenge to the game, when they also reduced and increased the points for Cookie abilities and Jellies respectively (will be mentioned below).
- The cards themselves are just lazily recycled versions of already existing Cookie skills and Treasures.
- There also used to be Invocation Card trials, but they were removed.
- The Cookie Trials have been butchered badly, as rewards have been nerfed and Infinite Trials have been replaced by Hard Mode, which is only unlocked after you get a Diamond rank in a Cookie's trial.
- Bonus Missions were initially removed, which was a terrible mistake as the rewards made it easier to make and max out Magic Candies. You now had to either spend real money on packages or grind with your Cookie for ingredient sacks (which could take forever since sometimes the ingredients you get aren't for that Cookie's Magic Candy). Thankfully, Bonus Missions were brought back, but the more recent Cookies from Hydrangea Cookie onward weren't given any, meaning you would either have to grind for the B-Rank ingredients of that event or purchase with Magic Powder/Crystals.
- Some of the older Cookies such as Tiger Lily Cookie or Red Bean Cookie also weren't given Cookie Trials (despite some of them getting rebuffs), meaning the only way you can max out their Magic Candies is by purchasing their B-Rank Ingredients with Magic Powder or Crystals, since these ingredients don't even appear in ingredient sacks.
- Some Cookies, Pets and Treasures were nerfed or revamped for no reason at all:
- X-Turbo Burster was nerfed to have a 1-minute cooldown before the wind shield formed. It also now has a lower speed boost and grants points instead.
- Red Egg of Resurrection suffered the worst nerf in the game which rendered it completely useless and is now considered by fans to be even worse than the other Rare-rarity Treasures; it now revives your Cookie by taking a larger chunk out of your score. The higher the score, the more points sacrificed (which is ironic because Treasures are supposed to increase your score).
- Even worse is that these two Treasures were considered by fans to be the best in the game because they were the most strategic for runs.
- Tiger Lily Cookie was nerfed immediately after her rebuff as her spear throws went from scoring 750,000 points (at max level) to just 280,000.
- The game suffered from balance changes:
- When starting a run, the Cookie's skill used to no longer activate at the beginning and would instead start with a skill countdown. This change was reverted soon after complaints from fans.
- While Devsisters claimed that this update would balance the Cookies and give more chances to use Cookies that were less-used by players, it actually does the complete opposite; many Cookies that already had low energy were given a HUGE disadvantage in terms of points earned from skills and Combi Pets. This renders at least 80% of the Cookies completely worthless.
- One of the worst updates this game received was the Level 15 Cap which made the maximum level 15 for every Cookie. This change badly affected the Legendaries the most, as they used to be effective even at lower levels and are now so worthless that even Rare Cookies such as Knight Cookie and Ninja Cookie are better than them. The only time a Legendary will be good is if they become a Meta Cookie for an event (like Timekeeper Cookie in Save The Future! or Fire Spirit Cookie in The Treasure of Legends) or is just a newly released Cookie (like Lychee Dragon Cookie).
- This made Dark Enchantress Cookie (who had already received a Combi Pet, Magic Candy and Legendary Costume in the previous season) even worse of a playable character as the issues with her low energy weren't resolved.
- The Combi Generator is now broken as it only generates by level rather than points. This led some mid-game players having to sort their Combis themselves because the Combi Generator kept adding high-level Rare Cookies, Pets and Treasures, which worsened the overall scores.
- The updates in this Season had underwhelming stories with cliffhanger endings. They were also signs of the updates being rushed for the next month and Season 7:
- Super Fashion Week, has a most lackluster story.
- The Labyrinth of Remembrance, which was supposed to celebrate the game's 5th anniversary, ended up being another City of Wizards update but with a stained glass aesthetic. The story itself was just GingerBrave and his friends watching their memories alongside Amber Sugar Cookie and Sugar Glass Cookie.
- The Witch's Attic had a lackluster story about Candlelight Cookie retrieving their treasures from a crow with the help of Crowberry Cookie when it's painfully obvious that the crow was the latter. The story also lacks any growth or change for the two main characters.
- The Crispy Dough, Sturdy Bones! story has a lot of good fanservice and a good moral about never overworking yourself too much, only for that moral to be completely thrown away in the ending, where Pizza Cookie was revealed to have pretended she was resting in the hospital so she could sneak out and continue her job.
- The final update, The Treasure of Legends, features perhaps the most disappointing story of all as it feels the most incomplete; Peperoncino Cookie's backstory about losing a Cookie close to him is never talked about again and why Dragon's Valley was cooling off is still never answered. Barely anything actually happens in the story as the only things that happen is Peperoncino Cookie rescuing a clueless Cauliflower Cookie from falling into lava (which causes him to be reminded of the Cookie he lost) and the ending, which was literally just Peperoncino Cookie sticking his sword in the ground and absorbing the power of the flame from the treasure before he parts ways with Cauliflower Cookie. That's it.
- Fire Spirit Cookie also receiving a Legendary Costume (and lobby background) in that update led some fans to speculate that he would appear as the main antagonist or at least a supporting character of the story (because of the lore surrounding this new form), but the story itself lacks any other characters aside from the two protagonists.
- As a result of the updates being rushed, the game had some major bugs and glitches (that were later on patched) such as:
- Lilac Cookie having stiff and clunky animations on release.
- The game crashes whenever Dr. Bones Cookie collided with an obstacle.
- The infamous "Infinite Peperoncino Slide" glitch, which caused the developers to make him unable to play for a few days so they could patch the glitch.
- The new story mode retcons a lot of the main plot and lore:
- Why do GingerBrave and friends still want to find a paradise to live peacefully (even though they technically already do?) when there are civilisations left and right?
- Most notably, Skater Cookie, who was previously established to have escaped the oven with GingerBrave, GingerBright and Strawberry Cookie, was retconned out of the story for no reason.
- Completing story mode no longer rewards you with Crystals.
- Many characters are barely seen at all or just simply never appear again after their debuts:
- Amber Sugar Cookie and Sugar Glass Cookie are only seen in the Labyrinth of Remembrance story and are just forgotten by everyone, even when in the ending it was established that Sugar Glass Cookie left the Labyrinth to explore the outside world for the first time.
- Candlelight Cookie has reappeared in Crispy Dough, Sturdy Bones!, whereas Crowberry Cookie only appeared in The Witch's Attic yet somehow also got a Costume and buffed in the Treasure of Legends update, despite not even being related to nor in the story.
- Dark Enchantress Cookie and her minions (Dark Choco Cookie, Pomegranate Cookie, Licorice Cookie, Chess Choco Cookie, Lobster Cookie and Earl Grey Cookie) weren't seen anywhere during Season 6 (although this could be understandable since it focuses more on the Dragons).
- Many of the older Cookies who first appeared in Cookie Run LINE are simply forgotten.
- The success rates of upgrading Magic Candies and Treasure Enhancements were quietly nerfed.
- As of the Isle of Awakening Dragons update, the success rate of Magic Candies is now 100%, while Treasure Enhancements remain annoying, forcing you to buy more Enhancement Tickets.
- The Trophy Race/Champions League (as well as events) is straight up unfair for F2P players or players who don't have their Cookies up to at least level 10.
- Instead of matching you up with other players with similar levels, you could end up going against Level 80 P2P players who maxed out their Legendary/Meta Cookies, Pets, Treasures and Invocation Cards via buying packages with real money. And as a result of finishing a race at a lower rank, the game punishes you via losing a higher amount of trophies and therefore going down a rank, meaning lower rewards.
- The races are also more repetitive as you have to play through the same three levels randomly.
- It's also unfair for new players as if you want to complete events, you need the released Cookies of that event to be of a high level. Without Soul Potions or a high enough amount of Crystals, they could end up permanently missing out on event-exclusive rewards such as Champions League Costumes for new Cookies and lobby backgrounds.
- Instead of matching you up with other players with similar levels, you could end up going against Level 80 P2P players who maxed out their Legendary/Meta Cookies, Pets, Treasures and Invocation Cards via buying packages with real money. And as a result of finishing a race at a lower rank, the game punishes you via losing a higher amount of trophies and therefore going down a rank, meaning lower rewards.
- It's harder to get Rainbow Cubes to get better Costumes since they were removed as rewards from Trophy Race.
- Even worse is that now the Jelly Bean Gacha exists as of the Cookie Sports Day update, which also has to be bought with Rainbow Cubes.
- This also made it clear to fans that the updates mentioned above were fixing what was not broken with the intention of turning the game into a cash grab.
- The Island of Memories still hasn't received an update since its release in 2017.
- The In the Shadows of the Dunes update: This update is, if not, the worst update in Cookie Run: OvenBreak so far, considering that the update had many racist stereotypes and Orientalism of SWANA culture, these were the costumes, most notably Chilli Pepper Cookie's costume, the infamous Boom Kaboom Jelly set (now named Bomb Jelly set), with one of the bear jellies wearing a belt with a time, and the two newest cookies: Centipede Cookie and Peppercorn Cookie, in fact Peppercorn Cookie holding a bomb on her hand. What makes the update worse is that it was released during Ramadan. Because of this, this sparked a huge controversy in the Cookie Run fandom.
- Despite this controversy, Devsisters has done nothing to cancel or remove the racist stereotypes, instead, they have removed the belt from one of the bear jellies and rename the set and remove the clip about them announcing it. However the clip was only removed on the official English channel and can still be viewable in other languages on the official channel and it does not excuse the fact that the set is still offensive as the bear jellies remain as bombs.
Good Qualities
- The music is still good, with Pizza Cookie's Trial being a bop to listen to.
- The graphics are still nice to look at.
- The new Cookies have cool designs and skills as always.
- A lot of characters reappeared in the Crispy Dough, Sturdy Bones! story and game mode to help convince Pizza Cookie to rest.
- The Story Mode can be helpful for beginners as there a lot of rewards such as Crystals, Coins and Cookie Mileage Points that will help max out some of your Epic Cookies (in particular, Beet Cookie, Snow Sugar Cookie, Captain Ice Cookie, Yogurt Cream Cookie and Ginseng Cookie).
- Breakout Special Episode 1: City of the Millennial Tree was finally rotated and replaced with Escape from the Oven, as players already found it to be repetitive and annoying with the fact that many Cookies and Pets weren't allowed because of the large amount of vertical mobility.
- Some of the stories are decent with interesting new characters:
- Tale of the Wishing Lotus and The Dragon's Garden Paradise featured interesting lore and characters such as the main antagonist, Lotus Dragon Cookie.
- The Miracle of Winter Gifts was a wholesome Christmas story with a unique incarnation of (the real) Father Christmas, Eggnog Cookie, who delivered presents via a magical train operated by Tiramisu Cookie rather than a sleigh.
- The Isle of Awakening Dragons introduced one of the game's most interesting villains, Lychee Dragon Cookie, along with Rambutan Cookie, who's design and aesthetic is based off of real-life Indonesian tribes.
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