Cooking Mama: Cookstar

Cooking Mama: Cookstar
Wow! Even worse than Mama!
Protagonist(s): Mama Genre(s): Simulation Platform(s): Nintendo Switch Release: Nintendo Switch AU: March 30, 2020 NA: March 31, 2020 EU: April 28, 2020 Engine: Unity Developer(s): 1st Playable Productions Publisher(s): Planet Entertainment Ravenscourt (PS4) Country: United States Series: Cooking Mama Predecessor: Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop

Cooking Mama: Cookstar is a cookery simulation video game developed by 1st Playable Productions and published by Planet Entertainment for the Nintendo Switch and originally was planned to be released for the PlayStation 4. It is the sixth main instalment in the Cooking Mama franchise. However, a week later, the game was delisted from the Nintendo eShop and a good portion of the surviving copies of the Switch version were recalled by major retailers, causing some people to speculate that the game has a hidden cryptominer installed into its files.

As of June 27, 2020, there are currently no plans to put the Switch version of the game back on the eShop and shelves, although some stores had placed the game back on shelves.

The PlayStation 4 version was announced but was not released due to its illegitimacy. However, they changed their mind in 2021 when Ravenscourt picked up the cancelled PlayStation 4 release and released it anyway, which is against Office Create's wishes of, outside of mobile devices, not wanting a Cooking Mama game for a non-Nintendo system.

Why It's Worse Than Mama

1. Repetitive, simple and bland gameplay.
2. Forceful and inaccurate motion controls.
3. Although the game does not mine cryptocurrency, the game is badly optimized and does drain battery fast in handheld mode as a result.
4. You get rewarded even when playing badly, thus there is no incentive to do well.
   • Though this was most likely done to prevent the game over screen with the angry Mama, which was known for scaring players, thus, making it an "it's made for kids" excuse-type of game.
5. Ugly graphics, as it looks like something from a Wii and mobile game that somehow ended up being released on the Switch and PS4 instead.
   • To rub salt to the wound, the very first Cooking Mama game on the DS looked way better than this, and it was released in 2006.
6. Artificial difficulty: If you fail one tiny section of a very lengthy recipe like destroying a lettuce leaf by removing its core or almost slicing your fingers by accident while cutting ingredients, you'll have to start all over again. This makes notoriously difficult recipes like beef wellington even more difficult to prepare and cook.
   • Not to mention, this is also pointless since the game rewards you, even if you failed.
7. Monotonous voice acting and near-lack of voice lines, especially since Yoko Nishino did a much better job in the other games since Cooking Mama 2.
   • What they could have done to improve this was to use archives of Yoko's voice performances from the previous games, and that would've provided a better result.
   • In fact, even the replacement voice actress for the PAL versions of Crafting Mama (or Cooking Mama World: Hobbies and Fun in PAL) onwards would have been a better choice had it been done correctly.
8. Due to the monotonous and bored-sounding voice acing, it even has laughable dialogue, such as "Shaking my hair!"
9. Nothing special or really new, simply recreating the original DS games, rather than being an exciting one at that.
   • To make matters worse, scalpers began reselling the game at US$150-200 shortly after the recall on eBay.
10. The game's new publisher, Ravenscourt, actually decided to release the game anyway despite knowing it was bad and the original owners of Cooking Mama (Office Create) not wanting them to, which is nothing but corporate greediness (which is pretty rare case since Ravenscourt was focusing to publish the Indie games).
11. Although a PlayStation 4 version was planned and advertised by Planet Entertainment, it was revealed to have been unauthorized by Cooking Mama Ltd./Office Create. Its release is unlikely due to Cooking Mama mainly staying on Nintendo consoles for over a decade and Cooking Mama Ltd./Office Create terminating Planet's license and evaluating legal action against the latter in order to protect their IP rights, customers, and the Cooking Mama franchise.
    • Despite this, the PS4 port got uncancelled and released in July 2021 by the aforementioned Ravenscourt, making this the first Cooking Mama game to not be exclusive to Nintendo consoles (aside from the mobile games Cooking Mama Seasons, Cooking Mama: Let's Cook and Let's Cook Puzzle).
12. The game tries too hard to be "hip with the kids" as it has a social media feature where you can take pictures of your food for likes, quotes like "OOF" inspired from Roblox, the "This Is Fine" meme, and "Pics or it didn't happen", quotes like these were because of the bad voice acting and the laughable dialogue mentioned above, Mama also does dances that look like they came from Fortnite when you get 3 stars on a recipe, including the "Gangnam Style" dance. Not to mention, these moments can also make fans of the franchise upset.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Teaches detailed, real-world recipes, despite every other mainline entry of the Cooking Mama franchise doing this better.
2. Multiplayer (Potluck Party) can be fun and exciting with friends.
3. You can customize how Mama will look by unlocking things by getting likes on your food.
4. Outside of Let's Cook and Let's Cook Puzzle, it's nice to see Mama outside of a Nintendo console.
   • It's also the first game outside of the aforementioned mobile games to not be a Nintendo-exclusive because of that, even though it's against Office Create's wishes of a PlayStation Cooking Mama game.

Reception

Cooking Mama: Cookstar received mostly negative reviews. While young parents were positive towards it, critics and longtime fans were harsher, criticizing the game's clunky controls, bad voice acting, shallow gameplay and unfair difficulty.

On Metacritic, the game has a critic rating of 46/100, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews".

Nintendo Life gave the game a 3/10, criticizing its bad voice acting, unresponsive motion controls, shallow gameplay and poor presentation while praising the number of recipes available.

NintendoWorldReport gave the game a 4.5/10, criticizing its frustratingly inaccurate motion controls, lack of depth and variation and unforgiving difficulty.

Trivia

• This game is the first mainline entry in the Cooking Mama series since the 2014 game Cooking Mama 5: Bon Appétit! and also the first game in the series on Console since the 2008 game Cooking Mama: World Kitchen.
• This was also the first game in the series to be released on a non-Nintendo console, having been released on the PlayStation 4. The version was promoted alongside the original Nintendo Switch release but was not released until over a year later.
• This is the first game in the series that wasn't developed in Japan.

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