Cook Serve Forever

Wow, just wow....

When i played this game way way early in development i was disappointed, the gameplay was very repetitive and got old pretty quick, it's safe to say i wasn't alone in feeling that either!

But oh my god did the team pull through, the turn-around this game had was amazing. It's genuinely a blast to play through and it hardly felt repetitive to me at all.

But this isnt a game you play just for the gameplay, oh no no no no, you play this game for it's story too and ohhhh boy did the team COOK on that department as well! Genuinely I couldnt have asked for a BETTER ending. There was a lot of subtle details that I loved between the voice acting and animation that made it just that more perfect as well.

It's safe to say that I genuinely love this game and i love this team, PLEASE play this game whenever you can, its amazing.

I've always been a fan of the Cook Serve Delicious games and stepping in to this one knowing it was a different experience had me a bit concerned. I first played this game very early in its development and the gameplay did not click with me and felt frustrating.
Fast forward to now the game is fully out and I have revisited it and I must say I am extremely impressed with all the changes that have went in to the experience. The gameplay feels rewarding and requires a lot of coordination with both of your hands simultaneously. Motions feel like the items you are prepping and as I got better at performing them the more I connected with quickly completing recipes. By the time I reached the end of the game, I didn't even need the on-screen instructions and could just do the motions based on color alone. Throw PSCR out the window, a new lasagna muscle memory has come to town.
I have always found the Cook Serve franchise to be underrated with it's world building and writing and the narrative in this game is absolutely superb. I would even call it the highlight. So much so, that it has become my favorite game in the franchise. I loved how all the main characters have their flaws and a lot of the game is centered around them working through them. Without delving in to spoilers, I saw a lot of reviews that did not agree with some of the choices, but I think in the grand scheme of the narrative that the ending works very well. Just excellent writing and great performances from the cast all around.
In a year full of fantastic video game releases, for me this one stands among them. I am happy to say that the turnaround on this game has completely won me over and I will continue to champion the Cook Serve franchise!
PS - For those franchise players who are typically keyboard mains, this one is definitely worth plugging in that controller for.

Welcome to CS:VN - Cook Serve Visual Novel. Enjoy cute art with mostly lacking gameplay mechanics.
Now, I'm playing this game after its 1.0 release, and I don't judge it by previous CSD games I've played. In comparison with those the disappointment would be even bigger.
People reading my reviews know, that above all I value addicting gameplay mechanics that are satisfying to execute. Unfortunately, in CSF those are almost non-existent. I'm totally missing sense of progress in this game. No food upgrades, no menu selection, no additional gameplay mechanics - even a single thing that would add some spice into this fully linear experience. You've pretty much seen it all since the first minutes of the game.
On top of that, the game was entirely designed with controllers in mind, sure, you can use keyboard, but it's visible that it was not the intended way to play it. That alone is not a bad thing, but CSD series was on top of everything else, a typing game, which CSD2 took to extreme, CSD3 striked perfect balance, while CSF ruined it.
Honestly, if it wasn't the massive amount of work put into the art and overall experience, I'd rate this negative. I don't have the guts to do it though - the story is heartwarming, giving a lot of positive vibes, it really pays off - if it wasn't only for those gameplay mechanics that are entirely off here. The combination that CSF includes really doesn't click, see VA-11 Hall-A as a prime example where mixing several genres worked really well instead.
Would I recommend it? Ehh, I really don't know. I don't feel bad playing it, after all I've 100% finished it, so if it was that bad I'd drop it. On the other hand it's also not a title I'd suggest grabbing, especially for its current price, which I believe is overpriced a little considering the content included.
Feeling up for a challenge? Grab CSD, continue with CSD2, and finish with CSD3. Feeling up for a nice storytelling? Grab Life is Strange, The Walking Dead, Sherlock Holmes or something. Want to mix both because you have weird taste? CSF might be a nice experience after all, if you give it a fair shot, ignore its problems and handle its gameplay mechanics like I did - annoying mandatory breaks that require some button mashing during otherwise nice cutscenes. Yes, it's harsh, but it's the best that can be said about the game that missed its point so much that it required a complete rewrite at the end of making it. Sorry Nora, you're the perfect chef, but not in the world they forced you to cook into.
---
If you liked my review, you can find more of them on my profile and on my curator page.

If you are a CSD freak who got hooked on this series by smashing your keyboard to quick-prep lasagna layers and you are coming here for that adrenaline rush...then actually, Cook Serve Forever is probably *not* going to be your favorite game. This is a heartfelt, story-driven game, with less multitasking and time pressure than the prior three games in the series.
However, I found that CSF has its own charms. The story is genuinely endearing, with good characters, funny moments, and competent voice acting. And the new cooking mechanics -- controller-based, where you can multi-task recipe steps by split-braining your left and right hands -- does give a feeling of satisfaction once you get into the groove. (The food also *looks* delicious, so this is highly recommended for fans of well-rendered entrees.)
I ultimately only ended up with ~3 hours on the game because I became about as good as I was going to get at the cooking mechanics, so the main gameplay interaction was just repetition from there to the end of the game. That's the point where I got off this train, but it's not where everyone will get off. If you enjoyed the easier difficulties of the previous CSD games, or if you plan to digest this in small play sessions to relax every evening, then you'll be at home here, and you'll get a nice story to boot.
Boy, am I ready for that remaster of CSD 1, though! Can't wait to get back to slapping down those lasagna layers.

After a rough start in early access, the gameplay was entirely modified for the better.

While not as hard as the previous CSD games, this game still gives you a good challenge if you strive for perfection.
The game is a lot more focused on telling a quite nice story.

The music works out great again this time around. The art looks gorgeous when you find time to look at it. The story is not going to blow you away but is very heartwarming and nice to go through all the same.

My only two negatives (Where one might've been rectified in early access without me noticing) are:
(At least initially) you really need a controller to play, the keyboard layout was nonsensical and not rebindable. This may have changed.

Still an issue is the loading screens between story sequences and gameplay and menus. They could be intentional transitions, but it just feels weirdly drawn out to sit watching a scene for a couple of seconds before something happens.

Other than that, as long as you don't expect the same as the previous Cook Serve Delicious games, and you like having to precisely and swiftly hit and hold buttons, this is a good game to play.

When this game first released into early access it was a bit rough. Luckily the developers stuck with it and refined the gameplay. Yes, this game is different than the Cook Serve Delicious games in several ways, but I think it's a bit unfair to rate it negatively for that reason. The store page advertises it as a more story-based game that has cooking in it. The controls for cooking are more controller-focused and are built around repeating set button combinations for different cooking actions. It's not quite as intense as the Cook Serve Delicious games, but it makes me think a bit as I'm trying to do two separate actions such as holding a button with my left hand while tapping buttons on my right hand at the same time. The music is great, the food looks delicious, and I'm happy with how the game has been refined and reworked through the early access period. If you're looking for another Cook Serve Delicious game, this isn't more of the same, but what it's doing it does well.

This game is a pretty significant departure from the mechanics of the previous CSD games. Overall the game is much simpler and asks for less perfection, so for me it was much chiller and a great wind down game.
The game is mostly story focused (a story I found pretty nice!), following the main character's journey through cooking and the life surrounding it.
The actual mechanics give a bit of the pattern recognition that is familiar to the CSD series, where in different operations take different set keystrokes. This game differs in that the subset of operations is pretty small, but each recipe takes multiple operations and these are divied out between each hand (i.e. each hand does things separately). There's some skill there in getting independence between your hands, but it's not too difficult to push through.
Overall if you want a chiller game with some pretty art and neat story experience that still has some Cook Serve Delicious roots this is a great game.