Chef RPG

okay, many things to unpack here, I am going to list my honest thoughts after playing 35 hours on this.
PROs:
1. game has a beautiful pixel arts and beautiful designs on the dishes/recipes, makes me wanna explore and acquire new recipes continuously.
2. interesting minigames to play to increase the quality of dishes makes the game less boring from the repetitive cooking mechanics and gives you a choice to skip the mini games.
3. gives players a comfortably pace to progress the game and options to continue the story line whenever they like.
4. interesting background music and environment (however the winter one was not my favorite, just me personally though).
5. as someone who has worked at a restaurant and kitchen, for the rhythm and busyness of it I think the game did a decent job on replicating that feeling for me.
6. I really enjoyed the end of season events and activities, and also the event special items you can get out of them.
CONs:
1. the game mechanics for running the restaurant is repetitive and will get tiresome after a while and also quite time consuming for them to achieve certain goals or buy certain things in the game.
2. three out of the four seasons has the same forage items and it kinda defeats the meaning of the seasons.
3. bugs and glitches will sometime appear (I get it, it's early access) and it's definitely needed attention on.
4. character moves at a same speed and does not have an option to run or anything.
5. I have spent a lot of times just traveling to different places and I think it is tiresome and very time consuming.
6. opening the teahouse as a second restaurant is a pretty boring idea, at least to me, if I couldn't run 2 places at the same time then it'd be just playing the same thing but at a different location.
Thoughts and improvements:
1. I think forage items should be increased and changes as the season changes, and of course more recipes are needed if we decide to add more forage items.
2. the game should be able to give the player the ability to fast travel and run as the game should also expand the map so the player can visit new cities, towns, or villages to acquire exclusive exotic ingredients to make certain exclusive and rare dishes.
3. npc relationship status progression should be more detailed so the player will be aware of where they are at with the NPC they want to deepen the relationship with.
4. locations of the forages should make more sense, for example, fishing at the lake should catch different kind of fish than sea caught fish.
5. the research facilities building mechanics should change, it does not make any sense for the player to be able to only have one of the three.
so these are the ones I can think but I think would definitely make this game a lot more interesting.

Very fun business/harvesting/hunting sim, sometimes even more enjoyable than the classics like Stardew Valley for me. Gorgeous food pixel art, decent game systems, and engaging storyline. The great stuff have already been mentioned many many times in the reviews, and they are all true- its a fantastic game with a lot of talent, effort, and passion involved, so I wont spend hefty paragraphs rewriting whats already been phrased in every way possible.
HOWEVER, the one thing i simply cannot get over is how unpleasant 70 percent of the NPCs are. Yes, i understand we are strangers, and we will get warmer as we get to know each other so on and so forth, but a lot of the interactions feel borderline hateful, taken too far from banter or sass. Further on, i do know some character's appeal is their rude to nice, or melting the ice queen type arc. That's fine, and i assume that what Valentina/Bianca(who is basically the same person) is. But the issue lies where everyone at some point treats MC like ♥♥♥♥. For example, Mae Lou, the e-sports loving farmer asks you to chuck anything you gift her that isnt coffee into the field. Her artist sister, pisses all over your takes on art (pedestrian!) and tells you to drop the word interesting from your vocabulary. And then swindles 5 quartz and a meal out of you. Thelio, my arch nemesis, makes you run around mining in caves, collecting wheat, paying Bianca, milling his flour, and saving his ass from a very angry boss. This saint of a man, so thankful for your service, gives you the only thing comparable to the hours of your life you spent milling his flour- destructive criticism, He says, wow thanks! In exchange, let me tell you a secret: your restaurant is missing something. And that's it. He tells you your restaurant sucks ass. And he doesnt even know why. That is what a fair exchange sounds like to Thelio. Then Milo basically calls your fit ugly multiple times, despite sporting the most outrageous leopard print fur coat while selling white tanks or lumpy sweaters in his store.
The guttural reactions from NPCs to your gifts are genuinely so painful. Anything that is not the one (1) category of item they deem acceptable is dragged to filth, for the audacity of presenting a fish to a fisherman who often boasts about his love for fish. It is terribly unpleasant to gift presents if you do not look up a guide, or figure out their one singular interest beforehand.
Again, i understand snarkiness can be a part of a characters charm. But there is a fine line between sassy and a shocking lack of manners. The way they treat MC is abominable, and although getting to know them better assuredly makes them nicer, I do not want to know someone who treats a stranger terribly better. Hostility is not interesting.
Here are some (unwarranted, i know) suggestions i think might improve the current situation:
-Give character more gift categories they like; Having favourites, neutral categories and a few things they truly do not like will make dialogue more varied and interesting. It also gives more depth to some characters instead of being known as 'the hat guy'.
-Scale the hearts with the main quest, or have the main quest give you some friendship points. It is very strange to have someone tell you 'thank god you are here to save White Ash Harbour, and you are such a wonderful chef!' in the main quest yesterday to 'ew you look ugly buy some real clothes' today.
-A character arc is not always necessarily 'They were mean, now they are nice'. Are they just being nice to me, now that I've gifted them presents? Does this mean they are still a deeply rude person in general? I love an enemies to lovers story as much as anyone, but having the majority of the town being against you when your background is not one of animosity is really demotivating and unhelpful to the cause of helping rebuild the town. MC can help bring out the hidden traits of the NPCs, maybe bravery in a cowardly person or the love of nature in a shut-in. It doesnt HAVE to always be you guys werent nice to each other but now you are. That is a very shallow take on relationships.
-LET ME DATE KOAAAAAAAA PLEASSEEEEEEEE

I like the game a lot so far because it scratches that itch of being like Stardew Valley and Fields of Mistria but cooking focused. I just wish we had even more cooking quests and less farming quests. Something like catering parties for npcs in the restaurant and needing to satisfy conditions for successful completion. I think that would be fun!

"Gordon Ramsay meets Animal Crossing on espresso"
Started the game to relax.
5 minutes in:
Stole herbs from a bush
Fished up a boot
Accidentally deep-fried my only source of income
Now I own a restaurant, date a blacksmith, and cry every time someone orders soup. WHY IS THE SOUP SO COMPLICATED.
Chef RPG didn’t just feed me — it seasoned my soul.
Would I recommend it?
Only if you're ready to battle culinary demons and forget what sleep is.
Game’s a whole 5-star fever dream. Bon appétit, losers.

This game is so fun, however, you can definitely tell that some things still need fixing. I was lucky enough to start playing after the recent update so here are my thoughts.
Hunting & Cooking
- Hunting was very difficult at first, which made earning money more difficult in the beginning. I would have to dedicate entire days to hunting, at times I wanted to give up but I needed the money.
- Once you get used to the hunting mechanics it gets a lot easier. You can even upgrade your weapon eventually (which I have), I think with the upgrade it makes your weapon too OP and hunting becomes way too easy, so does earning money which makes the game less challenging once you've reached that point. (Money is easy to earn, everything else becomes easier to buy and upgrade.)
- You have to play mini games to cook a recipe, however, you can unlock autocook (what I prefer) which makes cooking less tedious. (You can turn this on and off!)
Characters & story
- Characters have their own unique personalities, and there's a good main story going on. There isn't much dialogue that goes on with the characters outside of main quests. NPCs are also kinda mean for some reason.
- Have yet to try develop romantic relationships with any characters. I feel like you don't really know them that well side from the dialogue you get when purchasing from their stores or during events. The dialogue you get from just chatting with them doesn't tell you much about them.
Recipes
- You unlock recipes as you play, which gives you more dishes to cook in your restaurant. I upgraded my skill tree to make getting recipes easier, however, I found that I was getting recipes really frequently which worries me in collecting recipes too quickly.
Seasons
- There are different seasons in the game (I haven't gotten to winter yet) but the foraging and hunting items are the same, so I don't know what seasons do aside from events and general vibe.
Bugs & other stuff
- When you're hunting and animals run over or off cliffs. Meaning, you have to run to where the stairs are to reach them in another level. This just gives the vibe of unfinished, but that is to be expected. I will say, once I've upgraded my weapon animals were way easier to hunt so I've stopped having this issue.
- There are typos in the text when dining guests eat at your restaurant.
- Dining guests will complain the food isn't here when they're ALREADY EATING.
- No ability to run, you can fast travel home though. But sometimes, you will have to run to the other end of town and it's kind of annoying.
- The first day of the game, I died 3 times due to stamina depletion but it gets better!
Overall:
This review is based on the hours I've played and doesn't mean that I've explored every aspect of the game. But as for my thoughts so far it's really fun, and I enjoy it a lot. You can tell that some things aren't finished or need fixing, but it's still enjoyable nonetheless. The art is beautiful, the design of the world is great, and I'm enjoying the story a lot. There are also quite a bit of shops to visit and explore! Currently just trying to pace myself so I don't finish the main acts too quickly but it's really addictive. I'm looking forward to what's next!

It's really good, but it needs improvements
This is a really great game, you can tell a lot of thought has gone into designing this world and the characters. I won't go into too much detail about the positives of the game as they're all pretty standard for a cosy farming/life sim like this, but I do want to recommend some improvements that can be made in my opinion:
- animations for certain actions such as scything and watering plants needs to be A LOT smoother & shorter. Players should be able to cancel previous animations by choosing the action again. It's tedious to have to wait every time esp considering the animation takes a few seconds.
- pick up range for plants when they're on the ground should be slightly bigger.
- more guidance in game for where to get certain upgrades e.g. tools. I found myself looking into the wiki a lot for not so obscure things.
- a more fleshed out system when it comes to the npcs in the town. Quests with npcs doesn't feel like I'm really connecting with them. A lot of times mail from different npcs will just be the same letter. These details really help with storytelling so improving them will make a huge difference.
And lastly and more importantly, this game needs more direction and perhaps more focus as a 'chef/cooking game'. It's always wonderful to see so much work/content being put in one game, but this game lacks focus. There is simply too much you can do (foraging, mining, cooking, shopping, quests, farming, fishing etc...) and as a result I've found myself not bothering with a lot of the mechanics in the game, and also burning out quite quickly too. The direction needs to be streamlined to be more of a chef/restaurant sim. Trying to be too many games at once just feels too busy.
These are just my personal recommendations, I have high hopes for this game :)

Super fun game and really dives into restaurant management (Decorate/structure space, select dishes, make sure you have enough stock/inventory for all recipes, hire staff, pay staff, manage time, etc.)! Very addictive gameplay and tons to do which keeps me coming back.

I do wish there was more tutorial/explanation/answers/hopefully adjustments for a significant portion of aspects though, some key pains for me are listed below (or maybe I just don't get some things even after playing 20 hours):
-What the heck is up with the cook time for each dish? It doesn't ever really go down and therefore it takes FOREVER for each dish to get to each guest. There is the autocook feature (which also takes forever so doesn't make that much a difference time-wise), but you are essentially forced to play minigame after minigame to ensure your dish quality scores don't suck, especially when you're starting out. Dishes taking too long to leave the kitchen equals long wait times for each guest unless you hire (and therefore PAY) an OBSCENE amount of chefs/waiters, which doesn't make sense for my tiny 12-seat restaurant. I can't even fit any more furniture in it there's so much going on.
-Some restaurant shift quests don't mention you're just serving a single patron, so my impression that it would be a regular shift and the quest patron would file in was wrong and cost me so much unnecessary money as I assigned my entire staff to the shift.
-I wish it was easier to find out what characters liked/didn't like as they apparently hate everything I give them, even if it super relevant to their job/things they SAY they like. Not too sure if this matters though since talking appears to raise friendship levels (not sure if it does the same for romance though).
-I find some mechanics of tools annoying, such as (for my setup personally, not sure if I can change it) the scythe, arrow, and fishing pole action only works on my mouse while the watering can is compatible with my X and E keys, so my hands are constantly moving back and forth.

I really like the game despite these, but these things (especially the cook time and wait time mechanics) can be a real pain the neck and sometimes make me think twice about continuing the game if they don't eventually get cleared up.