Overcooked! Special Edition (Nintendo Switch) Review

First things first, do not even bother considering this as a single-player experience or else it will grow both repetitive and frustrating very quickly. There are still no online options, either, so unless you have friends or family willing to play this, then it is a redundant purchase. The developer has tried to force in a solo campaign, but it just does not work well at all. Multiple chefs need to be controlled, running around various different kitchen layouts, preparing meals for punters, and it becomes an exercise in patience rather than an enjoyable experience.

Novel ideas are mixed in to make the cooking arena as interesting as possible, yet the more complex the situation faced, the more frustrating it is switching from one chef to the other, quickly trying to pick the right ingredient, dice it, start it cooking, get the second chef to chop more things up in the meantime, then keep going back and forth to fulfil the meal requirements, overcoming whatever random obstacles are thrown your way, serve it all up, and then deliver. Oh, and don't forget to wash returned dirty dishes, actually go through the act of cleaning them up, and then start the process again. All actions are done by pressing one button, by the way, so do not expect anything elaborate - move into position, hold a button…switch to another chef, repeat the same process.

It works far better when a second, third, and fourth player get involved, but even then it all depends on how skilled those in the party are, since it only takes a few missteps for meals to burn, customers to get fed up, and so on, with the timer running down quickly as people grow more frustrated with the action and start to give up on the repeated processes involved. Kudos to Ghost Town Games for attempting to add fresh ideas to what is pretty much just an expansion of the Cooking Mama series, but what starts off as simplistic fun - if somewhat repetitive, as mentioned - starts to transform into an out of control beast that causes more frustration than it should due to over-complicated kitchens and not always clear orders.