I'm going through a personal crisis at the moment involving an ill family member and the threatened meltdown of everything in my life. The situation has improved since I last wrote, but I don't quite have the time I want to dedicate to this piece. Therefore: I'm going to put this together as well as I can before the July 31 1.0 release date, but I may go back and refine this after posting - for better phrasing; the current version, though inelegant, does reflect what how I feel about Cook Serve Forever.
In brief: I don't think this is a wholly-successful game. I think there are elements that are very strong, that I really like, that do not deserve to be dismissed. There are ways in which this game demonstrates how much Vertigo Games has grown as a developer. I like its attitude and what it's trying to say, and I think we could use more games with a similar mindset in the world. I also think there are gameplay decisions - and it's the gameplay that, ultimately, is the problem here - that detract from what one searches for in a Cook, Serve, Delicious game, and while the game underwent an overhaul to address some of those issues, the fixes introduce new problems, and some of what I feel are the basic issues remain unresolved.
I also think that the choices made in regard to the denouement, while gutsy and thematically-coherent, may be too big an ask for an audience when paired with the gameplay challenges. I may feel differently on that later. I will say: this isn't a timid game.
The complete review's below, bookmarked by section for convenience.
I have a family member who's in the hospital for an infected vertebra. The condition might have long-term implications for his mobility, as the pain during the infection, until the antibiotics take hold, is (and, prior to a correct diagnosis, had been for a good while) keeping him from walking and, combined with other conditions, affecting the muscle mass in his legs. This is causing multiple crises on my end—personally, financially, and, given the resources required to take care of the matter, likely professionally as well. This is, needless to say, impeding progress on the project on my part.
(Very obviously, I am not the person suffering the worst from this, but you're here for updates on the project.)
I'm very sorry. When I started these updates, my intention wasn't for them to be a series of delays for increasingly melodramatic reasons. This has been, without exaggeration, quite possibly the single worst day of my life, so I can only offer the comfort that this isn't fun for me, either. I will finish this project if it is the last thing I do, but there are going to be some bumps in the road as I try to find a new normal here.
49 Keys
You play a monk whose mentor in the order was excommunicated for studying esoteric and occult lore. After an extended silence, you receive a message from him calling you to a nearby island, where your explorations reveal that he might not have quite given up his forbidden interests.
I bought this after reading about it in one of Shaun Musgrave's weekly Switch release round-ups. This is more of an interactive gamebook than an adventure title: presented as a literal open book with narration, dialogue, and choices on the left and a clickable map of your current surroundings on the right. The black-and-white art effectively recalls Dark Ages-style Voynich-esque illustrations, and you do get very nice full-page color pieces on occasion. The prose style is effective.
The problem: There's almost no story here. There are references in the landscape to the main character's past trauma, hallucinations whose intents you don't know, glimpsed fleetingly, just enough to make them sinister and intriguing: statues of Castor with a void where Pollux should be, recalling the monk's deceased twin brother; a knight from heaven or the otherworld, seated and testing the monk, resembling the father disappointed when the protagonist announced he was taking holy orders. It evokes a pointedly personal, psychological aspect to the occult space you're exploring that's effectively sinister. But then it all just...stops. You don't learn what your mentor was trying to do or how your character feels about that; there's no personal reckoning with or realization about the protagonist's past. You don't even learn a good deal about any occult concept, "real" or fictional. The game never comes together in any larger narrative or revelation. It's just a few encounters with occult-inspired imagery. And not enough of it, actually, at that. The folks who made this are clearly thoughtful and talented, but I wish there were something more here.
Weird stuff: Not weird, but endearing: There's a "Thanks from the Team!" achievement for watching the credits to the end.
Legend
This is a medieval-themed SNES hack-and-slash, one of the many forgotten titles inexplicably ported to Steam decades later by Piko Interactive. I picked it up after seeing the Bard play it one time, for some reason - I do like beat-'em-ups - but put it aside after a tough struggle with the first boss, who, oddly, is perhaps the most difficult boss in the game. (The game knows this, too, since he's brought back as the penultimate boss and bodyguard for the big bad. So, ??? at this difficulty curve decision.)
For a forgotten title, I have to say: the pixel backgrounds here are actually quite impressive, in a moody way.
The gameplay is less competent, though. Your character is slow and has three moves: slash, jump slash, and jump kick. Only the jump kick allows you to respond to enemies with any degree of mobility and reliable hope of not getting hit, so that's what you're going to be using for the entire game. There's almost no practical variety in the enemies, and there are way too many of them. This turns the game into an overlong slog, where you're using one attack that mostly works against the hordes but not enough to avoid eating some frustrating cheap hits and gradually exhausting your health and lives. The game would have been more enjoyable if it had been either harder or easier.
I made it up to the last boss in my second attempt, but I either ran out of continues, or you can't continue against the last boss. I was going to end this with "Either way, I didn't feel sufficiently motivated to throw another couple hours into the thing" - but the next day, I did, actually, find that motivation, and I beat the last boss without any continues, on my very last sliver of health of my very last life. I wish I could say a massive reward for my persistence was waiting, but I just got a brief text crawl against the same still used in the attract mode.
Oh, and this:
The two devs!
Weird stuff: The opening crawl is dedicated to telling the tale of a struggle between an all-powerful wizard who called upon dark forces to establish a 1,000-year reign and the fed-up peasantry who eventually overthrew him and sealed him away. You're not after that guy, though. You're after some corrupt rando prince who wants to access his power years later, an afterthought to the focal narrative that, for some reason, is entirely backstory.
Also, I didn't get a pic of this, but the game has one of those bosses who periodically calls in mooks after losing a certain amount of health, waiting on the sidelines invulnerable until their flunkies are defeated. In this game, though, that boss is a dragon, hovering on the side of the tower-top where you challenge it and swooping in again once its hired human goons are eliminated. (Rather low-level flunkies; I would think a dragon's hoard would enable it to buy better fodder.)
The TakeOver
This is the beat-'em-up for which Matt McMuscles, formerly of Super Best Friends, acted as producer and writer. It was released around the announcement of the ultra-successful revival of the Streets of Rage series, to which The TakeOver was clearly meant as a spiritual successor. It kinda got its lunch eaten as a result.
I like the story Matt wrote for the game - it's not much more than a premise and shouldn't be in this genre, but the premise is unique and a strong foundation for a beat-'em-up. (The voice acting is even good, particularly the actress who voices Megan and the big boss, who gives a welcome amount of texture to Megan in particular.) It has unique ideas like a RAGE meter, which builds as you keep landing blows without getting hit yourself and can be triggered at will once filled to boost your damage output dramatically, or the addition of firearms - you can collect ammo like food or melee weapons, then pull out a gun and expend it on a difficult boss or something (uh, which represents a dramatic escalation beyond kicks & punches, but an effective twist mechanicswise). You can even juggle enemies if you're good enough. The action is strong, and the game lasts a good two-and-a-half hours (and has saves, in case you don't wanna beat it in one go). You can have fun with this.
The game seems less than the sum of its parts, though, for some reason. If I had to put a finger on the problem, I'd probably, like most, point to the art style. It's competent and smooth but has a plastic, impersonal quality that repels connection and recalls a lot of the cheapo Xbox Live Indie Games supergreatfriend used to demo.
I did observe that I was pulling off a lot of new moves unwittingly, through certain punch/kick combos; someone into fighting games would probably get something more out of this fighting system. (I personally think, though, a more defined moveset works better for a beat-'em-up, allowing for fights that make certain tactical demands of the player regarding the use and timing of specific moves against certain enemies; I do note that, enemywise, The TakeOver relies a little more on swamping you with sheer numbers and less on distinctive enemy offense patterns than other games in the genre.)
(Not like I can show it, though. I've mentioned this before, but my laptop makes me press Alt to trigger the Function keys, which makes it fiddly to hit F12 in the middle of an action game.)
Weird stuff: A few things:
There's a late stage where you're brought onto the Pit from Mortal Kombat to fight...flaming barrels. (The game has occasional interruptions where barrels roll across the screen and you have to either jump or punch them to avoid damage.) C'mon, man.
Then you cross the bridge to Goro's Lair and fight...a couple of werewolves.
None of this is ever explained.
Two notes: a) The comic art used for the between-level cutscenes is a sliver - a sliver - below where it should be for a commercial game, but it gives the characters some welcome personality, and b) I like Connor's "hey, I'm having fun here" disposition, though it doesn't get a chance to shine here.
Also unexplained: There's a level where you're given an assault rifle and have to shoot up scores of unspecified loping ooga-booga tribesmen - like, until they're bisected at the waist Mortal Kombat-style. It's a curious sequence for a game made this millennium.
Once you beat the game, you unlock a fourth character. The other three characters are clearly based on Axel, Blaze, and (well, just in the manner of a big man with a darker skin tone) Max, so it seems, visually, that the new chara is based on a grown-up version of Skate, though the two aren't similar mechanically (he's range whereas Skate was speed). Here's the thing, though: there is absolutely no explanation of who this character is. The cutscenes don't change to include him. He doesn't even have original voice samples: he just uses a mix of samples from the other three characters, including Megan. He doesn't even have original text boxes for the exchanges with the bosses! He just reuses Connor's lines! I mean, come on! You couldn't write a couple dozen lines of original text?!
His "decide to continue and keep fighting" screen isn't as fire as Megan's, either. Though it's still pretty good.
I will note that once you finish Mystery Skate's campaign, you unlock a mode where you can switch between the three main characters at will at any point in the game, which is just an excellent idea (and one that had to be inspired by Matt's experience making videos about old beat-'em-ups and having to start over to showcase different characters because the game wouldn't let him switch).
I'll conclude with a screenshot that found no natural home in this article but that I am compelled to include for sheer exuberance:
Hello! It is time for accepting culpability. The news is: I do need extra time to complete the translation on my big ongoing Translation Project.
The first reason is predictable and unentertaining: I did underestimate the amount of work required to finish things up, and the amount my professional work would take me away from the project. I will emphasize again that I am the holdup here and that the delay is my fault. I apologize to everyone involved and everyone waiting.
The second is an emergency that's eaten up my April and much of my May. In brief: about a year ago, I had an issue with someone giving me unwanted attention (referenced briefly here). Well, there was an unexpected sequel to that last month, and the response from the local authorities was just...abysmal. It took further legal intervention to get things straightened out, and the problem has had an impact on my living situation, as I'm not getting the support from the authorities I need on this. Addressing the issue has taken a good deal of the time and energy that would've gone to the project for the past several weeks.
So that's the upshot. To provide some evidence here that forward progress is being made and that I'm not just faffing about, I'm going to aim to post an progress update every two weeks here until completion. I'll warn you that the first update may not have much, as I have to wrap up the Current Difficulties, as well as take care of some reviews re: file formatting I was supposed to do at the start of April when issues arose.
Again, I apologize; I should have better news in the weeks to come.
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