Cooking Mama 4 (3DS) Review

The Cooking Mama games are something that I, as a 21-year-old male, am not afraid to admit that I have a certain fondness for. Sure, they’re not the deepest games in the world but they are fun little distractions to play when you’re bored. Developed by Office Create (who found so much success with the series that they renamed themselves to Cooking Mama Limited), the franchise has branched out from cooking to crafts, gardening and even to babysitting and camping. So the Mama is definitely branching out, and she’s finally arrived on the Nintendo 3DS, but how does she fare and does she make the most of everything in her kitchen in this version?

The premises of the Cooking Mama games are quite simple; players select a dish to create and carry out the preparation step-by-step to get to the finished product. The series has never really had a proper storyline, except that you’re just cooking for Mama herself. And while she does get a bit feisty at times, generally speaking, the game is very welcoming and forgiving, making it great for younger players.

Cooking Mama 4 doesn’t really feel like a full sequel as I implied earlier—the graphics themselves have not changed since the original game on the DS. The game utilises a cel-shaded kind of appearance. It does manage to make even the most horrible of food items (such as seafood) look quite appealing and full of flavour, which adds to the game’s appeal. It’s a little bit perplexing though that Cooking Mama 4 doesn’t have any true visual improvements that you would expect to find on the much more powerful 3DS console.

Speaking of which, the 3D effect for Cooking Mama 4 is barely used to anywhere near its potential. This is most probably due to technical limitations—Mama and the timer appear on the top screen while the bottom touchscreen is required to play the game, so most of the action will be happening in only two dimensions on the bottom screen. This is somewhat disappointing as most of the game doesn’t use a 3D effect, making this game feel like just another DS sequel rather than a proper “new” feeling 3DS iteration. This problem has been tackled in two games that come to mind thus far, James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes and nintendogs + cats, but the way Cooking Mama 4 utilises the 3D functionality is really disappointing. There will be times when the player fails a step and a piece of food will fling up onto the top screen, and here the 3D effect is great and pronounced, but acts only as a simple reminder of what this game could be, at least 3D-wise, if a bit more effort was put in.

Cooking Mama 4 offers several different options for players, although most of them amount to performing one of any amount of actions with the stylus or the console itself. Tilt your 3DS to coat a pan with butter as it melts, or slide your stylus up and down to chop vegetables to put into a soup. The gameplay itself is fine; every motion that you carry out is somewhat accurate to what you would do in real life, and the controls are quite responsive. What’s a little bit odd is that the game can only be controlled with the stylus—the menus can’t be navigated with the Circle Pad or the + Control Pad, which isn’t a huge deal but something that seemed a little bit odd.

Outside of cooking, there are a few other modes that allow the player to branch out from cooking, except ever so slightly. One mode sees players participating in minigames centred on “helping out” Mama, which include vacuuming up dirt in the kitchen or cleaning up rubbish. The other allows players to combine recipes together to create entirely new creations. This feature sounds quite good on paper, but the result is incredibly disappointing. For example, combining icey poles with spaghetti bolognaise simply puts the player into a minigame where they have to tap plates of spaghetti to drop icey poles on top of them. It’s a great idea that is unfortunately hampered by some pretty poor execution.

There are a few “extra” systems in place to keep the player coming back although none of these components really have a lot of weight to them. Perfectly cooking meals awards the players with gold medals, which not only unlock recipes but also unlocks new patterns and colours for the player to deck out Mama and her kitchen with. These are purely cosmetic though, so I wouldn’t blame any player for keeping at it and trying to unlock everything. Absolute perfectionists and completionists can attempt to redo meals in order to get better medals, though it’s pretty hard not to get gold on your first try. There is a multiplayer option (local only, single card enabled) which enables players to play against each other for a better score, which is a nice touch too.

The game utilises a very cheery and uplifting soundtrack that sounds like an old Benny Hill show, but the music doesn’t get on your nerves too much. Mama is voiced in this iteration, although her accent is sometimes painful to listen to, teetering awkwardly between German and Russian. Still, I suppose the praise will appeal to younger audiences although in this particular instance I think I would prefer Mama to be silent.

Cooking Mama 4 is a sequel that feels more like an expansion pack for the original game rather than a follow-up to either the Wii game or 2 and 3 on the DS. The game plays well, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t really utilise the 3D effect as well as it could, however during gameplay the use of the gyroscope and microphone work quite well. Many would probably ask when Mama is going to lose her steam in the kitchen, and I think that Cooking Mama 4 is the first sign of that. Future iterations of the franchise should probably look into making the experience a little bit more substantial.