This isn’t inherently a problem - several returning recipes were fun the first time around on the 3DS. If you’re familiar with Cooking Mama, you’ll quickly notice that a large percentage of recipes in Cookstar are lifted, step-for-step, from past games in the series. It’s a stilted, imprecise, and unpolished experience filled with repetition and recycled content. It contains all the elements I expect from a Cooking Mama game, but few of them feel up to the quality level of the previous DS, 3DS, and Wii titles. Or don’t! It doesn’t really matter! Image: 1st Playable Productions/Planet EntertainmentĪfter playing Cookstar for around 15 hours, however, I understand why the game’s release has been so legally contentious. If you follow the recipe and make the right motions, you’ll end up with a tasty dish, and Mama will be proud of you. There’s a strong sense of satisfaction to be found in following the on-screen instructions to slash at the touchscreen to chop vegetables, or in the act of gently stirring ingredients in virtual mixing bowls.

Each Cooking Mama game basically revolves around players using a touchscreen, or motion controls, to cook meals following fairly “realistic” steps recreated via a variety of minigames.Ĭooking Mama games are usually a showcase of what makes a Nintendo console’s unique control scheme great, whether that means emphasizing the accuracy of the touchscreen of the Nintendo DS or the motion controls of the Wii. I’ve always had a soft spot for the series.

One of those copies ended up in my possession. Cookstar has been pulled from the Nintendo Switch eShop, but a few rogue physical copies made it into the wild. Cooking Mama: Cookstar was never meant to have been released to the public, if you believe the company that owns the rights to the Cooking Mama franchise.

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