Developer: Rocket Vulture
Publisher: Rocket Vulture
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: PC, Switch
Cannibal Cuisine – Review
We are being spoiled when it comes to party games these last few years. We’ve seen great games such as Overcooked 1 & 2, a slightly more timid Tools Up!, an adventurous series of space battles in Catastronauts and more recently, we were able to trash many houses in Moving Out. This time we return to cooking dishes for the angry god Hoochooboo, who is quite keen on human flesh. Luckily, you’re commanding a troupe of cannibals, so they know their way around carving up unsuspecting human beings. We were intrigued by the game’s adult Overcooked concept, but things remain a bit rough around the edges.
Story
After a long time of peace and prosperity for your tribe, things get stirred up when the ancient angry god Hoochooboo awakes from his eons of slumber. The god has worked up quite an appetite during his sleep and the only way to please him is by feeding him human flesh. As sacrificing your tribe members isn’t a great option, you’ll turn your weapons on unsuspecting tourists that just happen to visit the region.
The game doesn’t require a thick plot to be interesting, but the plot that is present is great in setting the proper tone. It’s fun there’s a bit of meat to the bones of a party game, and the theme also motivates you to see what’s next on the menu.
Graphics
Graphically Cannibal Cuisine is a step back from the likable appearance of the games we mentioned above, but it still looks quite cute and the comic-like style allows the player to be quite forgiving. The cannibals can be slightly customized in terms of skin color, the hat they wear, and the weapon they use to butcher tourists. Other than that, you’ll be treated to a handful of different tourist models and the ingredients all have their distinctive comic-like look. The environments depend on the set of stages you’re in, but they all suffice in terms of appearance and visibility of what is expected of you. When playing with four on the handheld mode, which is perfectly viable when playing, things get zoomed out pretty far when each of the players is on opposite sides of the level, you’ll notice your overview is quite blurry. Nonetheless, the game looks proper and attractive enough for a party game of this type.
During some of the stages you’ll have to please two Hoochooboos at once, and they will be color-coded. We do feel that this is sometimes a bit unclear as their colors are only marked by a small pole in the ground. It would have been more pleasant (and fun) if these two evil gods also had a different skin or mask color.
Sound
The sound design of the game is fairly simplistically handled, but it certainly suffices. You’ll be treated to tribal-like tunes with drums and other lesser-known instruments, and the semi-upbeat backdrop will be pleasant during your gaming sessions. The sound effects are simple, but they suffice.
Gameplay
Cannibal Cuisine is a party game much akin to the Overcooked series. You’ll have to combine several ingredients, place them on a bonfire, and feed them to Hoochooboo. The dishes all have one thing in common, namely human flesh. You’ll often have to combine fruits with human parts in order to create the right dish. These human parts drop randomly after killing a tourist, so it might happen more than once you lack the proper part to cook. At the top of the UI you’ll see what dish is expected of you, and it’s best to create them in the proper sequence. You’ll also have to take into account not to overcook your dish, as it earns you fewer points, and when you burn your dish, it’s lost forever. The game relies heavily on party play, as the single-player experience is mediocre, much like is the case with many of these games.
The game tries to diverse itself from the competition by adding some original mechanics that enhance team-play. For example, when picking your cannibal, you’ll also be able to choose a specific skill, that can serve the party. You can, for example, opt to dash, which allows you to cross small gaps and rivers, but you can also choose to place a healing totem, which helps to keep your health under control when the tourists, who serve as your source for meat, attack back. This game also involves simple combat, and taking a beating causes you to lose precious time. The skill system creates a unique twist for a party game such as this, which goes hand in hand with the embedded combat mechanics. That being said, the dash skill is a bit overpowered compared to some of the other skills.
We can commend the developers for implementing a proper online mode, that not only allows you to battle each other, but also gives access to the campaign mode, making it easier to play through the actual content, even when you’re not able to jump in for a quick local session. This is something a lot of other developers often forget to implement when creating a game such as this.
The original build we received had a lot of bugs, some of which weren’t all that noticeable on the developer kits the developers used for the Switch version. We noticed performance drops in some stages when actually playing with a full party. We passed along these issues, and the team was open to working at them. Most of these issues have been resolved, as well as some performance upgrades have been done concerning the somewhat dodgy controls. The team also decided to make the game more accessible to newer players, as the threshold to simply unlock new stages was quite high, and thus the one-star rating has been lowered, giving everyone a chance at seeing what this game has to offer. One big bug still remains though, namely the pause function that does not actually pause the game. When something comes up, and you press pause, the timer still keeps running, and in some cases other players can still move around. Having no working pause mode feels a bit like a giant letdown when you’re on a roll, and something comes up, forcing you to step away from your game for a moment. If you happen to do so, you’ll pretty much ruin your score, as the game will punish you for ‘pausing’ it.
Eventually we tried both the PC and Switch versions of the game, and we must say that the Steam build is a lot better in its performance ratio. We hardly noticed any hiccups when playing the PC version, except for some hit detection bugs in the later stages. More than often we simply slid in the lava, even though we were clearly still on land with our character.
Conclusion
Cannibal Cuisine is a short but savory treat for those looking for a decent Overcooked-like experience, but still with its own twists. The game still has a few flaws that take away some of the fun, but the development team is clearly still investing time upgrading the current build. If you’re looking for a proper party experience, Cannibal Cuisine offers a fun experience, albeit a reasonably short one. We reckon the original higher difficulty was set in place for the lack of content, but even so, getting three stars on all levels will certainly take you quite some time to achieve.
Cannibal Cuisine - Review,
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