Cook Serve Forever Review

If you’ve played and enjoyed the Cook, Serve, Delicious titles, then you’ll know the culinary frantic series is fun, chaotic and unique in its own right. Cook, Serve, Forever is the newest feather in Vertigo Gaming’s cap, with a different twist to the previous games. This experience is driven more by story and narrative, but retains the rapid style button pressing we are used to with a new formula.

Gameplay

There’s a fair bit of variety in Cook, Serve, Forever, with over 80 foods and 400 recipes and over 50 locations. With over 30 different characters to come across, the variance is certainly there. This experience adopts a slightly alternative approach to Cook, Serve, Delicious. This is more of a rhythm-based style where you’ll be pressing the button combinations in sync with what’s shown on screen.

As you react to the button presses, the animations will prepare the dish in stages. For example, at times you’ll be pressing the triggers to chop food, and you can focus on more than one button combo at a time. Precision and speed are key here; you’ll want to be preparing dishes as quickly as possible, but press the incorrect button and you’ll potentially have upset customers. Each location has two difficulties, one easier than the other. Completion of areas gains stickers and medals, and all these can be accessed through your cookbook. I enjoyed trying to master some of the more difficult recipes, often messing up and trying again and again to perfect them.

Visuals & Audio

Cook, Serve, Forever is visually impressive, and you can instantly see a lot of work has gone into the overall presentation. The storytelling is shown through beautiful hand-drawn art, which looks stunning on a large 4k screen. UI design also impressed me with really bright, vivid colours, and everything just looks fantastic.

The art design on the dishes is also well done, although I was so focused on multiple button presses at the lower half of the screen, it was hard to fully appreciate them at times. Vertigo Games has done exceptionally well with the visual polish. After a little research, I found that the game features over two hours of music by Jonathan Geer, and it really adds immersion to the game. It is refreshing not to hear constant repetition in a game soundtrack. There is also some brilliant voice acting from a cast that has worked in a range of games, so you may hear some familiar voices.

Final Thoughts

Cook, Serve, Forever is a fresh experience that I wouldn’t personally classify as a direct sequel to the others. For me, it came across as a far more accessible title in comparison with some great storytelling with incredibly vibrant and polished visuals. Essentially, what you’re getting here is more of a rhythm-based button-pressing game than a dash attempt to serve several food items at once in a successive order.

For those who loved the formula of the Cook, Serve, Delicious titles, you may not enjoy this one as much. But I admire the way Vertigo Games has attempted to try something new. I do think the game is a little pricey for £24.99 on Xbox, especially since there is probably only around 5-10 hours of gameplay involved. It’s a short but wonderfully illustrated and crafted journey, though one that even casual players may love.