Onsen Master Reviews

This is just a lovely, enjoyable game about running an onsen. You'll get to meet colorful characters and creatures as you alleviate the local community's physical woes. I'll not mention too much about the characters here, because meeting new folks is part of the surprise! I hope you'll find their portraits to be as adorable as I did, because Onsen Master's art is just BEAUTIFUL. Not just the portraits, but I noticed that the lighting in the onsen can change based on the time of day which is a very nice touch. As far as the gameplay, it's a game of spinning plates. The rounds are short and sweet with just enough pressure (on normal mode at least) to make the gameplay challenging but enjoyable. I like the idea of being able to guide two guests at once if the opportunity arises! It's sort of a "power play" in Onsen Master that can save you quite a bit of time. Honestly, I was not expecting a "boss fight", but the challenge stages are actually really fun and shake up the usual routine of things. I've so far bathed the first boss, and I can't imagine what the next will end up being. Be advised that this game currently requires joystick swirling with seemingly no alternative -- something that can significantly impact the lifespan of your controller's control stick. From playing Pokemon Sword & Shield's curry making mini-game on Switch, I started discovering that the swirling was breaking all my joycon sticks! Thankfully, this game is fairly forgiving for how far out you need to point the stick to swirl, so I've been able to mitigate a bit of the damage to my control sticks (using a PS5 controller on Windows). I'd be fine with an option to alternate triggers or bumpers for the same effect, or some other way that doesn't require stick swirling. I mean, that could make sense? Moving the mop back and forth with each hand? Anyhow, it controls quite well despite the need for stick swirling. Overall, Onsen Master is cute, creative, and just real nice to look at. I pulled this up after being very frustrated with another game, and felt a whole lot better. Definitely give this a play!

I'm going to put a good review on this because we had fun, and I want to encourage the devs to create more levels. But seriously, 9GB for a game with 18 levels? - 2.5 hours of gameplay, we finished it with 3 stars. And btw, there's a bug with the achievements, most of them didn't unlock. Speaking of bugs, you really need to fix that one where you drag customers on multi-level stages (the ones with stairs). Customers glitch out a lot.

The game has a few good ideas and a charming art style but there are too many things wrong with it to truly enjoy it. The weird blurry filter effect over parts of the level, a lot of bugs and gliching NPCs. The game just feels like it needed way more time in development. It's sad because at it's core it is a pretty good Overcookedlike.

While this game looks super cute the gameplay is horrible. The tutorial is telling you to press buttons that don't work and the game is completely unplayable, at least without a controller.

The maps are quite difficult to navigate with stairways being very blocky, it's frustrating that customers that jump i baths themselves will regularly jump in baths with the wrong ingredients, sometimes even multiple customers with different wants jumping in baths with the wrong ones. The story is ok, not fantastically written and jumping emotionally forward in odd ways. Didn't really manage to get invested in it, sadlly.

So i'll be honest could be a good game if the tutorial wasn't bugged, had absolutely no idea of how i am supposed to help customer due to the none existant tutorial. They say controller recommended but i don't call this a recommandation if you had no other choice. So i'am going to refound to right now and see later if they do anything to improve the game.

So the only bad thing I can see so far is that without a controller you're going to struggle to play the game at all. There's no way to change the key bindings and they're difficult to keep up with in a fast paced game like this. Other than that - this game is super cute! The game play isn't anything new [overcooked, moving out ect] but the idea is something I personally haven't seen before and it does give you a challenge by making sure you get the ingredients right and keep the baths clean and tidy between customers. It would be nice to be able to upgrade the Onsen as you progress to make it easier but as it is, this is a nice little game.

I really wanted to like this game, but it's basically unplayable without a controller. There is no mouse support and the keybindings are wonky and unintuitive (and can't be changed). It's probably fun with a controller, but this is Steam - I use my mouse and my keyboard. Refunded.

[b]Firstly to address some of the negative reviews;[/b] - Keyboard works 100% fine, for me at least (although controller does feel better especially with the mixing mechanic, I find keyboard slightly annoying for it, but it does work). - Personally I found the tutorial to be good enough, wasn't bugged - tested with both controller and keyboard. Though I could see where some people maybe thought so where it does not let you interact with anything other than the exact object you need to interact with (quite few games do this in tutorials). Could maybe be bit more visible and clear, but in my opinion I thought the tutorial was pretty cool. - Style of game play is maybe comparable to Overcooked in a sense that you don't have set customers you need to attend to but rather a time limit and you try to get as many customers served as possible, I was able to get 2-3(max) stars pretty easily all the levels I have played so far on medium difficulty. This is essentially same principal as in Overcooked where you have more orders than you can do, as they constantly keep coming and you just want to try get as many in time limit for max money/stars/score. This can feel overwhelming at times but so far I'm mostly finding it fun and challenging. [b]Positives:[/b] - Interesting concept and fun, new game play in the time management genre where you can control each arm separately or together for speed boost - Art: charismatic, cute, and interesting characters + overall lovely level design - I'm really enjoying the story so far, even though I often tend to skip story stuff in games + bonus codex entries which offer extra info on different customers, the bath ingredients etc. - Controller controls are really fun but do take some getting used to (you can rebind everything except mixing I think, for both input methods) - Nice audio - Remote play together works really well, and co-op is awesome - It's and onsen managment with yokai xD [b]Negatives:[/b] - Keyboard ingredient mixing mechanic controls don't feel great to me and can't be rebound as far as I can see (could be wrong, also controller on other hand is really fun for mixing, can see why controller is recommend by dev) - Minor bug where my mouse cursor stays on screen, even when playing with controller nonstop, bit annoying but fine when I move it to side or other monitor - Potentially other bugs others have mentioned? I tried both input methods and have multiple monitors and all has worked fine for me, so it is either on their end or not extremely common bug that might affect some users but not all (I would say chances are its going to work and to test for yourself and if it does not work for you, you can always easily refund) If you are struggling with game play mechanics even after tutorial or want to see more how the game works before buying, I recommend briefly watching game play videos on youtube (that's what I did before buying). Overall I would definitely recommend trying out this game for yourself, especially if you like games like Overcooked and are interested in onsen/yokai/japanese culture, it's a really cute and awesome game. Don't let the negative reviews (especially ones with less than 5min game play time xD) discourage you like they did to me initially, I regret not getting this game sooner. Only thing I hope they improve is minor bugs and quality of life improvements. I really love the game so far. I hope this game gets more love, as it really deserves it in my opinion. :) [b]Score: 9/10[/b]

I can't recommend the game at this state. I bought it because I like these fast-paced management games and I'm a fan of Onsen, but I started it on easy and it wasn't manageable at all. Customers jump into your baths consistantly, ruining the water. They're going in baths with different ingredients than they wish for, making it impossible to maintain anything at the lowest levels. You can't keep up with anything, it's no fun at all.