Chef RPG Reviews

5.18.25 Review: Playing on an M3 Macbook Air and ASUS ROG ALLY I love this game. I am a veteran Stardew Valley player so when i heard this game a few years ago I kept it on my radar. I grew up loving Papa's flash games on Cool Math Games too. I bought it a week ago and I have not been able to put it down! I think it is a very well made game with lots to do in Early Access. It doesn't feel too grindy and I enjoy the game play loop. It runs great on mac and windows- the controller controls feel really well mapped and it feels great on mouse and keyboard. The characters are interesting and the dialogue is decent. I am a fan of the aesthetic of the game. The music is alright. The cooking game initially can be annoying but it is overall really fun once you get autocook. It is a great game to spend several hours playing. It runs well on handheld and also on Mac which is a rare combination these days. If you like Stardew Valley and also have a love for cooking games I think this game is great! It does feel early access and I think the price is a bit high but I tend to want my games to be worth a dollar per hour I put into it. I am already 24 hours in after a week of owning the game and I don't plan on stopping. I see myself with hundreds of hours in this game as it expands. If you are willing to watch the game grow and be patient I think this game is a great investment for cosy summer night gaming.

I rarely buy games in early access nowadays as I've been disappointed so many times. But this one looked so much fun, I decided to try. Well, it is an amazing game, even in early access! I can't wait for the full release. I've played about 45 hours and completed all the quests available.

This could be a masterpiece upon full release and with the pace they are updating this game there's reason to believe it will get there. Enough good content to purchase and play today, but if you don't like unfinished games defintely bookmark this and keep an eye on it.

Very fun business/harvesting/hunting sim, sometimes even more enjoyable than the classics like Stardew Valley for me. Gorgeous food pixel art, decent game systems, and engaging storyline. The great stuff have already been mentioned many many times in the reviews, and they are all true- its a fantastic game with a lot of talent, effort, and passion involved, so I wont spend hefty paragraphs rewriting whats already been phrased in every way possible. HOWEVER, the one thing i simply cannot get over is how unpleasant 70 percent of the NPCs are. Yes, i understand we are strangers, and we will get warmer as we get to know each other so on and so forth, but a lot of the interactions feel borderline hateful, taken too far from banter or sass. Further on, i do know some character's appeal is their rude to nice, or melting the ice queen type arc. That's fine, and i assume that what Valentina/Bianca(who is basically the same person) is. But the issue lies where everyone at some point treats MC like shit. For example, [spoiler] Mae Lou, the e-sports loving farmer asks you to chuck anything you gift her that isnt coffee into the field. Her artist sister, pisses all over your takes on art (pedestrian!) and tells you to drop the word interesting from your vocabulary. And then swindles 5 quartz and a meal out of you. Thelio, my arch nemesis, makes you run around mining in caves, collecting wheat, paying Bianca, milling his flour, and saving his ass from a very angry boss. This saint of a man, so thankful for your service, gives you the only thing comparable to the hours of your life you spent milling his flour- destructive criticism, He says, wow thanks! In exchange, let me tell you a secret: your restaurant is missing something. And that's it. He tells you your restaurant sucks ass. And he doesnt even know why. That is what a fair exchange sounds like to Thelio. Then Milo basically calls your fit ugly multiple times, despite sporting the most outrageous leopard print fur coat while selling white tanks or lumpy sweaters in his store. [/spoiler] The guttural reactions from NPCs to your gifts are genuinely so painful. Anything that is not the one (1) category of item they deem acceptable is dragged to filth, for the audacity of presenting a fish to a fisherman who often boasts about his love for fish. It is terribly unpleasant to gift presents if you do not look up a guide, or figure out their one singular interest beforehand. Again, i understand snarkiness can be a part of a characters charm. But there is a fine line between sassy and a shocking lack of manners. The way they treat MC is abominable, and although getting to know them better assuredly makes them nicer, I do not want to know someone who treats a stranger terribly better. Hostility is not interesting. Here are some (unwarranted, i know) suggestions i think might improve the current situation: -Give character more gift categories they like; Having favourites, neutral categories and a few things they truly do not like will make dialogue more varied and interesting. It also gives more depth to some characters instead of being known as 'the hat guy'. -Scale the hearts with the main quest, or have the main quest give you some friendship points. It is very strange to have someone tell you 'thank god you are here to save White Ash Harbour, and you are such a wonderful chef!' in the main quest yesterday to 'ew you look ugly buy some real clothes' today. -A character arc is not always necessarily 'They were mean, now they are nice'. Are they just being nice to me, now that I've gifted them presents? Does this mean they are still a deeply rude person in general? I love an enemies to lovers story as much as anyone, but having the majority of the town being against you when your background is not one of animosity is really demotivating and unhelpful to the cause of helping rebuild the town. MC can help bring out the hidden traits of the NPCs, maybe bravery in a cowardly person or the love of nature in a shut-in. It doesnt HAVE to always be you guys werent nice to each other but now you are. That is a very shallow take on relationships. -LET ME DATE KOAAAAAAAA PLEASSEEEEEEEE

first of all: Beautiful game. I didn't know what to do though - there is no clear instructions. I'm just walking around. The NPCs are empty, conversations aren't exciting. The font for the entire game is hard to read for me. 10/10 art. But thats all I can say

tl,dr: Pretty good at the moment (16/05/2025). Review written at the end of Act II. Encountered roughly ~10 bugs in my time, none game breaking. Definitely worth a look if you've enjoyed Traveller's Rest, Kynseed or Dave the Diver. First and foremost, the restaurant and cooking is the focus. Although you can hunt/gather/farm/fish, there is a very strong element of going to the markets, forging friendships with the retailers, putting together a menu with what is available, and prepping and selling the food. I felt the restaurant skill challenges are fine/good and can be automated once you succeeded once. I've seen games like Traveller's Rest take a different route where the cooking aspect gets pushed to the back seat so glad to see Chef RPG stick the landing. Other notes are: a good pace for progress and story elements; unlocking recipes feels special and central to improving; perks have noticeable impact on gameplay; surprised they introduced the sci-fi tech aspect with androids and flying cars, but don't do that much with it; some things are easy to miss if you aren't looking for them such as wild rice and tea leaves; some story notes happen organically, which leaves me wondering if I've missed something because I haven't walked to the right spot yet; a few frustrations with picking things up or interacting.

addicted. bought at discount. would love co-op / split screen. would pay full price, please take my money.

you have got to fix the decor value its impossible to play around.. other than that its a great game

I really like this game! the mood is great the writing is great and fully recommend it after playing a little over 15 hours so far. The game's art is beautiful (especially the food) and I found many of the townsfolk to very interesting. The flashback elements were also very compelling, it was a strong idea to allow game play in them to make the moment feel more important very very entertaining decision please give more of that! However, I think I will stop playing and wait for some updates to come out before really diving into it. There is 5 things so far that I am really hoping will be implemented. (Yes, I know it's early access there will be much more to come in terms of deeper content these are simply mechanical and aesthetic changes I hope and wish for.) 1. Night music and placement change of the date and time tracker and item bar. - I genuinely would get confused what in game time it is when I came back after a break at what time it was because my discord overlay was on top of the clock in the top right. Now, I know that I could have just edited my settings whenever I played this game, but I think that allowing players to have more editing freedom will be more enjoyable in the long run. This would also be helpful to apply to the item and tool bar, let the player choose if they want to have it on the bottom, top, or side. 2. Please let me cook faster as I increase my cooking skill, put ingredients back in the fridge. - I really do love cooking in video games, and I was looking forward to how the cooking mini games would change or the food itself would evolve (I was expecting something akin to Dave the Diver or the renowned classic Cooking mama) but after tripping my cooking stat, but I couldn't tell the difference. Then I got stuck multiple times waiting to cook while my 2 other chefs where working. It would be nice to either place the ingredients back in the fridge 3. Let me make food for my quests, for eating, and to give as a gift for other people. -I was really surprised when the only time I was able to cook in the game was only to make a profit (Bulletin quest or just opening the restaurant). I felt like for a game that is celebrating being a chef should allow much more of the spotlight to be on creating the food and the joy of that process personally or sharing with others. I would love a difficult mini game to make the perfect dish for a picky eater. I would love it even more to give that special meal to a person who would really love it. In fact, I think it would be more meaningful to make friendships, story lines, or quests harder to achieve in the game in tandem to how your cooking skill/abilities are. IE: "you can only meet the cyborg mermaid when you make the sweetest fish meal possible" "make a meal to help Hasel remember her past" etc 4. Give me more Android lore, and SCI-FY food please. - I was instantly hooked when I saw there was the ability to be an android in the game and for high tech to be a part of the games concept. But when I wanted to learn more there wasn't much content to explore. (In fairness this very well could be from how much I had not yet played the game.) I wanted to read about the history inventors or legendary breakthroughs, find blueprints for possible high tech cooking appliances, or at the very least know why Androids exist in this world and can eat normal food. Just like we have two characters who represent drastic differences in eating (Nabitha and Pomarine) I think there could be representation of the "New" vs "Natural" even incorporating LELSH who is the biggest proponent of advanced tech can be more involved in the story. and last but not least, 5. Please, please, please... let my hired chefs and waiters have a personality and let me manually upgrade them. -If I am spending a lot of time in the kitchen, I want whoever is in the kitchen with me to be interesting. Even if its small details it really builds into the role playing of the world and game which is again, a Chef RPG. Hunting, gathering and socializing is fun, but I want cooking and being a chef to be why I continue to play the game. Please, as you continue to develop the cooking process, consider the people who would be apart of that and why hiring them becomes more than just a production boost. let them be gross-cranky-strange or serious, just something that builds into the role play. Again, I really enjoy this game so far and I sincerely believe that this game's concept is unique and fun. I am very excited to see how it is going to evolve and would recommend it right now, and for the potential game that it will become. Good job to all the programmers, developers, and artists it really is a great game. p.s. I noticed that the feminine body type has a butt animation, I think you should include this option for the masculine one and alternatively add a no booty option for the fem one.

i do enjoy this game and this game has so much potential but i do believe there are some things that need to be fixed. the system with decor value is way too difficult- even after buying full legendary chairs, tables, decorations etc i still have a negative decor value. there is no way to get a positive decor value without placing random items all over the store. after paying $20 for the game i would like to decorate my restaurant how i want.