This year more than any previous, I ended up playing a lot of titles that I had personally Kickstarted. It’s always a rush to see something that you had some small hand in being brought to brilliant life. Sometimes projects don’t turn out quite as expected, but more often than not, I’ve been lucky. That luck also translated to Battle Chef Brigade, which looked and played like a dream at PAX West 2017.
I was fortunate enough to play the Switch version of Battle Chef Brigade, and while I have found previous instances of some games not running as smoothly on Nintendo consoles, that wasn’t the case here. It couldn’t be easier to match 3 for the cooking mini game, for example, but the Switch version also allows the use of your shoulder buttons to swap pieces, Tetris style. I found it very intuitive and rapidly adjusted for when I had upgraded orbs on the screen to match.
The combat, likewise, is also very smooth and responsive. If you’ve played any game that requires you to string together moves and combos to beat foes, then you’ll get the hang of it in Battle Chef Brigade. While the demo did give you some basic instruction, such as how to dash and do moves like uppercuts, I pretty much figured it out on my own. While most of the foes I encountered were minor threats, such as man eating plants and small fauna, they also threw a giant black boar creature at me, and that was a nice challenge.
By themselves, the basic mechanics are great, but where the game truly shone was in the cooking competition. It makes great use of both systems. You’re given a basic requirement to fulfill, and in the demo it was using at least one piece of boar meat. From there you’re off to the races (literally) and need to hunt and cook in a set period of time. So long as you can get your meal rating to a certain level, your chances of victory are pretty high, though the devs did confirm that the game will keep getting more challenging as you progress, throwing more talented chefs at you. I also found it fascinating that the first ingredient you use in a dish will decide what recipe you end up making. It’s not entirely random, but it’s also somewhat of a surprise. This was probably a wise decision, since forcing players to adhere to specific ingredients in a timed competition would have been potentially frustrating.
This probably is already evident, but the game is utterly gorgeous. The anime hand drawn art style really sings, and combined with all the other aspects I mentioned, speaks highly for the final state of the game. Trinket Studios seem to have a winner with Battle Chef Brigade. I’m glad that I backed it and even more pleased that it’s set to release sometime this Winter. It should offer a delicious treat that any gamer is sure to enjoy.
