Cuisineer Xbox Series X|S Port Report

We reviewed the original PC release for Cuisineeer back in 2023 and found it fun yet challenging. Now, the game has been ported to consoles and we decided to take a look at how its console versions fared.

Sometimes a guy just really wants to be a cute little cat girl, cook food, and run a restaurant. If you’re anything like Pom, running the Potato Palace might be the adorable and frilly reprieve that could scratch that itch. It turns out that the “hospitality business” is more like the “hostility business” than anything.

Pom inherited her parent’s restaurant, and like the typical boomers they are, they sucked its worth dry and left her with a barren hovel. She has to rebuild it from nothing, plunge into deep-ass dungeons, and go to war with the flora and fauna within for ingredients.

Cuisineer isn’t the cottage-core, light-and-breezy, muffins-in-the-oven, thigh-highs-and-pink-cotton-panties, business management sim you think it is. This is a cold and harsh experience for those with true grit and kerosene in their blood. Do Xbox Series X gamers have what it takes to become a Cuisineer? Find out in this port report!

Cuisineer
Developer: BattleBrew Productions
Publisher: XSEED Games, Marvelous
Platforms: Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (reviewed)
Release Date: January 1, 2025
Price: $29.99

As a management sim, Cuisineer is solid and exciting enough on its own. Pom’s options to customize the Potato Palace are diverse and the action while prepping food and working toward customer satisfaction is rewarding.

The main things Pom will need to concern herself with when operating are supply and demand, which can vary depending on the day and season. The active time of day never stops, and during downtime, you may be tempted to close up and run errands at the shops, restock, upgrade the stations at the Potato Palace, or make it look more appealing to guests.

Having enough seating for guests and prep stations is key to feeding customers. Accommodating this is where Cuisineer‘s second gameplay module comes into play; the dungeon crawling. Pom gathers resources for her restaurant to fuel her descent into the depths by scrounging and battling in the randomly generated labyrinths.

The dungeons are less interesting than the restaurant management sim. The combat feels like it was included as an obligation as if the developers weren’t confident they could sell this game without some action. As a result, it feels less refined than anything else in the package.

There was an effort to make it look appealing. Pom’s attacks are all oversized kitchen utensils and special attacks are elaborately detailed animations. There was no skipping on the presentation. There is never a moment where Cuisineer looks cheap or half-assed.

Cuisineer was originally a PC game, but the interface was seemingly never strictly intended to be PC-only. The hotkey bar may resemble a PC-centric design flourish but the execution has been easily translated for a controller. Every action is marked so there is never confusion over Pom’s actions or abilities.

The problem with the combat is a mixture of the lack of kinesthetic feedback and balance. Pom’s attacks are pathetic, which is expected for such a girly protagonist, but for this kind of game, you’d expect giant knives to do more damage. There is no satisfying crunch when attacks connect, foes don’t get appropriate hit-stun, and Pom lacks i-frames.

The characters are pretty small and there can be dozens of foes at a time on screen that make it hard to see Pom. Her dash sometimes gets caught on objects, leaving her wide open for attack.

Foes get a ridiculous amount of HP, making battles feel boring as you whittle them down slowly. The experience is drawn out as is, this makes the game artificially longer than it needed to be.

Other issues with the combat arise when the cold realization that upgrading Pom yields incredibly low values that barely improve the experience. The dungeon crawling is unbearably padded out due to the grueling grind of harvesting everything.

The problem is that inventory space is extremely limited and expanding it requires yet more grinding. Even back at Pom’s restaurant, the storage for collectibles is tight.

With more slots available, the experience would flow more fluently, preventing players from stagnating in a perpetual state of reorganizing, grinding, and selling. This can lead to Pom losing days of business because there isn’t enough room in the fridge to contain the necessary day’s worth of operations.

Getting stuck in a frantic cycle of endless preparation for preparation, only for the stars to finally align to open up shop has its satisfaction. Dealing with customers and keeping the Potato Palace running and expanding it feels good.

Chasing down dine-and-dashers is a cute addition that keeps players vigilant on the dining floor and sometimes you relate to the Denny’s waitress who relents that waffles are unavailable.

When Pom’s earned enough money, she can pay off her parent’s absurd debt to the tax man. Paying him initiates the story progression, and enforces no deadline. There probably should have been a deadline, but that would have required the developers to rebalance the game and maybe be more generous with inventory space.

If the dungeon crawling and restaurant management sim modules were more evenly balanced, Cusineer would be more enjoyable. The restaurant stuff is the highlight. With a bit of finesse, the battling with food monsters could have been digestible in smaller doses. In its current state, Cuisineer is fun but feels a bit exhausting and tedious.

As expected, this isn’t a taxing game for the Xbox Series X or S models. Players can expect this to look and run as well as it can and it translates smoothly on a controller too. It’s bright, colorful, and has appealing character designs too. The atmosphere suggests a relaxing and feel-good experience, but the truth is opening a restaurant is one of the most trying business ventures… even as a cute cat-girl.

Cuisineer was reviewed on an Xbox Series X using a code provided by XSEED Games. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Cuisineer is now available for PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.