I’m sure by now you have heard about Cooking Mama Cookstar, and if you haven’t then I wouldn’t blame you. There has been so much drama surrounding this game, including consumer confusion about the game’s launch and a behind the scenes legal dispute that saw the game land in a big pot of boiling water.

Let’s Start with the drama Surrounding the game…

So back at the beginning of April, the creator of the Cooking Mama franchise threatened legal action against the game publishers (Planet Entertainment) for what they claimed to be an “unauthorised release” of the game. This caused a huge kerfuffle and Cooking Mama Cookstar became caught in this weird retail and distribution limbo, and the digital copy of the game was removed from the Nintendo eStore.

So, why exactly did this game disappear almost as fast as it appeared?

Office Create – the developers of Cooking Mama on the Nintendo Wii and DS consoles – hold to IP rights to the Cooking Mama, made a statement saying that Planet Entertainment had licensed the name for Cookstar back in August 2018, however, unfortunately “the quality of the game builds failed to meet the standards that our customers expect and deserve“. Office Create had rejected multiple deficiencies that they believed affected the overall aesthetic and quality of the game. Now this is where things get really juicy… instead of fixing the issues and resubmitting for approval like they were contractually obliged to do, Planet Entertainment decided to proceed with their release of Cooking Mama Cookstar without addressing any of the issues and without approval from Office Create. And just to add a little more seasoning to this delicious burger of drama, Office Create also discovered that Planet Entertainment had been promoting an upcoming release of a PlayStation 4 version of the game, of which they (or any other entity for that matter) had been licensed for. These deliberate and intentional breaches of contract lead to the immediate termination of Planet Entertainment’s license for the game. And for that super tasty extra slice of cheese on this flavourful drama burger, Planet Entertainment continued to advertise and sell this unauthorised game despite being notified of the termination of their contract!

So, because of this legal dispute, Cooking Mama Cookstar disappeared from shelves and the Nintendo eStore just as fast as it appeared, and understandably causing a lot of confusion for consumers. I for sure was confused as heck. First of all, I had seen barely any promotional material about the game, I only was informed of the game’s existence when watching a friend’s stream on Twitch and it was brought up in chat; and secondly, I didn’t even know it had been released until after it had been removed from distribution because there was no release announcement.

If you would like to read the full statement from Office Create, click here… but now let’s get to my thoughts on the game that almost never was…

First things first, how did I get my hands on a copy of this elusive game?

So, what did I think of the game?

I’ve been playing the Cooking Mama games since my days on the Nintendo DS and I have always loved it, so being able to get a game for my Switch was super exciting for me. There are some exciting additions to this game, with a separate vegetarian menu that offers vegetarian options of all the regular menu items, a 2-player mode where you can do challenges either co-op or compete against each other, the ability to customise Mama, and the new Cookstar level where you cook your meal without any guidance from Mama.

Let’s start with the menus…

I love that there is some variety in the recipes with a “traditional” menu and a vegetarian menu. Even though the meals are basically the same, it does add some variety because they are slightly different. I think it would have been cool to have gone that step further and even had vegan options, or even gluten free, but that’s just me being picky because I have coeliac disease and it would be cool to have some representation.

I also love that once you have completed your dish you can snap a photo of it to share on social media. You can also choose how it is plated up, choose the setting for your background, and decorate with filters, stickers and garnishes before posting, and it even gives you the chance to share the snap to your actual social media (if you follow me on Twitter then you would have seen a couple of my dishes already). I also love how during this process Mama says “Don’t forget to tag Mama”, which I think would have been such a great community thing if the game hadn’t been caught up in all this legal drama and was actually released properly.

Cookstar Mode

Cookstar mode is a great addition to the game. It presents the ultimate cooking challenge – cooking without instruction or guidance from Mama. You definitely want to make sure you have practiced a dish before doing this challenge because it is full on if you aren’t familiar with it. Keep in mind that you can’t play the cookstar mode until you have completed an actual cook of the dish.

There is definitely room for improvement.

Don’t get me wrong, this game is a lot of fun and I love it – it’s a great game to sit and chill with – but there are definitely some issues that I think could have been fixed if Planet Entertainment had have just taken the time to do what they were supposed to do and fixed the things that they were supposed to.

Firstly, whilst mildly improved from the DS games, the graphics of the artwork could be a little better. They are still super cute and vibrant, but there are just a few things that are lacking. Like, I feel like the food could look a little better, and some of the animations could do with some improvement. But like I said, it’s still super cute so I can get past that.

One thing I can’t get past though, is the controls. The thing that I love most about the Switch is the ability to play either handheld or on screen, but to play Cooking Mama Cookstar on screen means using the joycons, and if you play this game using the joycons you are going to have a really bad time. The controls are just super frustrating and hard to use, like some of the things that were done with the stylus on the DS just do not transition well to the motions of the joycon. It’s honestly so much easier to just play this game in handheld mode. Also, to play multiplayer, you need to play with joycons, so you’re probably going to have not the most enjoyable time.

So in conclusion:

Cooking Mama Cookstar is a lot of fun and a great game to just sit down and chill out without having too much of a challenge, but there is definitely room for improvement. I do hope that this whole legal dispute hasn’t ruined any chances of another Cooking Mama development for the Switch because it would be great to have a properly developed Cooking Mama game for the Switch. I have zero talent in the kitchen so to be able to make amazing dishes in a virtual world is probably the closest I’m ever going to get to be a decent cook.

It’s not likely that you will get your hands on a copy of this game, but if you do then it would be worth picking up a copy, even if it’s just to own a piece of gaming history.

I rate Cooking Mama Cookstar: