Two-dimensional fighting game with role-playing elements in the anime style, a cheat simulator and a puzzle in the genre "three in a row" - they are not a couple, not even a three, right? However, the authors of Battle Chef Brigade were able to combine all this famously in the game, where the replica "Why do they cook my chicken cutlet so long? For a chicken, or something, with an ax running around? "- Not a joke, but the harsh truth of life.
Monsters - for slaughter and in the kitchen!
The fantasy kingdom of Viktusia seemed to have been destined for a typical destiny - centuries ago, crowds of monsters besieged the country, but then came heroes-saviors and all that, logically, saved. Only the heroes were King Henry and his personal ... Chef Robushon. Cutting all the wicked, they fed them the inhabitants of the kingdom and saved them from hunger. Since then, monsters and other animals are not just being killed here, but they are also being cooked - some steak from the claws of the dragon and the heart of the harpy, for example.
This is done by members of the elite brigade of military chefs, whom everyone loves and respects. Competition for admission to it, to put it mildly, is very high - for selection, an annual tournament under royal patronage is held, in which the best chefs from all over the kingdom participate. Young Mina Khan, the main heroine of Battle Chef Brigade, also dreamed of getting into the tournament and for this purpose she fled to the capital from a small family restaurant located in her native village on the edge of the country.
Smack and a lot of fights
Actually, the whole game is that Mina takes turns calling opponents to culinary fights, which are judged by picky judges. Dishes should be cooked in the allotted time.
The cooking process consists of two parts. First, we cut into slices of all kinds of monsters, extracting the right ingredients of different colors. This is represented as a two-dimensional fighting game with elements of the platformer: Mina famously jumps on the ledges and beats various creatures on the ground and in the air, throws daggers and even sometimes uses magic, launching painful tornadoes in different directions.
Filling the bag with the remains of the enemies, she runs into the kitchen, throws the ingredients into cauldrons and pans and starts cooking. Here begins the famous mini-game "three in a row" - the giblets turn into stones of different colors (personify the elements of the earth, fire, water and air), which should be added together. The more effectively we do this, the more the value of the dish, expressed in points, and the closer we are to victory.
However, judges can remove glasses - if not timely served a dish on the table, leaving it in the kitchen, or if it does not prevail jury declared component (that is, color). Accordingly, to collect the ingredients you need not all in a row, namely those and from that beast that meet the necessary criteria.
"Kitchen"
According to this scheme, with all or other variations, all culinary fights take place. The action takes place in the capital - no travels around the country as part of a brigade of combat cooks, which Mina dreamed about, we will not see here. And the locations on which we cut monsters are not so many, and they are not as spacious and diverse as we would like.
And this routine could well have killed the Battle Chef Brigade , had it not been for several important factors. The first and most important - there is a story, and very interesting. On the way to the cherished goal, Mina is waiting for the unraveling of the coil of conspiracy that has ripened in the brigade itself, and even the forced trip to the native lands with the subsequent triumphant return to the capital.
All teachers, judges and opponents in culinary struggles are well-written personalities with their own characters and motives. Mina communicates with orc Trash (he even devoted a few episodes in history), a two-headed Cyclops, an undead in the guise of a young guy, an elf named Leonid, a grumpy old man Caesar and other colorful comrades.
Secondly, in the city you can still perform tasks of three types - hunt monsters, work in a restaurant, where you need to cook for a while, collecting the given combinations of stones, as well as solve puzzles in the local alchemical workshop. For all this, Mina receives money that can be spent in the shop of a two-headed Cyclops in order to buy various improvements - both for combat (for example, daggers stunning enemies or setting them on fire), and for the kitchen (like pans in which stones are stacked more effectively or another element, and according to the scheme "two in a row").
Details in Battle Chef Brigade in general a lot, and the conditions of culinary battles are constantly complicated, forcing us to cook two or three servings at a time, maintaining the given elements.
Contenders for culinary fights become stronger, and monsters do not give to get bored - some of them even begin to steal and eat our prey. In mechanics "three in a row", too, there are interesting details like fragile stone stones, poisoned ingredients or the ability to repaint some stones with the help of others. There is no time to think about the routine - even at the normal level of complexity, you are constantly in the tone, you overplay unsuccessful fights to finish the game ahead of schedule, visit the training arenas, trying out different new pots, seasonings and pans in the case.
All this is complemented by very nice hand-drawn graphics with an admixture of anime style, humor, interesting dialogues and funny situations. The same Caesar, despite his grumbling, at some point begins to write love messages to the hostess of the local restaurant, and our Mina will also take part in this.
Pros: an intriguing plot; charismatic characters; very interesting and fascinating combination of different game mechanics; humor; cute graphics; expressive scoring.
Cons: in places the monotony and routine of the game process is affected.
