A roguelite dungeon crawler restaurant sim buffet.

Cuisineer—an adventure simulation coming to Nintendo Switch next month from Marvelous (XSEED) takes (what I can only believe to be) all our dreams are and turns them into reality.

Playing as Pom (a cute cat) in a town full of other cute animal people, it’s your job to take over your parents’ restaurant and serve the people of Paell. Like, imagine if one day you woke up as a cute kitty, returned home to the restaurant you grew up in, found out you had to take over, and spent the rest of your days hunting for ingredients and recipes, upgrading and decorating your restaurant, serving the fine people of your town, and helping them with little quests.

The.

Dream.

Cuisineer has so much to offer that I’ve been playing my preview copy (courtesy of Marvelous (XSEED)) for days on end. The game’s fun and captivating dialogue, art style, and energy pull me back each time I set the game down. It’s safe to say I can highlight some of the best features, and what better and easier way than with a few bullet points?

Here’s what players can expect when Cuisineer is released on January 28th.

  • You can decorate your restaurant however you like. Decorations and furniture attract different types of customers, all of whom behave in unique ways. For example, the elderly who come in are slow at walking and deciding what to eat, while the kids are faster. Nobles prefer higher rated foods and expect you to serve it to them.

  • There are plenty of shops, all of which help upgrade your restaurant, weapons, and armor, and provide healing teas for when you enter battle. There are also traveling shops that change daily. These include a shop where you can buy plants, one where you can buy paintings, one where you can buy clothes and upgrade your bag and belt, and one where you can trade items.
  • To serve food, you need to have ingredients, and to have ingredients, you need to enter the dungeons. There are a few different dungeons, each influenced by certain flavors such as sweet or spicy. There are different kinds of monsters to fight who drop ingredients, and you find more and stronger ones as you go down each floor.
  • The combat in this game allows you to fight in a couple of different ways. You can have two weapons on you at all times. There are short distance weapons such as swords and fish to slap enemies with, and long distance weapons such as bombs and plates to throw. Each weapon has a special attack you can use, as well as a recharge rate.

  • Along with finding ingredients, you can collect materials such as different types of stone and wood. These are used for making furniture and upgrading tools and the restaurant. You can also use materials and ingredients in quests to help different characters.
  • There is an entire quest log available in the game that shows your main quests, side quests, and completed ones. Main quests help you move the story along, and usually involve paying taxes, exploring new places, or doing something with your restaurant. Sidequests are useful for gaining recipes, as they’re given to you by townspeople in need.
  • There are many characters in Cuisineer, each with different personalities and social statuses. There are a few who run the shops and are the more important characters, but you can also get to know all the different townsfolk, both noble and regular. The more important characters have birthdays which can be seen on the calendar, and on those days, they actually give you gifts.
  • As well as birthdays, there are also special festivals and days on which certain ingredients are popular. It’s good to pay attention to these details, as this is when your restaurant is most likely to be busy.
  • Upon selling dishes at your restaurant, you earn gold, which you can spend on upgrades and other items, but it’s also useful to give it to the taxman, as your parents seem to have left the restaurant in debt. Paying your taxes is one of the main story quests and helps you move the game along.

  • At the beginning of the game, you are given the choice of what difficulty you would like to play on. This can be changed at any point throughout the game.

These are just some key factors to the game, and there are so many things to do and further discoveries as you play. Set to release on January 28th, I’d say that if you enjoy cute things, restaurant sims, and combat, mark your calendars!

Cuisineer is available now for pre-order in the Nintendo eShop. For more information on Cuisineer, including details on the robust Day1 Physical Edition, visit cuisineerthegame.com.