Magical Delicacy is a combination of magic and cooking. Review

Played on Xbox Series S

Among indie games, there are those that could be classified as “cozy pixel adventures with growing vegetables, trading and small settlements.” The most prominent representative of this subgenre is Stardew Valley, and it is accompanied by Magical Delicacy, a new product from a lone developer. There were some shortcomings, but the work done was impressive. Although the game seems very inhospitable at first, over time you understand it better and get used to it. But it is still impossible to turn a blind eye to the shortcomings.

⇡#Flora without fauna

We play as Flora, a witch who has arrived in the city of Grat. They say this is a paradise for all kinds of sorceresses and other unusual people. In fact, in Grat they only rarely heard about any witches, but everyone quickly accepted Flora as one of their own – they even gave her a small shop in the city center. More precisely, they temporarily allow you to work in it and not pay rent – later they will still ask for money. Inside we meet our new friend, after which we start cooking.

The local upright frogs ask not to be called frogs

Let’s get started – a big word, because at first there is nothing in the store except a saucepan hanging over the fire and a washstand. However, this is already enough to prepare simple soups. First, we collect water, then pour it into the pan, add the selected ingredients and after a few seconds we get some kind of dish. You just need to remove it from the heat in time, otherwise everything will burn.

Already here some difficulties will begin for those who are accustomed to looking for pointers and tips in games. A friend asks you to cook something, but it’s not clear where to look for the ingredients. You start running around the city and collecting rare herbs and mushrooms growing from the ground. But you can’t make normal soup from this. Then you knock on all the doors and find out about the existence of traders – there is a “green” store with all sorts of seasonings, there is a bakery, and so on. However, you are afraid to spend money on ingredients: there are very few of them, what if they are needed for something else?

The player chooses the location of the furniture himself – over time, new rooms open where more objects can be placed

When you figure out the first recipe and get to know the rest of the inhabitants of Grat, the list of tasks will begin to expand – apparently, no one here knows how to cook, and everyone is waiting for our help. The game gives you the necessary recipes and even suggests what this or that dish is made from, but continues to be very reluctant to explain all the details. Someone wanted a salad – where to prepare it? On a special table. Where to buy it? You yourself have to guess that you need to go to a certain store and buy a table there.

⇡#Self-made foodie

As soon as you understand how everything works, you begin to rely only on yourself: remember the location of all the stores and buy ingredients for future use. The last one is the most important, because running back and forth because you forgot to buy bread and can’t make sandwiches will quickly get boring. You don’t want to spend money left and right, especially at first, but everything will come in handy someday. And much of what is sold in stores can be grown in your own backyard, resulting in twice as many ingredients.

It is advisable to talk to everyone, because the quest can be received from any character

Over time, you worry less and less about money. If you often experiment and complete tasks with prescribed recipes, you can quickly prepare different dishes and sell them directly in the store – to do this, open the window near the entrance and add unnecessary items to the menu. It’s especially easy to do this when the store has a saucepan, a table, an oven, and much more – all kinds of pies, obviously, cannot be cooked without an oven, no matter how much you want. And later you will also learn how to brew potions – the game is about a witch after all.

At the same time, Magical Delicacy does not consist entirely of cooking, it is a simplified Metroidvania where you gain access to certain areas of the city as you play. After some time after joining, you unlock the double jump, you can buy a pass that allows you to ride the elevator, and later you learn to jump on platforms at night that are not visible during the day. There is no combat system, but there are some dangers: some of the platforms are destroyed a couple of seconds after you stand on them, and some of them appear and disappear. Those who have played games in this genre more than once will not have any problems with jumping.

The most useful products are expensive

At the same time, elements that seem uncomfortable in the first minutes will continue to remain so. The world map, for example, is designed as rectangles connected to each other, meaning you can’t quickly see how high or low the passage to the next location is. The stores are also not indicated on it until you buy a special upgrade from a merchant. He also sells pins that allow you to mark interesting places on the map, much like in Hollow Knight. There it seems a strange decision, but here even more so, the atmosphere is completely different.

The biggest problems will arise with clients – they, obviously, are not shown on the map either, so you will have to either remember their location or run from corner to corner looking for them. It’s not scary when you took the order, immediately completed it and went back to the client, but if you left the quest for later or even returned to the game a few days later, it will not hint in any way who and where is waiting for you. But the recipes, fortunately, are almost always more or less obvious – very rarely will you look at a task and not understand what they want from you. And even if you cook something wrong, you don’t need to throw the dish in the trash, you can sell it right away.

Day quickly turns into night, and not everyone hangs out on the street 24/7

The cooking process brings great pleasure: each recipe becomes an interesting puzzle, usually not difficult, but exciting. For example, you will be asked to prepare a pie with vegetables, but they will specify that it must be spicy. You start going through the list of your vegetables and look for something spicy there, but at the same time take into account the other wishes of the customer. Even if red peppers seem perfect at first glance, they may not be the best candidate. There are also some inconveniences associated with cooking. In particular, you cannot carry more than thirty ingredients with you, but over time this ceases to be a problem, since you can buy lockers to store the obtained and purchased products.

When you immerse yourself in kitchen fun and briefly ignore the quests, story dialogues, jumping on platforms and other elements of Magical Delicacy, you realize that you started playing it wrong. This is not a Metroidvania where you need to quickly explore everything, complete all the tasks and help everyone. First of all, this is a cozy and atmospheric game about cooking, where you need to visit the store often, and not just to cook something. You grow ingredients, prepare dishes from them and then put them up for sale, save money – and after that you think about long trips. Otherwise, you may wander somewhere far away, see high prices in a new store and ruin your mood because you have come such a long way in vain.

There is a plot and sometimes it’s even intriguing, but it’s thinly spread over a long game

***

Some elements of Magical Delicacy are so controversial that it is unclear whether they were intended to be that way or whether the lone developer lacked the time, experience, or testers. Some shortcomings are very easy to fix – for example, make a more convenient map. There are also disadvantages that are difficult to put up with at first, in the first hours, but later they are no longer so annoying when you realize that you don’t need to rush, and it’s easy to earn in-game money by selling dishes in your store. The game is not something new for the genre and is unlikely to surprise anyone, but the world here is atmospheric enough to make you want to spend a couple of evenings in it and feed all your customers with your magical (and not so magical) dishes.

Advantages:

• Cozy small town atmosphere with cute characters;
• Cooking is interesting, because each new recipe is like a simple puzzle;
• You can pin recipes on the screen so you don’t have to open a separate menu.

Disadvantages:

• An inconvenient map that does not make it easier to find clients whose location you have forgotten;
• The lack of hints can initially confuse you due to a lack of understanding of what needs to be done to progress through the plot;
• Fast travel is not available from the very beginning, which is why you don’t want to go far from the store.

Graphic arts

Cute pixel art – not terrible, but not up to par with the best representatives of the genre.

Sound

The pleasant music doesn’t get boring, but since the game takes quite a long time, sooner or later you will probably switch to your own playlist – the characters here are not voiced, in any case.

Single player game

Cooking, growing vegetables in the backyard, magic and simple platforming with Metroidvania elements – this will be done throughout the game.

Estimated time of completion

30 hours.

Collective game

Not foreseen.

General impression

A cute game about cooking, shop management and magic. There are some issues with the gameplay, but most of the problems can be fixed with updates.

Rating: 7.0 / 10

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