Although revolutionary in a way, the first Cooking Mama suffers from repetition of minigames and a lack of variety in the food itself. On top of this, the requirements for some of the minigames are incredibly cryptic, making 100%ing the recipes more of a chore than a satisfying challenge. Cut an onion 4 times in a row, mess a minigame up even though you followed the guidelines, start the recipe over — it's not a fun gameplay loop 20 dishes in. The only thing that kept me going was my own ego. I really do like the idea of having alternate recipe paths though, and I wish they kept them in the subsequent releases, especially since even this game sort of gives up on them halfway through.

Growing up, there were no shortage of DS minigame collections. As a kid I saw these games from what they truly were, nothing but Cheap Cashgrabs for Kids who are too stupid to judge for Quality Video Games.

now at the age of 22 ive actually really enjoyed cooking and I feel bad for what i mightve said or thought about cooking mama! Very cute mini game collection, pretty chill, I cooked a lot with my mom too. my main complaint would be that mrs. cooking mama does not understand that fast cooking does not equal better tasting food. like I'd get if we were in a restaurant setting or something but why do you care so much that I need to cut this onion properly in 15 seconds or less? it's tuesday and I just got home from work, give me a fuckin break