One of my all time favourite games, and one I've played many times on my Switch. This is the first time I played it on my Steam Deck, and the experience was just as enjoyable.

The game is crafted masterfully. The UI is easy to navigate, the OST reflects the mood, and the sound effects are so enjoyable! It all comes together to create such a relaxing experience that gives as much as you want to take from it.

For those who enjoy story, it's told here in so many unconventional ways. From the music, small photos, items appearing and disappearing. Even what plays when you turn music players or game consoles on! It all tells the story of the character, but gives enough room for detachment if this is an element the player isn't interested in as well.

The achievements are fun and silly, a lot of them things you'd discover naturally during a playthrough. The gameplay is also intuitive to understand - though it take me several playthroughs to realise I could activate objects whilst not holding them!

The only thing I don't like is that the zoom of the camera often feels too close, or too far. This is something I'm happy to overlook though, as the game has given me so much joy since it was released.

In my previous review of Cook, Serve, Delicious?! 3, I closed things out saying that "David Galindo hopefully hasn't peaked with this entry, but if he has it's a magnificent apex." Early showings of Cook Serve Forever made me incredibly anxious that the pinnacle of this microgenre had already reached its logical conclusion, but I'm starting to see that it can't be reduced to hills and valleys.

CSF is inextricable from its CSD/Ore no Ryomi lineage (and the name certainly isn't helping), but the comparison does it, and fans, no favours. We were told time and again that CSF was not a CSD sequel, that it was not following the CSD formula, that we should temper our expectations. With the initial disbelief that, oddly enough, the developers weren't kidding, now somewhat shed, it's clear that CSF has the makings of a great alternate approach to gaming cookery.

Presentation is key for CSF, and the slower, intentional mode of play emphasises that. The name of a recipe is an afterthought, the controls mnemonic-forbidding. All the player can focus on is the dish as it stands, and the two next ingredients. Galindo has spoken previously about the rapid pace and focus on mnemonics meant players didn't look at the food they were making; they simply didn't have time to. PCMRPCMRPCMR, DTCR PFS, and other reductions of recipes to their keypresses rather than their substantive elements has the player's eye locked on the recipe card itself, not its construction. The introduction of holding keypresses further reinforces the pace. Quick accuracy is still valued in CSF, but it is no longer the end all be all of before.

What confuses me most about the game in this state is the purpose of its variable elements. Without those mnemonics or particularities of specific foods, the menu options made are effectively superfluous. While leveling up a specific location will increase the difficulty therein, there is presently no reason outside of that to actually play one location over another. Presumably additional story content and gameplay elements will give these things a purpose, but for now they are an afterthought.

It's far too early to tell where CSF will reign in the pantheon of Ore no Ryouri/Ore no Ryomi/Cook, Serve, Delicious! and I will plainly need to wait for the next entry to get the CSD4 I so crave, but with so much CSD goodness already in my library I can welcome this diverging path. If nothing else, it'll increase my appetite.