Chef games have been quite popular these past few years and most of them are isometric or top down, where Epic Chef changes things up is being 3rd person perspective, a gameplay loop more akin to Stardew Valley and by being more story-driven.
You start the game as Zest, who apparently spent his last coin to buy a deed to a mansion in Ambrosia (the island nation the game takes place in). Zest has just been found stowing away on a ship heading to Ambrosia and is unceremoniously dumped in the city. From here Zest needs to find his purchase but soon finds out that everyone in the city is afraid of the mansion and its surroundings as they think it is haunted and that Zest will not see another day if he spends the night there. Zest is woken up with a big loud crash, he gets up to investigate and finds a golem that has crashed into his shed. The Golem teaches Zest how to farm and he learns that the mansion grounds are saturated with magic, resulting in fast growing crop and once the first harvest is ready the golem teaches you to cook.
In essence Epic Chef is a farming and cooking game but that is not the total extent of Epic Chef. It is a story-driven adventure game as well, with plenty of quests and kooky characters saturated in humour, drawing inspiration from the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett. Which is one of the first things I noticed playing Epic Chef. I was laughing out loud quite a lot, an occurrence that doesn't really happen often these days. The graphics are low-poly and the characters are blocky but that is all part of the charm. The cooking gameplay is quite deep, each food item has certain stats and when you are cooking you need to keep in mind what goes well with what and which food item is good to start with. There are all kinds of bonuses and combos to discover to make the best possible dish and the best way to do that is to trigger Dish Synergy. The synergy triggers when you use ingredients with similar stats. You need to combine ingredients, stirring and tossing them to bring out the flavour elements of Vigor, Sophistication and Spirit. This forms the core of the cooking experience that you must master in order to become the top chef. The cooking gameplay is quite nuanced compared to other cooking games. While most of them you just have to mix ingredients, Epic Chef has you stirring and tossing the ingredients to get the most out of them and hopefully to prevent you from burning the dishes. Balance the stats from the ingredients and try to get the highest score. This might sound simple but can get tough at higher levels of food.
The farming aspect is thankfully quite simple, just make a hole and plant the seeds. Each plant can only be harvested a certain amount of times before being depleted, at which point you'll need to replant to get more of that food item. Besides the farming there are numerous machines you can build as well to perform all kinds of tasks. For example one of the earliest machine you can build is a windmill. The windmill can mill corn and seeds from any crop. Bring it 3 of the same item and it will spit out a seed for that item. Before you know it you will have a giant farm full of all kinds of produce to help you in becoming the Epic Chef.
Then there are chef battles where 2 chefs duel to make the best possible dish. Dishes are scored on a variety of things from ingredients, to flavours, strength and more. Each battle is judged by different Judges and no two judges have the same taste. You'll have to balance the 3 elements and the aroma of a dish. The chef with the highest aroma on their dish will be judged first but that is the only effect of the aroma. It will not change the judgement of the dish it self only the order it will be judged.
I am not a fan of cooking games or simulators, I prefer to cook in real life and tasting my creations but I enjoyed my time with Epic Chef.
In conclusion I recommend Epic Chef to anyone who likes cooking games, story-driven adventure games d lovers of the silly and funny. Epic Chef is a pretty good game for the whole family that has a wicked sense
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