Today I was browsing forums and saw this game "Cooking Dimension," and I suddenly felt a bit nostalgic. Game graphics are becoming more and more exquisite now, with 3D modeling and lighting effects, pushing the phone's GPU to its limits. But while playing, it always feels like something's missing. Back in the days of the NES, a single game cartridge was just a few megabytes, and I spent an entire month on those three lives in Contra, memorizing every brick gap in each level. Nowadays, everything is marked in the games—auto-pathing, one-click raids, combat power guides, they even seem to want to do it for you.
Returning to Cooking Dimension, its setting is quite interesting—cooking produces magic, and food can turn into cute girls, which they call "Food Spirits." Honestly, this idea reminded me of when I watched "Cooking Master Boy" back in the day, opening the pot to see that golden shining effect, but at least in that show they were cooking with real knives and real wok. This game, however, lets you act as a "chef" collecting various culinary beautiful girls to fight. Dandan noodles, Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, all turned into characters. If we had this kind of creativity on the NES back then, I bet we could skip lunch—the food illustrations in the game alone could fill our stomachs 😂
But seriously, the gameplay is quite nostalgic—turn-based battles combined with collection and development. Young people might find it old-fashioned, but for us old-timers, it feels familiar. Back in the day, "Dragon Quest" was like this too—leveling up, forming teams, fighting bosses, with no auto-battle at all, relying solely on manually pressing buttons until your fingers developed calluses. This game surprisingly still retains the depth of "formation strategy" without turning into a mindless auto-farm, and for that, I have to give the developers a thumbs up 👍
What hits me the most is its "purifying dark Food Spirits" concept. You see, now fast food culture is rampant, and people hardly have a proper meal, let alone experience the 'love' in food. This game intentionally tells you: only those full of love for food can save the world. Think about when we were kids—when mom simmered a pot of pork rib soup, the aroma would fill the entire building, unlike now, scrolling through a food delivery app unsure what to eat. The Food Spirits in the game are corrupted by negative energy, which, to put it simply, mirrors how modern people treat eating as a task and have lost passion for food.I was actually a bit moved while playing the game, and I even went to the kitchen to cook a bowl of instant noodles with a poached egg, as a little treat for the food spirits 🍜.
Of course, the game isn't perfect. The microtransaction points are hidden deeper than arcade joysticks back in the day, and the card draw rates… well, I won't even talk about that; those who know, know. But the good thing is you can play for free too, and the pace doesn't force you to grind, making it suitable for us middle-aged players who just want to relax on the sofa after work. You don't need to spend hundreds of hours grinding; just log in each day to see your little green dumpling girl hopping around and try new dishes in the levels—it's quite soothing.
At the end of the day, games are mostly about visuals and gameplay on the surface; the core is still that sense of 'investment.' When we were kids, we could imagine a whole adventure world from a few pixel blocks because our minds were simple. Now games are getting bigger and bigger, with maps practically trying to be entire planets, yet we're harder to please. It's not that developers can't make games anymore; it's that our hearts, which could once be satisfied with just a pack of spicy sticks for an afternoon, have long been worn down by life.
So, encountering a game like "Cooking Dimension," which doesn't try to pile on content and is willing to have fun with the small daily act of 'eating,' actually feels quite refreshing. It doesn't want you to save the universe; it just wants you to remember—eat your meals well, and when it comes to games, just have fun. It's like when we used to sit in front of the TV, with a bowl of fried rice in hand and 8-bit music from the Famicom in the background, we could still savor a feast fit for an emperor 😋.
Alright, enough talking, I'm going to make a late-night snack for the food spirits. This game pairs perfectly with barbecue, it's amazing 🍢.