Battle Chef Brigade

One of my favourite things is when you get randomly introduced to a piece of media, go in with zero expectations, and come out the other side completely blown away. That was my experience with Battle Chef Brigade - I was not previously aware of Trinket Studios' Kickstarter, I had not been following its development at all, and I wasn't even aware it existed until Ben brought it up on a Bombcast. Almost impetuously, I went to Steam and picked it up immediately. I'm really glad I did, because Battle Chef Brigade is easily one of my favourite games of the year.

Sometimes a friend will ask you how to describe a game in a sentence, and often times it ends up being a challenge. Like how would I describe NieR: Automata to you in one sentence? "A story-driven character action game that also has bullethell and 2D platforming sections; but is also an existential nightmare" might be a little verbose. Battle Chef Brigade is far easier: "Imagine Monster Hunter mixed with Iron Chef." That describes everything you really need to know about BCB. To dig a little deeper, the game is a 2D sidescroller where you play as Mina, a 21-year old girl from the Windy Village. Her dream is to become a brigadier - one of the elite members of the "Battle Chef Brigade" who protect the lands from monsters, and also cook them in order to provide food for the people. Only after coming out on top of a competition among other chefs will the hopefuls find themselves as members of the Battle Chef Brigade, and that is where our gameplay comes in.

The gameplay is broken up into two discrete sections which ultimately work together. First, you have your "Monster Hunter" component. This involves going into an environment and killing creatures through a variety of skills - either via your blade, or magic. When killed, the monsters drop meat. There are some variances to this, too! For example, if you kill a monster, and then one of the birds eats it, they will then lay an egg. Or if one of the plants eats another monster, it will take on some of its qualities. You also have vegetarian options available to you - fruits and vegetables - but they don't fight back. Once you have filled your satchel with meats, then you make your way back to the kitchen to cook it. This is the "Iron Chef" section, where you're playing a matching puzzle game to build your dishes. Each of your ingredients has one of five primary affiliations: Red (meat), Blue (water), Green (plant), Bone, and Poison. Within a specified time limit, you will be cooking dishes for judges who have certain affinities. You may have two judges, one likes spicy Red dishes, and the other prefers a combination of Red and Green. Upon finishing your dishes, you present them to the judges where they are judged for their worth, and you either beat your opponent or have to declare a rematch. The gameplay is actually extremely engaging, and even with the battles I lost, I was happy to try again because I found the systems so enjoyable. Every now and again I'd find that it wasn't behaving how I was expecting (I felt like I dodged but still got hit, for example) but it was never enough to detract from the experience.

You also have the opportunity to walk around town and interact with other members of the competition, as well as some of the town's folk. They will have challenges for you, and you'll go through entire sidequest lines for them. There are three ways this happens - Puzzles, Hunts, and Time Trials. I felt that the Hunts and Time Trials were good, but never particularly challenging (never failed one). The puzzles were great, though - by about 2/3 of the way through the game, I was having to retry many times to find the solutions. They were satisfying, and I certainly enjoyed them the most. I also really loved talking with the other characters and getting to know more of the world's lore. The writers of Battle Chef Brigade did an excellent job characterizing everyone you meet, and writing believable dialog coupled with great voice acting. To that end, I don't think there's much to say about the story itself; but I found it to be enjoyable, and the second-to-last chapter takes a liberty that I really enjoyed. By the way, I didn't really mention this, but - my god - the Iron Chef influence is not subtle in any way. The visual design of the Kitchen, the format of cooking for judges, the chairman's appearance and speech patterns - it is 100% Iron Chef, and as a long-time fan of the Japanese series, I adored it.

I could rant on and on about my nuanced feelings on Battle Chef Brigade for quite some time, but I think it is sufficient to say that it is a great experience, and if you are a fan of puzzle games, this one is absolutely worth your time. I specifically call out the puzzle aspect because, ultimately, that part of the game will be your biggest gate to success - the action-y part is nuanced enough, but will never be as potentially detrimental as being bad at the puzzles. The game gets hard, and by the end I was redoing entire fights because the challenge was pretty intense; but it was never frustrating, and it always felt like it was my fault for being too slow/making poor choices. I played through on Normal, so I cannot speak to how challenging Easy is, however. Regardless, Battle Chef Brigade is a wholly positive experience, and I feel comfortable recommending it without many caveats.