Let's Cook Together 2 Review

Get back to the kitchen and get cooking in Let’s Cook Together 2, developed and published by Yellow Dot. By looking at the title, it’s pretty obvious that this is a follow-up to Let’s Cook Together which was released in 2020 and allowed two players to work together in the kitchen. In this sequel, up to four players can face off or work together to complete the orders coming into the kitchen. Want to play on your own? There is an Adventure mode available that has you fighting against a food megacorp called Nutri Inc. which is trying to make the world tasteless and bland by facing the population to live on a diet of flavourless mush. You join a resistance movement called the Ohmies, led by Weldon Ohm, to fight for flavour and the freedom for everyone to enjoy delicious food.

Before jumping into the kitchen, you will need to get some prep work done first and make a few choices. How much of a challenge do you want to face in your cooking? There are four different difficulties to select, ranging from Easy — for people who are new to videogames, giving more time and other benefits, to Expert for players who are great at multitasking and don’t mind tearing their hair out in frustration. I opted for Normal mode with its balanced gameplay.

There are five chefs available to play as, all with food pun names and their own special abilities. Carl O’Nara (carbonara), who never loses balance; Eiko Washoku, who runs faster than the other chefs; Maggy Borscht, who can roll dough and chop ingredients faster; Conor Boxty, stains don't bother him and he can clean them incredibly fast; and Cleo Cobbler, won't lose coins when she wastes ingredients. As you progress in the game and make money, you can purchase four other characters ranging in cost from 4,000 to 10,000 gold. Change your team's flag, there are so many available that you are sure to find the one from your home country and now you are good to go.

When you begin the game, you see eggs and a frying pan. The first thing you are making is scrambled eggs. The controls in Let’s Cook Together 2 are simple, it shows you what button you need to hit to perform each action, making it very easy to whip up dishes. Grab some eggs and toss them into a pan, and it will begin cooking and four little diamonds show how done they are, so when all the diamond shapes are full, the eggs are done and ready to take off the heat. If you wait too long, they will burn, and no one wants burnt eggs! I am playing on my PC, so I am using an Xbox controller to play. When the food is done cooking, hit the bottom face button (A) to pick it up and the left face button (Y) to throw the food to the service machine to get it to the customer. Once you have completed an order, you will get gold based on how fast you got it prepared and any tips the customer wants to give you.

There are seven game modes that you will unlock as you play Let’s Cook Together 2. In the beginning, there is only Adventure and Party Mode, but the others are quickly unlocked from playing the Adventure mode. Battle where you face off against your friend to find out who the best chef is, Experimental Levels, Arenas, Community Levels, and Level Editor where you get to create your own stages if you are feeling creative.

When you start a new challenge, you can view the recipe for what you will be making. In the beginning, it is simple comfort food like a Cheese Sandwich that only requires two ingredients and you will get 14 coins. These sandwiches do not need to be cooked, so you can just grab the bread and cheese, combining them, and throwing them to the serving machine. When all your orders are completed, you see a stat page that shows how many orders you filled, how many gold coins you earned, along with other stats like how many dishes you threw into the trash, how much idle time there was, and how many meters you ran. You will get awarded a medal based on this performance. As you play and earn money, you can upgrade your Kitchen Appliances, including ovens and cutting boards and other General Items like improvements for the chefs, like boots that allow them to move 15% faster, or even an upgrade called Hold My Juice to give you more time to finish orders, though this is pricey at 8,000 coins.

As you play and learn how to make new dishes, you will need to figure out the best strategy to maximise your available time. Cheese sandwiches are fast to make, but fried veggies and eggs require more time to cook on the stove, so you may be better off setting those to go first, but you will need to keep an eye out to make sure they don't get overcooked and get ruined. It's a fun challenge to try and balance all this out!

The craziest and most frustrating action happens when you are playing with other people. You can all work together to get the ingredients needed to get the requested orders finished, or like when I play with the guys in my house, it can become an all-out food fight. A lot of time was spent throwing tomatoes and bread at each other, even when it wasn’t needed. When the food hits the floor, it creates a “stain”, which is essentially a slippery spot that will need to be cleaned before someone falls on it. As you suspect, cleaning takes a few seconds to complete, which is really frustrating when you are in a race trying to make as much food as possible. Some of the stages have a layout that makes it so only one chef can access the cutting board and another has one of the needed ingredients, so to be successful, you will need to communicate and work together. It was fun tossing a tomato to the other chef to get it sliced on the cutting board. Either way, it was entertaining and still less frustrating like in Overcooked which I have played multiple times with friends. The recipes there are a lot more complicated and easy to screw up.

There is a good time to be had in Let’s Cook Together 2 with its cute art style, silly characters with funny names, and a variety of foods to make. If you want to switch it up, you have the option to create your own stage to play with friends or to share online for other players to check out. If you are looking for a great game to play locally with friends and family that is good for both seasoned players and people new to gaming, Let’s Cook Together 2 is a game that you should check out! Nothing is more fun than throwing random ingredients at your friends!