Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Cooking Academy 2: World Cuisine sticks closely to the kinetic, hands-on gameplay popularized by Cooking Mama, tasking you with mastering each recipe step using only your mouse. From the very first tomato slice to the final garnish, you’ll follow clear green arrows that guide your motions, whether you’re chopping, whisking, or dicing on a virtual cutting board. The core loop remains delightfully intuitive: complete every action before the timer hits zero to earn a grade and unlock the next dish.

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Beyond basic knife skills, the game sprinkles in a hidden object challenge at the start of most recipes. You’ll rummage through an open fridge stuffed with ingredients, hunting down everything on your shopping list in a race against time. It adds a brief but welcome twist to the routine, making you pause and look for mushrooms behind milk cartons or spices on the door shelf before you even fire up the stove.

Once you’ve gathered all ingredients, the stovetop sequences demand precise timing and quick reflexes. Instructions scroll beneath a marker, cueing you when to stir, add ingredients, or adjust heat on pots and woks. If you’re too slow, your sauce will burn; too fast, and you might undercook your protein. These segments keep each dish feeling like a mini-puzzle rather than just a button-mashing exercise.

Graphics

The visual style in Cooking Academy 2 is bright and cartoony, evoking that cheerful kitchen vibe without striving for photo-realism. Ingredients pop with saturated colors—crimson tomatoes, emerald basil leaves, and sunny yellow yolks—so you can tell at a glance what needs your attention. The clear outlines and simple shading help the important bits stand out during frantic cook-like challenges.

While most assets are carried over from the first Cooking Academy, the developers have sprinkled in a handful of new backgrounds and food models to represent global cuisines. A Japanese sushi station features a bamboo mat and ceramic soy pot, while the Mexican section sports a tile-patterned counter and rustic clay bowl. These small touches reinforce the “world cuisine” theme, even if the underlying animations remain familiar.

Transitions between prep screens and cooking stages are clean and snappy, with minimal load times on modern hardware. The hidden object fridge scene even includes a subtle “fog” effect on the glass door, imperceptibly enhancing depth. Overall, the graphics do exactly what they need to: clearly communicate each step without distracting from the fast-paced gameplay.

Story

Cooking Academy 2 is less about narrative drama and more about a structured progression through various culinary traditions. There’s no sprawling plot or set of quirky characters guiding you—just a series of menus representing different regions, each with its own set of dishes to master. Think of it as a cooking tour rather than a storyline-driven adventure.

Between menus, you’ll face cooking exams that challenge you to replicate the same recipe at record speed. Passing these tests is framed as your “graduation” into the next cuisine, providing a sense of accomplishment without need for cutscenes or dialogue. It’s a purely functional story device: you cook well, you move on, you see new recipes.

For players seeking character development or dramatic flair, the lack of narrative may feel sparse. However, the game’s focus on pure cooking mechanics will appeal to fans content with learning new techniques over unraveling a plot. Your own sense of achievement—improving dish grades, shaving seconds off exam times—becomes the story.

Overall Experience

Cooking Academy 2: World Cuisine delivers exactly what its subtitle promises: a whirlwind tour through international kitchens, wrapped up in intuitive, motion-driven gameplay. If you loved the original Cooking Academy or Cooking Mama’s mouse-guided minigames, you’ll feel immediately at home. The hidden object segments add brief variety, and the chef exams inject a touch of competitive drive.

That said, this sequel feels more like an expansion pack than a full-blown sequel. Many animations, interfaces, and mechanics are recycled, so seasoned players might notice the familiarity of knife cuts and pouring animations. Newcomers to the series will find it fresh and exciting, but returning cooks may crave deeper innovations or more elaborate challenges.

Ultimately, Cooking Academy 2 shines as a focused, bite-sized cooking simulator. It doesn’t overhaul the formula, but it refines it with a smattering of global recipes and a couple of clever tweaks. For casual gamers, aspiring home chefs, or anyone who enjoys ticking off a menu checklist under pressure, it offers engaging, accessible fun—one dish at a time.

Retro Replay Score

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