REVIEW / Magical Delicacy (PC)

There is an inherent problem with the platform genre. The basic mechanics are fun but it can be quite difficult to make one game stand out from another. Regardless of what you do, you’re always going to have a character bouncing around from point to point killing things. This being said, the platform genre makes a very good base for expansion into other things, (Metroidvanias for example,) but on its own needs a bit of help to be something exceptional. I’m making this point because just the sort of out-of-the-box thinking we’re talking about has gone into Magical Delicacy, the game we’ll be discussing today.

Magical Delicacy is a platform/RPG/cookery SIM. If that doesn’t sound sufficiently bonkers I don’t know what will. The big question is as to whether this amalgamation works. For the most part, I think it does. There are one or two caveats to this that we’ll come to shortly but these will mainly come down to personal taste and the odd quality-of-life tweak.

In Magical Delicacy, you play a witch who has gone to the big city to find herself. In doing this she is set up with her own bakery and sets out to fulfill orders for the locals. This is literally just scratching the surface with respect to the plot. There’s a lot more going on here than just meeting the townsfolk and making them stuff. There’s an awful lot of that, of course, and it’s a big part of the gameplay loop but it’s not the be-all-end-all. If I start going into the RPG elements of the game I’ll still be here tomorrow so I’ll let you get a grasp of those for yourselves. Suffice it to say the story is well-written enough to keep you engaged and coming back for more, which is sort of the point.

Gameplay in Magical Delicacy is relatively difficult to describe because there’s a lot going on here. On the one hand, you’ll be meeting the local NPCs and fulfilling their requests while furthering the story, just as you would with any other RPG. A big part of this involves completing and delivering food orders for them. They’ll tell you exactly what they want and, more importantly, don’t want when it comes to their favorite dishes and you’ll have to go off and make them. This is where another large part of the game comes into play. You obviously can’t just make stuff. You’ll have to buy and find recipes, harvest and source ingredients, and where possible grow your own to keep you well stocked. This means that you can’t just fulfill any order the minute you get it. You might not even have the right equipment to make the order with and this will need to be sourced before you can succeed. Lastly, we have a platform element that is used as your way of getting from place to place. This just about touches on a Metroidvania style in that you can’t just go anywhere from the beginning without various upgrades and items. This circles back to the RPG elements and so on.

One thing that I think is worth noting is that apart from the odd hazard this isn’t a world riddled with enemies. You can’t die so there really isn’t any need. The hazards I’ve mentioned appear to be there to make the platforming more challenging but there really isn’t any punishment for missing a ledge or falling down a hole. There’s an area called the catacombs which has an assault course feel to it but failing to traverse the obstacles in your way will just drop you back at the start of the section, not to a game over screen, which is appreciated. The lack of danger adds to the laid-back feel the game seems to be going for. This is a pleasant surprise in a world where platforming is synonymous with tons of difficulty and, of course, danger.

There’s a really clever amount of balance in Magical Delicacy that I didn’t see when I first started playing. I have to admit that I didn’t immediately fall in love with this game. I wasn’t really sure about the combination of RPG and cookery SIM elements, but after an hour or so I really fell into the swing of things. I think a large reason for this is that the cookery part of the game is simplified just enough that it works in conjunction with everything else. If they’d made it a true SIM, (it isn’t, I just can’t think of a better description,) it would have been immersion-breaking, but this is more RPG with an interesting twist and that’s something I like.

The cooking element of the game is a matter of trial and error. You’ll be given an order that will stipulate what the customer wants and very importantly doesn’t. For example, they might want a stew but want to avoid spicy. Each ingredient tells you what it is, (vegetable, herb, fruit, etc,) and one of its characteristics. These characteristics range from refreshing to earthy, spicy, and so on. So taking the example I’ve just made we won’t be putting chillis in our stew. Sometimes we’ll be going from a recipe and other times we’ll be winging it. Not all of the best outcomes can be bought or found so we’re very much encouraged to play around and see what happens.

Something else that’s important is the equipment you’re using. A recipe might state that an element needs to be roasted, ground, or fried. You can’t just fulfill these requirements. For roasted you have to buy an oven, ground means you need a pestle and mortar, and so on. These are separate workstations in your shop that have to be acquired before you can complete the order. In addition to all of this, even though a recipe asks for “ground,” it doesn’t tell you which ingredient needs to be prepared. You need to work out what works best in that instance. Meals are star-rated so it’s good to make the same recipe a few times and note how you’ve made it better.

Magical Delicacy has a very late 90s arcade feel to it and this is something I can always appreciate. A lot of care has clearly been taken with respect to the visual and sound design and the look and feel of this game do a lot to help the overall experience. With respect to the controls, a gamepad is suggested for play. Personally, I don’t think this should ever be a requirement for a PC title and in this instance, it isn’t necessary. You can play quite comfortably with just your keyboard, though playing with a pad makes this a little bit more fluid. If you have a game-pad absolutely use it but it isn’t a requirement, which is good because it isn’t putting anybody off.

Magical Delicacy is what I’d call a grower. This isn’t the sort of game that hits you round the head from the off and screams play me. The more the story unfolds, though, the more I think you’ll sink into things and slowly get hooked. The biggest turn-off with this title might be the amount of dialogue you’ll have to sit through. There are quite a lot of characters to meet and all of them have their own story. Dialogue isn’t spoken, it’s all in speech bubbles, so if you’re the kind of player who just wants to get on with things, the amount of talking might get old quickly. If, on the other hand, you like a lot of dialogue in your RPGs you won’t have any issues here. It’s all going to be down to the pace you like in your game.

I mentioned quality-of-life issues earlier. None of these are game-breaking and, to be honest, might remedy themselves later in the game with items. My first bugbear is a lack of fast travel. Sometimes you’ll just want to hop to a specific shop and back to your own because you’re missing an ingredient. It would be nice to be able to do this with a swift click from the map. This is just time-saving as it doesn’t take hugely long to get around, it just saves loading four or five screens for one item. The thing is that I’d like the characters I’ve met to show up on the map. You can’t always remember where you’ve met everyone and instead of going around in circles looking it would be nice to see their face on the map and just know where you’re going. The reason why I’m saying some of this might fix itself is there’s a cartographer in the game and she supplied the map to begin with. She might give us great use over it later in the game but for something like this, I can’t see it.

All in all, I’m having a lot of fun with Magical Delicacy. This isn’t usually the sort of game I gravitate to, but it’s always nice to try something a little bit different, and as I’ve mentioned what this game does well it really excels at. If you like a slower-paced title where you can just immerse yourself into the world and enjoy at your own pace there’s a lot to love here. If you want action and not a lot else you’re probably better off looking elsewhere.

This review is based on a retail copy provided by the publisher.