One Piece: Grand Gourmet Review

Serving up a new adventure, Kairosoft and Bandai Namco Entertainment‘s One Piece: Grand Gourmet is taking the series into a new direction as a restaurant management-style title.

See whether this dish is tastier than a Gum-Gum Fruit with our review…

One Piece: Grand Gourmet Review

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One Piece: Grand Gourmet follows the iconic Straw Hat Pirates as they take on a new adventure: running a restaurant.

Taking the mantle of a new chef that helps Sanji run the place, you all set out to beat your rivals’ sales numbers and clear them out of the area.

There’s only one problem: Most of the Straw Hat Pirates are scattered to the wind, so it’s important to simultaneously find them and grow one’s business.

Starting out, players will have a few customers that will roll up, along with a handful of tables.

As the manager of the restaurant, one’s only worries are tied to the layout, getting more customers, and what meals to serve. Serving is done by staff, which can be Straw Hat Pirates or other customers that like you enough.

Rather, one’s main goal in One Piece: Grand Gourmet is to make sure everything is comfortable, and that everything looks nice for the customer. The higher a table’s comfort rating, the more it’ll earn.

Your biggest job in One Piece: Grand Gourmet is expanding and adjusting one’s ship as popularity rises.

Sailing the seas, players will gain access to new biome types. For instance, Skypiea or Thriller Bark-type areas can be made to recruit certain customers.

One Piece: Grand Gourmet makes this expanding very easy – all you have to do is pick a floor tile (like Thriller Bark) and cover the floor with it. The walls, ceiling, and even exits will automatically spawn around that, and any tables will convert to that type.

This makes adding on to one’s restaurant a breeze.

Your other big job as the manager is to pick what meals to set out. Options include a main course, side dish, drink, and a dessert that can be put out for a full meal.

Only a few options are available at first, but new ones are unlocked as more people visit.

Getting fans also provides new recipes – assuming you have the materials to make them. You can also automate this one enough recipes are acquired.

Besides serving food, One Piece: Grand Gourmet will also have players entertaining guests.

Players can make shops, pools, outdoor areas, aquariums, and character-specific spots. After guests are done eating, they will go around the ship and check other things out.

More cash can be earned this way, and characters will slowly become fans of your restaurant. Once you get a fan, they are more likely to see you – even when the ship moves.

The more fans you get, the better your meals turn out.

Customers in One Piece: Grand Gourmet also bring side quests. Since this isn’t an action RPG, the only way to help is to spend money or the secondary Hearts currency.

Everything serves as an investment; the more docks you have, the more ships can arrive. The prices can get absurd – there wasa point where I was tossing around 10 million for one dock. Nami cut the price in half, sure, but it was still pricey nonetheless.

While everyone else is working at the restaurant, Luffy can be sent out on missions to collect loot and find new crew members. It’s like an auto-scrolling battle minigame that happens at the bottom of the screen, working in conjunction with requests handled back on the ship.

Luffy also brings gifts and ingredients, allowing players to make customers back on the ship happy. Once they get happy enough, a cooking battle and new area to explore are unlocked.

Do be warned that One Piece: Grand Gourmet pays host to far too many notifications. When things are going fast, the sheer amount of things on screen makes it hard to play. It’s not lagging; rather, players will need to close too many things.

In addition, One Piece: Grand Gourmet only features one speed option, and players cannot move the camera. As a result, one can only place and rotate objects a certain way. While this works, it would benefit from having all four directions.

One Piece: Grand Gourmet is a dish with widespread appeal, serving as a great palate cleanser between this season’s heavy hitters.

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