Cooking. One of the fundamental activities we partake
in, on a daily basis. And yet, despite this unavoidability, the
art of cooking has remained almost unchanged for the last hundred years. We simply grab a cookbook, and follow the
steps. But, in 2008, Nintendo sought to change that,
to start a culinary revolution. How? Why with a little thing called Cooking Guide:
Can’t decide what to eat. Or as he puts it: “Can’t decide what to
eat? Cooking Guide! Let’s make something tasty!” Hi there, welcome to Thomas Game Docs! So as I mentioned today we’re talking about
2008’s DS game Cooking Guide: Can’t decide what to eat. It’s a pretty weird game, if you can even
call it one! But before I show you round, I need to give
a quick bit of context, so hang in there! You see, Cooking Guide: Can’t Decide What
to Eat is actually the third game in a series of DS cooking games. This entry is the first one released outside
of Japan, but it was actually preceded by two titles never seen by us non-Japanese folk. And some of them are pretty bizarre! We start off with the fairly simple looking
“Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi”, which translates to “It
talks! DS Cooking Navigator”. From the start, this game grabs your attention
with its unique way of speaking. Maybe unique isn’t so accurate, actually. Fans of the game Tomodachi Life, may recognise
the sound of that voice. It sounds almost identical to the synthesised
voice from Tomodachi Collection for the DS. I think it goes without saying that this voice
engine is practically identical behind the scenes. Oh but, the developers of Shaberu! don’t
let this voice engine go to waste. You see, the unique selling point of this
game is that it reads the recipe out loud to you! Check it out! Not only that, but you can tell it to read
you the next step, just by talking to it! In the japanese version, you say OK to move
the game on. “Ok” “Ok” And here we encover one of the fundamental
issues that I’ve had with not just this game, but the series as a whole. I can never get it to understand me! But we’ll touch on that later. As you can see, there’s a huge huge number
of recipes here. Plus, a calendar, to keep track of what you’re
cooking and when. So who’d this game even come about? Well, it was the work of two companies, Nintendo
of course plus smaller developer indieszero. It's impossible to know which company the
original idea came from, let alone which individual developer. But, the two companies partnered with a third
force: Tsuji Cooking Academy. This culinary school, based in Osaka, helped
oversee all 200 recipes to check that they weren’t, well, bad. Now, any other developer would think “200
recipes? State of the art voice recognition. *cough cough* Endearing chef mascot? Let’s stop there!” But not Nintendo. Well, kind of Nintendo? This is where a little complicated. From what I can tell, Nintendo actually licensed
the Shaberu! brand to another publisher, Koei, and they partnered with another developer,
Paon, to release, let me take a breath, “It talks! DS Cooking Navigator: The Ins-and-Outs of
the Imperial Hotel ~The Best Chef de Cuisines Teaching Everyday Cooking~”. Oohf, that’s a title and a half! Now, the gist of this game is the same as
the first one, but this time round there’s a bit of a twist. It’s all based around the Tokyo Imperial
Hotel. I’m not kidding! When you start the game, you’re asked which
one of these 7 restaurants you want to learn from, all of which being based inside the
Imperial Hotel. Then, once you pick, you’re given lessons
by the actual head chef of the real life restaurant! From the Imperial Hotel’s own restaurant
which serves french food, you’ll be taught by Kenichiro Tanaka. From the Japanese style restaurant Nadaman,
you can be taught by Takayuki Ohshima. Again with Japanese cuisine, comes Isecho,
whose head chef is Toshiaki Takahashi. Another Janaese Cuisine serving restaurant
is Kitcho, whose head chef is Yuji Ito. If you’re in the mood for some sushi, then
restaurant Sushigen will be right up your alleyway, head chef being Naoyuki Kosei. Serving delicious Chinese food is Bekin, head
chef Hidehiko Sakuma. And lastly, there’s restaurant San Applause,
putting a twist on traditional Japanese dishes, head chef’d by Hiro Maruyama. Phew, that’s a whole lotta choices there! Oh and one last thing before I move onto the
game we’ve all been waiting for - this game has 201 dishes. 1 more than the first game. I don’t know if that’s slightly petty,
or absolutely hilarious. Regardless, the following year, Nintendo returned
to the helm of the cooking guide series, again joined by both indieszero and Tsuji Cooking
Academy. But they had a conundrum. The series had started simple, then gone considerably
bigger. So where on earth could they take it from
there? Well, that was the clue! “Where on earth.” Why specify? And so, they promptly released this, known
in Japan as “Sekai no Gohan: Shaberu! DS Oryori Navi” ...thank you. Or as it was called in Europe, Cooking Guide:
Can’t Decide What to Eat? From the moment we first boot up the game,
some pretty major changes are apparent. First off, that screechy voice is gone, replaced
by this warm and comforting one instead. I feel like it’s the vocal equivalent of
a nice hot bath, you know. Maybe that’s just me. But, all voices aside, let’s check out what
this game has to offer, shall we. There are a few different modes here, but
let’s just dive right in with Cooking Guide! And from here, we’re offered a near plethora
of sorting options. Let’s try View All. And oh gosh, we are bombarded by hundreds
upon hundreds of recipes. I think this might not be the most efficient
way of sorting these things. If we back up for a sec, we can see there’s
sort by ingredients, by requirements and by keywords. But I think the star of the show, the main
event, is By Country. This whole game is themed around the globe
after all. And so, we’re taken to this big ol map,
containing each and every country of the world. I don't think they have all the country’s
cuisines, but the scale is nevertheless awe inspiring. But which country should we start with, for
our first ever Cooking Guide dish. This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly,
you know! But I think I have the perfect country in
mind. Yeah, ok, maybe I'm a little biased, but let’s
see what recipes the UK has on offer. Vegetable Lasagne, Welsh Rarebit, Bangers
and Mash, Chicken Tikka Masala, mm, I think we ought to go with Bangers and Mash. It is a classic, after all. Alright, so first we’re taken to this list
of ingredients, which… Yeah, they all seem ok! Next we click steps, and SPOILER ALERT! No peeking! Let’s go straight onto cook! Ok, so I’m not gonna be actually cooking
the recipe, because as of writing this script it’s 11:40 on a Monday evening. I have no idea when I’ll be recording this. Uh, it’s … on tuesday. Cool. Either way, let’s just follow along with
our lovely chef guide. Does he have a name? I don’t think so. Poor guy. So as with the previous games, we can make
use of some snazzy voice commands to browse through the recipe without getting mashed
potato on our DS. But again, it never seems to work that well
for me. Let’s give it a shot, though! Continue. Continue! There we go! We can also say “more details” to get
him to give us a little more info. More info! Plus, we can say “repeat” to get him to
read the step again. Repeat! Alright! And lastly, we can say “go back” to get
him to, uh, go back. Go back! Ok, so that’s the basics of the DS navigation
stuff. Once we go through all the steps, which I’m
gonna fast forward because there’s 28 steps here, we get congratulated by the great chef
himself. Thank you thank you! I’d like to thank my friends, my family. “Nice work!” And at the end, we get this delightful stamp! There’s so many colour options! I think I’ll go with green - a green stamp
for a green boy. Alright, so that’s the basics of Cooking
Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat? But it doesn’t stop there. Because Nintendo of Europe decided to localise
the game for a plethora of European languages! In Spanish, the game was called Cocina conmigo:
¿Qué preparamos hoy? - that translates to Cook with me: What will we prepare today? In French it was called Leçons de cuisine
: Qu'allons-nous manger aujourd'hui ? - which translates to Cooking Lessons: What are we
going to eat today? In Italian, it was called La guida in cucina:
Che si mangia oggi? And that translates to The guide in the kitchen:
What are you eating today? And lastly, in German, it was called Kochkurs:
Was Wollen Wir Heute Kochen, which translates to Cooking Course: What will we cook today? Sidenote: This is the only version of the
game that I can consistently get to understand me. Wunderbar! Alright, so that’s the basics of Cooking
Guide: Can’t Decide What to Eat? But there’s a little more. Because only a few months later, Nintendo
released the game in America, titled Personal Trainer: Cooking. It was the first game in the so called Personal
Trainer series followed by Personal Trainer: Math and Personal Trainer: Walking. It’s a weird little series actually, and
I’d like to talk about some of the other games in the future. But focusing on Personal Trainer: Cooking,
Nintendo of America actually released the game alongside this very very very green DS. I have some pretty strong opinions about this
DS, but there’s a time and a place. After this game was released across the globe,
much the recipes featured in it, the Cooking series continued to live on, at least for
a little bit. Our old friends at Koei released another of
their own cooking games, titled Simple! Fun! Pastry Navigator DS. It’s not got the Shaberu! branding on it
like their imperial hotel game did, but at its core, this is the same as all the other
cooking games. Our silky voiced chef is completely gone,
replaced by this ...i don’t know. Mole maybe? But other than that, the game is basically
the same. I do like the whole gingerbread aesthetic
it’s got going on, though. Top marks. That’s not the weirdest game in the series
though. In 2010, NIntendo partnered with the PBS TV
show, America’s Test Kitchen, to release the game America’s Test Kitchen, Let’s
Get Cooking. Oh, and to help with writing the recipes,
they partnered with magazine Cook's Illustrated. Truly a bizarre partnership, I’m sure you
agree, and the game is also pretty weird. It kinda takes the concept of Cooking Guide:
Can’t decide what to eat, and tries it’s best to glue it onto this concept of like
a family cooking competition, which I guess is loosely based around America’s Test Kitchen. It’s all a little weird, but you know, it’s
up to them, I suppose. And that’s the Cooking Guide series. What did you think? Would you consider following a recipe from
your DS? Let me know in the comments below! Oh, but before you go, there’s a cool little
surprise you get in Cooking Guide if you cook 19 different dishes. Did I laboriously click through 19 painstaking
recipes just for this moment? You bet I did. So, what’s the surprise, then? Well, it’s the end credits. BUT, in the Japanese version, it’s actually
this beautiful, heart-rendering ballad. And so, I figured that would be a nice way
to close off the video. And while that’s playing, I’m gonna chop
an onion. See you next week!
