While games like Cooking Mama and Overcooked are all about preparing food, there’s something special about making and enjoying a homemade meal in other genres, especially in exchange for an extra boost in abilities, health, or morale. Cooking minigames further invest players in their character’s hobbies, interests, and needs in a fun and experimental way.
Preparing a meal correctly in a cooking minigame is particularly rewarding when players have to gather ingredients beforehand, experiment with flavors, or perfect their timing. However, more laid-back cooking mechanics in video games can be just as valuable, depending on the game. Whether cooking in these games is complex or simple, these games perfected their cooking minigame recipe to fit their characters and players’ needs.
7 Patapon
Patapon is a call-and-response rhythm game where players use drum beats to make an army of Patapons march forward, attack enemies, defend themselves, and retreat from threats on their journey to Earthend. While the Patapons only need the encouragement of the drums to continue their quest, players can increase their stats by feeding them stew.
In Patapon’s cooking minigame, players control a Patapon chef named Rah Gashapon and cut stew ingredients while matching the music’s rhythm. At the end of the minigame, a talking cooking pot called Simmer Slurp spits out the creature's final result. However, no matter the stew turns out, playing the minigame shows another fascinating part of a Patapon’s life.
6 Dragon’s Crown
In Dragon’s Crown, adventurers seek to recover a missing, enchanted crown from the clutches of evil. While the heroes often return to towns between their beat-em-up-style missions, there are times when they must camp to continue their journey the next day.
At camp, the adventurers can cook using the ingredients they found on their quest. However, the minigame stands out since the heroes are not limited to preparing their food in only one way. Players can boil, fry, and stir up to four meals at a time until a timer runs out. Considering the buffs that eating offers the heroes, Dragon Crown’s minigame is just as strategic as entertaining.
5 Monster Hunter
Although hunting impressive beasts and completing requests are the main goals of the Monster Hunter games, it takes stamina to track the monsters down using the proper techniques. Hunters can restore their stamina by eating prepared meals at camps, but they may run out of food in the field.
To ensure hunters have the highest chance of survival while tracking down a creature, they can carve raw meat from the bodies of small monsters and roast it on a vital piece of equipment, the BBQ spit. When players use the spit, a short song plays to help them time the cook on their steak. While the cooking minigames in the Monster Hunter games are not complicated, they are a memorable and practical part of the series.
4 Professor Layton And The Diabolical Box
In Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke, receive a tea set after helping an older woman with a pair of puzzles that stumped her. As they continue investigating a mysterious box said to murder anyone who opens it, the Professor and Luke gather more kinds of tea leaves to experiment with brews they can enjoy with the people they meet along the way.
While learning how the flavors interact together to create personalized teas is a rewarding experience, the tea minigame in Diabolical Box is particularly charming because it reflects Layton’s kind and gentlemanly nature. At times he will request to drink brew a cup of tea simply to enjoy its flavor and take a short break.
3 Kingdom Hearts 3
The Kingdom Hearts series has many minigames scattered throughout its worlds. However, the series introduced its first cooking game at the Bistro in Twilight Town in Kingdom Hearts 3.
By entering the Bistro after gathering ingredients from other worlds, Sora can cook with the Little Chef from Ratatouille. Depending on the recipe, Sora will either crack eggs, flambé meat, chop vegetables, or season the dish to perfection. While it takes dedication to prepare every meal the Bistro offers, mastering recipes is a rewarding experience because it helps the Bistro gain stars and make its way toward becoming a five-star restaurant.
2 Like A Dragon: Ishin!
Although the Yakuza series is known for its entertaining minigames,Like a Dragon: Ishin! takes the series’ minigames in a different direction for its Another Life mode. As Ryoma Sakamoto helps a young girl named Haruka escape debt, players can own a pet, go farming, and cook delicious meals in exchange for virtue and friendship.
In preparation for the cooking minigame, Ryoma must collect ingredients around town or grow them on his farm. Once he begins using the kitchen, some of Ryoma’s duties include chopping vegetables, tending fires, pouring oil, and frying fish while timing his movements perfectly to enhance the dish’s flavor. While it may be less flashy than some Yakuza minigames, Ishin! takes what its predecessors did best and applies it to cooking.
1 Pokemon Diamond & Pearl
Upon reaching Hearthome City in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, players receive a Poffin Case that allows them to make treats for their Pokemon in the Poffin House beside the city’s Poke Mart. In the Poffin minigame, players stir batter in different directions as it cooks, careful not to let it burn or overflow. Making Poffins uses up the berries that grow on various routes, but feeding them to a Pokemon enhances its appeal for Pokemon Pageants.
While a handful of Pokemon games in the main series have introduced cooking minigames since Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, the success of Poffins helped ensure that these additions were in good taste.