Little Dragon’s Café Review-in-Progress

When I heard the former creator of Harvest Moon – back when the franchise was the talk of farming simulation – was creating a brand new experience that would involve fishing, farming, and dragon raising, I was immediately intrigued and exited for the experience that was about to come. As time wore on, and more and more information about the game came to light, I began to have my doubts that this once famed developer would be able to rekindle the old Harvest Moon magic within a new title, and perhaps even, a new franchise. Now that I’ve played through the entire story, does it live up to the expectations? Let’s dive in and take a look!

When you hear that this comes from a former Harvest Moon developer, I’m sure ideas might begin flooding into your head. But when you actually sit down and play this title, it couldn’t be further from a typical farming simulation experience. You don’t really farm, you don’t really fish, and you don’t have as much influence on your surroundings as you would in a Harvest Moon title. So what does this bring to the table? A unique, relaxing experience that lacks content, but is full of charm.

The biggest things that instantly sets this apart from what you might expect is that there is a story with a beginning, middle, and end. You will play as one of two twin children – either a male or female protagonist, your choice – who’s mother falls into a deep sleep because of some evil magic. With the help of an elderly wizard, you will need to continue running the family businesses, all the while attempting to dispel the magic that holds your mother in limbo.

It’s a charming story, and the day to day progression is much more interesting than I would have originally thought. The ultimate goal each and every day is to grab the resources necessary to properly run the local restaurant, all the while attempting to gather recipe fragments to better the options you can serve guests. With dozens upon dozens of recipes to unlock, and hundreds of fragments to collect, the game will take you a good 25-30 hours to complete, and even then, you will not have found everything as much is still locked as end game content.

Ingredients for the dishes you will serve can be found in the large world that slowly opens up as you progress further into the story. Things like salt, sugar, vegetables, and meat can be found in bushes, inside small caves, and from wild animals, while fish can be sourced from fishing locations along the coast, or at your local fish farm near the café. You will also have a garden outside the café that can supply generous amounts of ingredients every few days, depending on how much you fertilize them.

Ingredients have different ranks that will ultimately result in better dishes for your patrons. Once you have the recipe in hand, and the ingredients in your cupboards, players will have the option to play a quick mini game that utilizes beats and button presses to help you create the best dish possible. Manage to hit every beat with an ‘Excellent!’ will nail you a 5 chef hat dish.

When patrons enter the café for meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you will be tasked with accepting orders, delivering dishes, and cleaning tables. Thankfully, should you not want to engage in this aspect of the game too heavily, you’ll have a full staff in place within the first few hours, who can handle all these tasks for you. Be mindful, however, that each staff members comes with their own issues – the lazy male musician, the ambitious but quick-to-anger female, and a chef who’s not as confident in his abilities as perhaps you are. At any given time, these character flaws could result in these workers neglecting their duties, which will affect your cafe’s reputation. Reputation is incredibly important as this will drive your progress in the game.

As your reputation increases, new unique characters will visit your café, and the story will progress. As the story progresses, your young dragon companion will also grow which is important for one major reason: traversing the world and finding new ingredient opportunities. Your dragon starts off incredibly small, and the only benefit he provides you is the ability to enter small caves and bring back ingredients. As he grows, however, he will bring better and better benefits to the table, such as the ability to destroy barricades to open new paths, and to fly to previously unreachable locations.

That’s the gist of what you attempt to do in Little Dragon’s Café, and it all sounds great. But does it work well? I really did enjoy the time I spent with the game, but it was something I went to relax for an hour or so. I was never able to sit down and pump hours upon hours into the experience, because I quickly became bored with ins and outs of running the café. Relaxing, yes, but short on content. Each day roughly played out the same. Wake up at 6:00, run around and collect some ingredients close to the café, return for lunch at noon. Head out after lunch to collect new recipe fragments and ingredients further from the café, and then return for dinner around 6:00. After dinner, I would step out again to perform the same tasks, returning around midnight to call it a day and get some rest.

There is some good writing here, and the cast of characters is interesting enough, so when the story was really moving forward at a quick pace, things were OK. It was the moments when you began trying to grind out reputation points, in order to advance the story further, that really pulled me out of the experience. While the game is always beautiful to look at – really, the artwork is outstanding! – it isn’t enough to keep me going for longer than an hour or so.

There are a lot of great things to love about Little Dragon’s Café, but it definetly won’t be for everyone. Don’t come in thinking you are playing a new iteration of the Harvest Moon franchise, because you will be woefully disappointed. But if you are looking for something relaxing, this game is full of things to give you that feeling.

We hope to assign a final score tomorrow after diving a bit deeper into the late game content. Right now, we are sitting at 7.0/10.