KuloNiku: Bowl Up! Review – Intense Meatball Competition

What if you took the pressure of re-opening a family business and paired that with a fast-paced food tournament? You get KuloNiku: Bowl Up!, a cozy cooking simulation game developed by Gambir Studio and published by Raw Fury. During normal business hours, you are serving the classic dish of meatballs and noodles along with other variations. But you are operating in a competitive town where restaurants are putting their own spin on meatball-based dishes. To stand out from the crowd, you must beat your rivals in a local competition called Meatball Brawls or MeatBrawls for short.

Cooking games are a personal favorite of mine and KuloNiku is a great game to start if you’ve never tried one before. It’s a nice town with restaurants battling for supremacy, all inspired by your grandmother’s meatball dishes years ago. You are taking on a big responsibility, but you have no fear of failure as you learn how to serve food. If you are thirsting for a bigger challenge, you can throw yourself into the deep end and refine your skills on a competitive stage. Even then, that stage still has enough safeguards that you learn and grow just by participating.

The tutorial never overloads you with information and gives you actionable tips. Even the early stages help you adjust to the speed of orders while throwing in a few challenges. As a cozy game, there is no penalty for a bad order except missing out on potential tips. I made some mistakes when reading orders and it helped to have customers remind me of what I got wrong. While it wasn’t nice to read, it helped me pay more attention to order text and ensure that future dishes would be perfect.

You get the opportunity to add more ingredients and recipes to your line-up along with new cooking tools. If you aren’t confident with a new recipe or ingredient, you can take your time before expanding. Controlling the pace of your growth helps you adjust to future challenges. You also don’t serve too many customers at once, helping you focus on individual orders. KuloNiku’s systems ensure you are comfortable before pushing yourself to the next level, helping you enjoy the journey.

While working in the restaurant is important, you mustn’t forget about your social life. You are slowly introduced to several inhabitants in town and are encouraged to befriend them. Some are rival chefs with their own restaurant while others are townspeople doing their best. Your customers also slowly reveal information about their lives as they attend your restaurant, helping you put names to faces. It was almost like I was developing my own roster of “the usual” customers. Some orders even got to the point where I sometimes had 90% of the dish planned out once I saw the face of the customer.

Everything comes together to create an immersive cozy atmosphere. Developing relationships with townspeople and knowing your customers is something a good business owner does. Actually being part of that process makes you feel like you are running a business just like your grandmother hoped. You can also pace yourself if you don’t feel like pursuing relationships, allowing you to control the pace you proceed with other characters’ stories. I appreciated having the chance to socialize with other characters as it made me feel like I was part of something greater. Everyone’s got a story to tell and even if they weren’t my competitors, I wanted to spend more time with them.

Gameplay does feel repetitive after a while even with the new tools and ingredients; you don’t have tons of orders to fulfill and growth is slow. That’s fantastic for adapting, but it may take a while before you get the chance to challenge yourself. At some point I knew every corner of the restaurant and was just going through the motions earning money for upgrades. If you want a more challenging experience, it won’t come quickly and you must wait. Fortunately, there is a way to break the monotony with the occasional Meatball Brawl.

These competitions have you make special dishes that appeal to a panel of judges. Each judge has their own preferences and challenges that you must somehow match with your creation. Your competitor is also doing the same as you take turns putting together your own appealing dishes. Win one of these competitions and your reputation gets a big increase and sometimes you win tickets for redeeming items. But it’s not easy since you must keep an eye on your actions, those of your competitors, and potential bonus opportunities.

Meatball Brawls reward creativity and are a good barometer of your progress. You get every ingredient and tool available to you, along with mini-games to keep you on your toes. It may be overwhelming at first but it encourages you to put your restaurant experience to the test. As your restaurant grows, your confidence in these competitions grows as well. A few Meatball Brawls are mandatory, but thankfully they are only for tutorial purposes. After that, you can take them at your own pace to avoid overburdening yourself.

KuloNiku: Bowl Up! provides a fun cooking experience that helps you build foundations without making you feel uncomfortable. Meatball Brawls change the formula enough to challenge you while giving you space to innovate. New dishes and ingredients keep you on your toes though the process can be slightly repetitive. If you’re looking for a cooking game with the right mix of coziness and challenge, don’t pass this title up.

Victor reviewed KuloNiku: Bowl Up! on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.