There’s a subset of journey video games that focus instantly on their narratives, leaving little room for any actual play. That is not at all times a nasty factor, although: typically it permits sufficient casting company to be the cherry on prime of a very endearing story. Bear’s Restaurant falls someplace in between, as there is not a lot to do apart from strolling round and interacting with different characters, making up the majority of the motion. Fortuitously, it manages to spend just a few hours fairly pleasantly with an emotional story at its core.

Relying on the title and the opening of the sport, you’ll be forgiven for considering that you’re about to get pleasure from some type of restaurant simulation expertise. You, a grey cat, get up in mattress with a bear in a chef outfit. Even throughout the opening quarter-hour, it’s seen that you just take orders from prospects and ahead them to the chef bear, after which ship the meals because it comes out. You’ve got additionally met one of many core mechanics of Bear’s Restaurant: taking reminiscence shards from individuals you meet and utilizing them to delve into their reminiscences. After they do, a brief cutscene performs, revealing a particular meal they might have loved. Quickly, an vital reality emerges about everybody who enters the restaurant: they’re all useless and dwelling within the afterlife.

To say far more in regards to the story can be to undermine the sport, however suffice to say that the plot is a mixture of bittersweet and unusually eccentric. You will finally encounter people who find themselves judged to have gone to heaven or hell, and the reminiscence shards you acquire provide the capability to lastly see how every character meets their future. Themes of demise and what awaits us after mixing this mortal coil permeate Bear’s Restaurant, however they might contradict its primitive presentation and vibrant pixelated colours. As soon as you’ve got acquired the credit flowing, there’s some good further content material to discover in the event you’re that inclined, however the lack of significant gameplay means you will need to be fairly concerned within the story to wish to see it via to the tip. The burden of sure story beats and the best way they combine collectively could, virtually unexpectedly, annoy some gamers.

Bear’s Restaurant presents a singular expertise, each much less and greater than it appears. His narration delivers some poignant emotional moments, however can be interspersed with oddly darkish or fantastical parts that undermine his true coronary heart. As a prequel to Fishing Paradiso, which Neal is reviewing right here, it at the very least introduces the characters carried over to this sequel, however these searching for broader and extra particular gameplay parts could wish to skip the restaurant and go straight. heaven. Should you’re searching for a narrative in regards to the afterlife, how individuals acquired there, and the will to maintain what we have misplaced, pull up a chair at Bear’s Restaurant.