Delicious – Emily’s Taste of Fame Review

The newest installment of the Delicious series, Emily’s Taste of Fame takes you on a journey with Emily and Francois as they make their way to Emily’s new cooking show. With all sorts of hazards and detours along the way, it will take creativity and strategy to proceed in this outstanding new time management title brought to you by GameHouse.

The game begins with a flashback to one month ago, where a wrecked car sits on the side of the road near a diner. Emily and her friend Francois enter the diner to think of what to do next: they’re on their way to Emily’s new cooking show, but they don’t have enough money to repair their car. Instead, Emily strikes up a deal with the owner of the diner to do what she does best: cook and work in the restaurant and earn enough money to get their car fixed. Emily and Francois find themselves in interesting new places at every turn as they make their way to Emily’s cooking show, but time is running out and the producers are waiting!

Emily’s Taste of Fame is the fourth official Delicious title in the series. Continuing the legacy of the series, Emily’s Taste of Fame is a restaurant-based time management title controlled solely with the mouse. Emily must cook and prepare food in a variety of combinations for a variety of customers, all while being careful not to make them angry and instead have them leave satisfied.

Delicious features two daily goals: a standard goal that will allow you to progress, and an expert goal. Achieving the expert goal allows Emily to earn extra money, which can be used to decorate the restaurant. Each decoration has a special quality that will improve Emily’s service or the customer’s actions in the game. True to the previous installments, Emily’s Taste of Fame also features five main restaurant areas with ten days each, for a total of 50 bustling levels. In each of the 50 levels are hidden a mouse, allowing for bonus play and challenges all while maintaining the restaurant. There is also a variety of Easter eggs that GameHouse has cleverly slipped into various levels.

Emily’s Taste of Fame is a whole new animal compared to the previous and even recent Delicious titles, improving and expanding with flying colors. This particular title features a new and refreshing feature in which every single day has a particular challenge or task that needs to be accomplished in addition to running the restaurant.

Tasks can be as simple as picking up packages, or complicated as saving a life. The tasks are also varied in style, some departing completely away from time management and straight into the genre of hidden object. With a strong non-corny storyline and lovable characters, and furthermore an entirely new cast of customers, this game is a beautiful blend of heart-warming adventure, hidden object, strategy, and of course true to its core, time management.

Featuring an improved sprite and animation style, in addition to a thoroughly enjoyable and environment-complementing soundtrack, Delicious is more expressive and enjoyable than ever. But that’s not all. Instead of taking place solely in restaurants, this title allows Emily to also work in shops, and even on a farm. While previous titles may have felt repetitive due to the strict restaurant environment, this one is anything but.

The only drawback to this title is the fact that "Emily’s Diary," a feature in the previous game Delicious: Emily’s Tea Garden, will not be returning. Emily’s Diary allowed the player to play through various days with various special challenges, including a non-stop game mode in which you served as many customers as possible until three left angry, or allowing you to perform such challenges as cooking strictly barbecue for customers. Hardcore fans of the series may be disappointed to see this feature gone, but Emily’s Taste of Fame still provides a good amount of replay value in the mice, Easter egg, and trophy challenges.

Without a doubt, Emily’s Taste of Fame is the best game of the Delicious series yet, and takes it in a whole new direction without straying from the core and heart of the series. It does an excellent job of balancing old with new, providing a seamless adaptive gameplay for veterans of the series and an outstanding tutorial and hint system for people new to the game.

Hints and tutorials can be skipped or turned off at any time, but even more impressive is the adjustable difficulty, allowing each player to choose exactly what fits them best. Hardcore fans can play at the super-hard difficulties and those new to time management can play it at easy. The normal difficulty level is a very sound line that should be comfortable for old and new players alike. The difficulty can be changed at any time, even during gameplay. It’s an excellent feature that should really be implemented into more time management titles.

Delicious – Emily’s Taste of Fame is a truly wonderful game for anyone: young or old, new to the series or well-acquainted, and has rightfully proven itself as one of the best time management titles released yet.