Experience of Kabi's Food Festival: A food themed challenge variety show that anyone can easily participate in

At the 30th anniversary concert of "Kabi of Stars", an unexpected skit level work from HAL Research suddenly announced its release date, which is "Kabi's Food Festival".

This game is a family party game that focuses on multiplayer entertainment, priced at only 1500 yen (about 76 yuan). I was worried that it might not be a mediocre game, but after experiencing it for nearly 10 hours, I gained an unexpected surprise. After getting tired of playing with various 3A blockbusters, why not switch flavors and taste this delicious dessert?

come on. You are the fattest!

Multiplayer variety show challenge is the basic gameplay of Kabi's Food Festival. Players need to control Kabi to scroll through the food themed mechanism levels, compete with other Kabi for strawberries and cakes, and strive to eat the fattest one.

The theme of "food" has permeated every aspect of the game, such as the game's main interface being called the "main table", where the stage is a large dining table with various options representing different cuisines. Roll on the plate to start the game, and the level scene is filled with donuts, honey, sandwiches, poached eggs, syrup, and cream.

main table

The track is composed of honey muffins and waffles. There are fruit cream biscuits on the roadside

This game does not include any storyline modes and supports three gameplay modes: battle mode, online mode, and local online mode. In the battle mode, players can choose to engage in a single player battle against the CPU, or remove Joycon to share with friends in split screen format. At most, it only supports split screen for two people. If you want to play with four people locally, you need more Switch consoles and choose local online mode.

Online Matching in Progress

As for the online mode, players can randomly match people from all over the world, play the complete "Food Awards" championship mode, or go online with friends from afar. Unlike Mario Racing 8, in this game, no matter how you use it (including local split screen), you cannot participate in online random matches with friends.

The levels included in a complete food appreciation will be listed in the form of a menu, consisting of four parts in order: competition, mini game, competition, and food survival battle. There is no elimination mechanism in the game, so in order to win, one must grasp all four modes. After all games are over, the one who eats the most strawberries and weighs the heaviest will win.

, as shown in the bottom left corner, can send simple messages using the cross key during competitions

The initial part is the competition, similar to a variety show that challenges levels. Players will need to compete with three opponents, Kabi or CPU controlled Vadourudi, to eat as many strawberries as possible along the way, while ensuring speed to compete for the right to enjoy the 50 strawberry giant cake at the finish line.

Similar to Mario Racing, food boxes appear side by side at regular intervals on the track, which are actually props that provide random "replicated food" and give Kabi some unique abilities. Some can attract the surrounding strawberries and accelerate their movement speed, while others can not only accelerate significantly, but also not worry about accidentally rushing out of the track.

Props in the game

Food management is a necessary skill for experts, and replicating food can often have unexpected effects. If you get accelerated foods like burning chili peppers and donut wheels, you can use them to pass through some difficult to roll shortcuts and climb honey walls; If you have defensive foods such as tornadoes and jelly and are in a leading position, why not leave them for emergency.

In Mario Racing, the leading player is most afraid of the blue turtle shell suddenly popping up behind them, while in Kabi's Food Festival, the deepest fear of the leading player is "broken cookies.". When I hit it, my footsteps had to stop.

"Blocking Tiger" Broken Biscuit

Faced with broken cookies, there are corresponding countermeasures. With just the ability of jelly, you can easily squeeze through the gaps, and the terrifying "roadblock" suddenly becomes a friendly army, helping Kabi block the opponent behind.

The effect of using jelly props on

The route design concept of this race track is similar to that of Mario Racing, and is not a completely linear map. There are many difficult but shorter branching roads in the competition map; After overcoming numerous difficulties and rolling onto the high platform, one can take the lead with a powerful cannon. If you have a clear understanding of the track structure, it will definitely be a great advantage.

The colored candy is actually a cannon

There are three huge strawberry cakes at the finish line. Their scores, from highest to lowest, are 50, 20, and 10 strawberries, respectively. The finishing cake is the driving force for the race between the four players.

The Big Cake at the End of the Track

The second part is a mini game with various forms such as "hitting enemies to obtain strawberries", "collecting strawberries falling from the sky", and "destroying boxes to eat strawberries", but they are all similar. The number of strawberries collected in this part is not large, and the battle is relatively easy, so the impact on the final result is minimal. Placing it in the middle can serve as a "halftime break".

The third part is still the competition, and the rules of the two matches are basically the same. However, in order to narrow the gap, the starting point has been changed at this time. The leading players in the first two parts will start from the back, while the lagging players will start from the front, which is not the previous rule of free starting.

In the final part, which is the "main meal" food survival battle mentioned in the level menu, as the name suggests, this is also a crucial part for the final result. In survival battles, Kabi players need to use the ability of "replicating food" to knock their opponents out of the field and steal their strawberries.

Food Battle

This section not only includes all the props that appeared in the competition, but also includes three additional items: drilling, chocolate blocks, and needles. Digging into the ground can allow you to evade attacks, and you can also drill out to surprise your opponents; The chocolate blocks were like a chaotic downward smash, transforming into heavy chocolate and smashing towards the ground, shaking the opponent out of the field; Needles can not only protect themselves, but also charge and collide with opponents.

transforms into a chocolate block that can create shock waves

It doesn't matter how many attacks you receive, what players need to do is stay on the field as much as possible and knock down opponents. Players who are knocked out of the field will deduct a certain amount of strawberries, which will be obtained by the attacker accordingly. When the force and angle of being knocked off the field are insufficient, Kabi can "return" by constantly jumping, but if the force is too strong, such as being hit by an oncoming burning chili pepper, the outcome of flying off the field is also difficult to avoid.

Even after completing the above four parts, the competition has not officially ended. Similar to Mario Party, this game has a surprise reward mechanism at checkout, where the system randomly selects 2-3 rules. Players who meet the criteria will directly receive a reward of 40 strawberries. These rules have strong randomness and a high proportion, so the winner can never be predicted until the last moment.

In terms of the number of levels, the competition section only has about 4-5 tracks, with slightly higher map repetition, and slightly more mini games and survival battles. But because the Food Festival adopts three modes of interspersed gameplay, the actual experience of players will not be very boring, and the levels will also be continuously unlocked with the battle, maintaining a certain degree of freshness.

"Exposing non gamers to games and understanding their fun can bring about tremendous changes. Gamers are no longer a minority group in society, creating a favorable environment for creating 'game like games'." - From' Mr. Iwata '.

Nintendo's philosophy has always been to expand the gaming audience and allow more people to experience the fun of gaming. HAL Research Institute designed the character Kabi in an era of daunting game difficulty. Nowadays, the core gameplay of Kabi's Food Festival revolves around the principle of "reducing the cost of getting started and narrowing the player gap".

The ability can also be used in food survival battles

If he accidentally breaks out of the track, Kabi can use his ability to hover back on the field. It should be noted that this friendly mechanism is only for HAL's sake of reducing the difficulty of getting started. Due to speed and time constraints, attempting to take shortcuts using this method is not realistic.

Not only in terms of operational difficulty, the addition of replicated food can also narrow the gap to a certain extent. Therefore, this work further introduces a "dynamic food" system.

"Dynamic food" means that the probability of different players getting different types of food is unequal. The more strawberries they eat and the more leading players are, the easier it is for them to get mediocre food. For example, in a race, the first most easily drawn food is strawberries (similar to the role of gold coins in Mario Racing, which slightly increases speed), while far behind players almost 100% draw high jump (similar to the role of rockets, ignoring the terrain and speeding through the track). Sometimes, falling behind is also a tactic.

Strawberry Basket: Let me see which friend needs help

In survival battles, the same applies. The more strawberries a player has, the weaker their ability to draw strong food. The game also incorporates scene mechanisms to highlight the principle of narrowing the gap. Strawberry baskets will closely follow behind Kabi and pour strawberries down their heads, while terrifying pincers will "hunt" the leading player.

When Kabi is reborn after being hit and flying, he can also unconditionally get a chance to win a lottery on the food carousel. The more he falls behind, the stronger the food he draws, and he may even give multiple portions at once.

This! It's just a variety show

The principle of "reducing hands-on costs" is also reflected in unexpected elements, with the two most random parts being the reward mechanism during food survival battles and settlement. These random unexpected elements, if placed in variety shows, are the catalyst for the explosion of program effects.

In the survival battle, four players are placed on a narrow platform, and various replicated foods will play an exceptionally powerful role. After being hit once, there is no turning point. As the countdown decreases, the frequency of food boxes appearing will increase, and the final scene of the game is like a chaotic dance of demons, with endless situations of turning defeat into victory.

The reward mechanism during settlement adds stronger randomness to the game, such as giving rewards to the player who receives the most special fruits. Even the most experienced veteran cannot accurately predict the final rules, while the various mistakes made by new players on the way can become unexpected surprises.

Master's hand is also so nervous

The benefits and drawbacks of randomness require players to consider their own perspectives.

On the one hand, strong randomness reduces the difficulty of getting started, allowing any player to enjoy the fun of the game. Until the last moment, even if you fall behind, there is no need to give up, because there is always hope for victory.

Randomness can even expand the gameplay, for example, the final reward mechanism adds more possibilities to the gameplay. The competition track is not only about strawberries, but players can also find special fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, cherries, etc. They are rare in quantity and often arranged in extremely tricky positions.

These fruits cannot bring unique abilities, at best equivalent to a strawberry, but due to the existence of the above random rules, players may end up receiving huge rewards, sometimes even more meaningful than the big cake at the finish line.

Blueberries

But randomness also has many drawbacks. The food survival battle is known as the main dish, highlighting its importance is indeed true, but its radiance has completely covered the other three parts. This not only creates a structure that is heavy on the head and light on the feet, but also due to the extraordinary level of chaos in this mode, players are unable to freely use their fists and feet, and the outcome is completely dominated by "replicating food", which is somewhat arbitrary.

The drawback of randomness is also reflected in the settlement part. The high reward mechanism of randomness may seem fair from a probability perspective, but players who have put in a lot of effort in the game may feel unwilling.

In my opinion, "Kabi's Food Festival" did indeed adhere to Nintendo's principle of "reducing the difficulty of getting started", but it seems to have gone too far in terms of randomness.

As a dessert for the 30th anniversary of the series, there is no doubt that it is qualified. The various carefully designed small details of the game are interspersed in every aspect of the gameplay process, together creating a "food festival".

It's not expensive, but it's still fun, like a hotpot of multiplayer games, combining the strengths of many players but not delving deep enough. Essentially, it is still a casual oriented game. The inspiration for the prop mechanism comes from the carriage, but the depth is far less than the former. The design of replicating food in the game is poor, and some abilities even overlap, such as burning chili peppers and donut wheels, lollipops and tornadoes. The limitation of carrying only one type of food at a time also weakens the strategic nature of the game.

This game adopts P2P online mode, and if a player's network is poor, it will cause everyone to lag. There is a certain delay during operation, which may cause a feeling of not following suit and may not be satisfactory in a racing game. In addition, the game adopts a fixed perspective and cannot be adjusted with the right joystick, so the perspective in some scenes may also be awkward.

For players who like Kabi, the collection elements in this game should be more attractive.

The collection of Kabi's Food Festival is cookies on the cake, known as character Dim sum. These character Dim sum are decorated with 256 classic characters and enemies of the "Kabi of the Stars" series. Each round of battle will definitely unlock the character's Dim sum, so there is no need to rack your brains to find a hiding place. Active battle can help you collect all the snacks.

The small cookies on the cake are all collectibles

The eaten strawberries will be converted into rewards during settlement, increasing the "food level" and unlocking BGM, appearance, color schemes, and additional levels. The reward obtained online is 1.8 times that of single player gameplay. The highest food level reward in the game is level 135, which can unlock a total of 25 different appearances and 40 color schemes, with rich content.

The music of this work maintains the consistent high level of the series, with rich repertoire, cheerful and lively themes, which can also be unlocked by elevating the level of cuisine. Players can discover a large number of classic BGM figures in the game, such as the theme song "Green Greens" and the brainwashing song "Gourmet Race" from "Superstar". They will also appear in the form of variations and accelerate the rhythm over time.

If the player's Switch console has saved versions of "Star Kabi Discovery," "Kabi Star Wars 2," "Super Kabi Hunters," or "Nova Alliance," each game will bring 3 bonus song specials. Even better, these songs are rearranged versions of the original game.

Classic characters, enemies, and music from the Kabi series are all featured, with the mascot "Master's Hand" serving as the referee. If you don't pursue winning or losing, care more about the gameplay process, or hope to have a party game with friends to relax, then this game is worth buying; If you love sweets or are a loyal fan of the Kabi series, then this game must not be missed. Finally, thank you very much for your hospitality!