We’re back again with yet another childhood game! If you’re not yet, at the very least beginning to see a pattern with the games I review, they’re games that I grew up with that I frequently review.

Anyway, I have all three of the main Cooking Mama series for the DS, along with two spin-offs: The original Cooking Mama, Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, Cooking Mama 3: Shop and Chop, AKA this one, Cooking Mama World: Hobbies and Fun, and Gardening Mama. Don’t worry; I’ll eventually review all of these, including Camping Mama: Outdoor Adventures when we can find a ROM for the game that doesn’t freeze up two minutes in, but for now, it’s just Cooking Mama 3.

This one has to be my favorite by far, because there are so many recipes to make. Not only that, it’s even possible to go shopping and mix-and-match six different things to create up to at least 30 different recipes! With that said, let’s begin!

Graphics – 8

This game was released in 2009, so it’s obvious that the graphics are pretty good. It’s amazing how we managed to jump to blocky, pixelated games to games that look like Cooking Mama 3. Anyway, the graphics are cute and colorful. When you finish cooking a recipe, like some shortcake, it shows you your masterpiece on the bottom screen, along with your score on the top.

The food looks very realistic, and when you’re playing the minigames needed to cook said food, the graphics are cute and cartoon-like. The bright colors are easy on the eyes, like with PaRappa the Rapper.

Sound – 5

There are a couple of different kinds of sound for this game: Voice acting, Music, and sound effects. There isn’t really that much music, so I’ll just sum it up as some nice background music that, within five minutes in, you don’t even process it in your brain and forget it within 10 seconds.

As for the sound effects, there are quite a bunch in this game, as you’re doing a lot of things. For example, you’re boiling, stir frying, and cutting up things. You’re even cutting different kinds of food, so there are different kinds of sound effects for what you’re cutting, like if you’re chopping up some onions.

So far, there appears to only be voice acting for Mama, and even then, every now and then. Most of the things that she says are in text-bubbles, but occasionally she’ll have a voice line, like “Keep it up!” or “It’s perfect! Mama’s impressed!” Because there isn’t a ton of sound for the game, I’ll leave my score at a 5.

Addictiveness – 10

This also ties in with Depth, because there is a bunch of things that you can do in this game, and thus keep you from getting bored with the game sooner and turning it off to play a different game. There are a ton of recipes in this game, easily making this one the game with the most things you can cook, and you can select from a combination of six things, two things for each of them, which gives you over 30 more choices!

That’s not the only thing that’s new in this game. You can also play a shopping minigame! I have to say, the minigame is pretty accurate to real life, which adds to the fun! The minigame has you walking into the store, trying to avoid all people as you grab what you need and skedaddle out of the store. If you bump into certain people, you’re going to have to play a minigame to get away from them!

 The minigame ranges from smacking unwanted bags of noodles out of your cart to taste testing freebie samples of food that’s advertised. Of course, employees aren’t the only ones you have to play minigames with. You also have to play minigames with certain shoppers, like keeping one woman’s seafood from jumping out of her shopping cart and hitting the floor to helping a new mother stop her baby from crying. Watch out, though! If you bump into the wrong person, you’ll lose a life!

If you can keep yourself from getting any penalties for when you’re playing the minigames, you’ll be able to regain a life, so if you bump into the wrong person, only then would it be alright to slam into the minigame people.

Story – N/A

Unfortunately, unlike with the previous Mama game I reviewed, Babysitting Mama, I couldn’t find a story behind this game, no matter how hard I looked or how long I used Google to help me out. Not only that, I can’t seem to think up of any interesting headcanon stories for this game, so, for the first time in the history of my reviews, we’ll have to leave this story as N/A.

Depth – 10

There is quite a bit to do in this game. There’s also a multiplayer option, where you can compete with friends to see who’s the best chef out of your friend group, but since I’m forever alone I got into the DS games right at the period where the 3DS came out, I don’t have any friends to compete with, and thus, have no idea what it’s like, so we’ll be leaving that out.

Even without the multiplayer option, there’s still a ton of things you can do! To keep this simple, I’ll just look at the three main modes for this game: Cook with Mama, Let’s Match!, and Let’s Shop!

For Cook with Mama, you start out with about 8 recipes: Pickles, Marshmallows, Candy Apples, French Cruller, Korean Barbecue, Baumkuchen (HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE THIS WORD?!) Vongole Bianco, and Fried Shrimp! As you finish cooking more things, you begin to unlock more recipes. You’ll be cooking recipes until you unlock all of the recipes, where, for the final screen of which recipe you want to cook, you can tap these little icons that play a bunch of sound effects. Pretty cute, I might add!

When you play Let's Match!, then you'll get a selection of six different items to choose from. You can pick two for each recipe, which means you'll have up to thirty different choices on what you could use for your new recipe! You won't know what you're going to get until you make that recipe!

My personal favorite is the shopping minigame. You gotta be quick, you're on a timer and you need to get what Mama asked you to buy before the timer runs out or you run out of lives! Don't bump into people, you gotta keep it moving, so you better hurry up! However, if you lose a life by bumping into the wrong person, look for the minigame people to regain a life!

Difficulty – 3

The main game is easy. You mix some stuff, chop up things, and, if you’re making sushi, you have to blow into the microphone while sliding the stylus down to prepare the rice. The same goes with the Let's Match! minigame

The shopping minigame is slightly harder, but it’s not super hard like stage four of the original PaRappa the Rapper. You just have to navigate through the real life maze that is known as the grocery store while avoiding human contact with people so you can get out as soon as possible.

Overall – 7.2

The Mama series is a simple but fun series that almost anyone that has a DS can pick up and play. As for this game? I’d definitely recommend you play it, as this, in my opinion, is the best game in the DS games.