Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine

Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine is the second installment in the cooking-themed time management series developed by
Yustas Games Studio and published by Alawar.

In regards to the mechanics, it reuses the game engine from the previous one, and it’s basically the same game, yet featuring new levels and a different setting. You’ll still need to pick up the orders from your customers, prepare and deliver the food to them and in the end collect the money they pay for your services - even the additional quests in each level are exactly the same. The characters introduced in the first game are now present too, and the story takes shape as a brand new chapter in their lives. If you’re worried that you’ll miss the context if you don’t play the first game, then rest assured - you can check the characters description from the main menu if needed, and they are also reintroduced ( their relationships are also explained) in the first levels of the game. In other words, the two games can be played independently of each other, with a warning that playing Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine before the other one will spoil the story of the first game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2759845370
While the gameplay is exactly the same between the two titles, unfortunately some poor design decisions make Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine a much more frustrating game than the previous one. Among other things, Claire's Cruisin' Cafe suffered from a lack of clarity in regards to the dishes prepared: sometimes the details of the food were very difficult to distinguish (for example between pizzas with shrimp and pizzas with mushrooms there wasn’t a big visual difference). I was hoping this issue would be fixed now, or at least addressed by making the art more distinctive, but on the contrary Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine is utterly frustrating in that regard. The details are even smaller than in the previous games and there are so many more types of food in which you literally have to stick your nose into the screen to see if the 2 pixels representing noodles below a huge pile of veggies are white or brown. Or to see if the minuscule sushi roll contains cheese, cucumber and red meat or only 1 or 2 of these ingredients. Things like the white whipped cream topping coming from a red container also made no sense - but at least one can easily learn these while playing, while having to distinguish the infinitely small details from almost every dish is extremely annoying.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2759845032
The dishes now require more steps to prepare and overall more time. There are a lot of dishes that require timers, or to be stopped at the right moment. This, together with a poorly planned pathing of the characters also irritated me considerably. There are a lot of customers, and almost everything they want requires to be cooked under a timer, plus the refills of the main ingredients have to be done very often (after 3 servings) and unfortunately are not a single click job. Overall, the levels felt almost fully chaotic, and I often found myself overwhelmed by the requests. I’ve played a fair share of similar time management games, but I think that in terms of frustration degrees, Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine tops them all, and that even considering that I played it on easiest difficulty. In my opinion, the game design is simply lackluster and not polished enough.

On a positive note, the store upgrades that didn’t seem to have an effect in the first game now have descriptions and indeed ease the gameplay, as they should - by upgrading the counters / stoves / tables, your heroes move faster, the food takes less time to cook and the customers leave a bigger tip - these all are clearly noticeable.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2759845264
Do I recommend Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine? Both yes and no.
Yes - if you are a big fan of the genre like me, and are willing enough to forgive the game’s poorly designed artwork and pathing. Or perhaps for a partially enjoyable, partially frustrating yet easy 7-10h achievement hunt (the achievements will unlock naturally if you complete all the levels with maximum score, plus some extra levels in the end for a final cleanup).
No - because there are much better games out there of this kind (albeit at higher prices) which would provide a considerably finer experience (basically any GameHouse game would qualify).

Feel free to also check my review of the first game in the series, Claire's Cruisin' Cafe.

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Approximate amount of time to 100%: 9h
Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: You don't need a guide
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: No
Grinding Achievements: No
DLC-Only achievements: No
Speedrun achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No, you can play on easy and still get all the achievements
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: Yes, not totally broken but the achievement "For 20 Blog posts" only counts the 3 you can do on level 5. So you have to grind level 5 seven times in order to get this achievement. You don't have to help customers, just click on the laptop every time you get the chance. Restarting the level doesn't count toward the achievements, so just wait for it to end and then restart again through the level end menu.

This edition in the series is a hard one to review... I wish steam offered a neutral review option. The first one in this series was a lot of fun but had a few frustrating things with dishes just looking a lot like each other.. this game does that way way worse. There are so many items that look so much alike with just a few pixels differences, which is hard to see when you are on a time limit to get enough starts and/or do the challenge of that level. can only amazing this even being worse when you're color blind, as sometimes the difference is between a white/yellow and a white/lightbrown kinda color (in the last 10 levels the noodles for example).

Here a picture to show what I mean:
https://www.missitheachievementhuntress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Claire-high-seas-dishes.jpg

This + one achievement doesn't work correctly make this title frustrating and annoying while it doesn't have to be that way. I hope that the different dishes in the next titles will look more different, that way it is doable for everybody without being frustrating.

None of the achievements are missable and you can play on easy while unlocking them all. I would suggest trying to go for the challenge and the 3 stars on each level in one go, but know that if you managed to fail on one of those 2 you can replay the level and only have to focus on the thing you missed.

I normally love this type of time management games in which you complete orders and have other challenges, and recommend those to others who want and easy completion, but this one I only recommend when you really enjoy this type of game.

Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine is a time management game developed by Yustas Games Studio and published by Alawar Entertainment. It is the sequel to the first game, Claire's Cruisin' Cafe. Claire's outdoor restaurant business has stagnated, especially after some heavy rain prevents Claire and her brother Frank from operating the business. That's when Daniel, Claire's boyfriend, offers her a job serving customers on a luxury cruise ship. Of course, Claire isn't going to pass up on the opportunity, so she, along with her crew of friends, take the offer. On board the ship, there's a contest among the different dining establishments to serve the most customers, and on top of it, there's a wealthy passenger looking for her missing grandson. Yup, that's the basic gist of the story, and I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that. XD

As for the gameplay, it's pretty much the same as in the first game. There are a total of 60 main story levels, along with 6 bonus levels. You can choose among three difficulty levels: relaxed, normal, and expert. In the main story levels, you serve customers their orders, and depending on how quickly you do so, you can earn up to 3 stars. Also, each level has an additional task, and completing this task will earn you a golden heart. As for the bonus levels, some of them are simply for serving customers well and earning 3 stars on the level, while others are a tile matching mini-game. Of course, as with these cooking time management games, you can purchase upgrades for your restaurants from the money you earn in levels. Upgrades can help Claire cook faster, earn more tips from customers, etc. Since this is a collector's edition, there are the usual bonuses like wallpapers, soundtrack, and so forth. In addition, there are the usual Steam/in-game achievements.

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. I highly enjoyed the first game, so I was excited when this one came out. First, I liked the story. This time, instead of going on a road trip, Claire and her friends go on a cruise, so they end up going to different locales, such as a tropical island. The mystery of the wealthy passenger takes up quite a bit of the story, and while I found it interesting, the ending is kind of predictable. Let's just say that I felt a bit sorry for the passenger. It leaves off on a bit of a cliffhanger, so there is potential for a sequel. Of course, the gameplay is the highlight of this game. I didn't run into any technical gameplay issues. However, I wish that the game itself had been clearer on how to prepare and cook certain dishes. There's barely a tutorial, so if you really want to know how to prepare dishes, you have to click on the gameplay button on the main menu to look it up. It's a bit annoying since a lot of TMs give a tutorial to explain a new mechanic. As for achievements, I was able to earn all of them. However, there were a few that I had to replay levels to earn since I didn't get them on a first run. Also, there is a bug with the blog posts achievement. Even though there are some levels that require Claire to post on her blog, only level 5 (which is the first level to request blog posts) will count towards the achievement.

As for the art, I liked the style. It's the same as in the previous game, so it retains that slightly cartoony style, and the colors are bright and contrast just right. Sprites are well done, and I liked the backgrounds used to depict the different restaurants. As for the soundtrack, there is variety, one track for each different restaurant. Since there are 6 different restaurants, you get enough variety, and each track fits well with its restaurant theme.

Overall, would I recommend Claire's Cruisin' Cafe: High Seas Cuisine? If you liked the first game and just enjoy time management games overall, then yes, I'd recommend giving this a try. It's a fun TM and a great sequel, despite the minor bugs I encountered. For the asking price, I'd say it's worth getting, as it took me about 9 hours to get all of the achievements. Of course, you can wait to get it on a sale, and it's in a couple of Steam bundles, so if you have the other games in those bundles, you can save a bit more. ^^

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