Cooking Mama 4 (Nintendo 3DS)

Having played and loved Cooking Mama 1 though 3 I searched for 4 as soon as I knew it was out. Very difficult to find for some reason and not cheap at all in comparison to other 3DS games.

There are some notable changes that Ive seen so far since playing the game.
*The Japanese voice has been changed to an English voice actor - this is a personal bugbear but I did like the Japanese Mama.
*The lower screen now shows everything in 3D rather than the original 2D versions from the previous game. This isnt just usage of the 3D screen on the 3DS as that is the top screen but using altered view to make the area you tap appear 3D. In some areas this appears far more appealing eg the 3D appearance of vegetables, but in others it looks more clumsy eg peeling the skin from onions or the way liquid eggs appear.
*The way activities are carried out differs from the previous games including how to chop food (change in where you tap), cutting food (now a line down instead of a tap), cracking eggs (now have to tap them in specific area), grating food (now have to shake the top). Fans of the previous games may find it difficult to break from habits.
*Some activities are more forgiving of failure - where previous games would give you a set number of chances to perform an activity this game allows you multiple failures as long as you produce the right number of items at the end. Cooking Mama 3 had this to an extent also.
*Some activities have changed form completely. The activity in which you would pan fry or boil food no longer has a scrolling bar of instructions which can be confusing. It simply gives you an arrow to follow and a timer and expects you to understand and perform the action within a few seconds.
*The Lets Combine game doesnt bear any resemblance to previous incarnations. In previous games the Lets Combine section allowed you to take recipies you had completed and combine both together to create a brand new recipie EG taking a potato dish and a fish dish would then give you fish and chips to cook. This version however doesnt involve any actual cooking. Each 'original dish' represents a mini game which essentially involves dropping one recipie ontop of another within the timer allowed. Rinse and repeat for every single thing you have cooked.

All in all there are a lot of changes from the first three games. Some of them are good. Some of them I find I personally dislike. The graphics improvements look wonderful in parts then sloppy and chunky in others which makes me feel as though the game was somewhat rushed. Some failures can be quite comical and funny.

For anyone who has tried the previous games and is hoping for more of the same Id highly suggest you download the free demo from Nintendo to decide if you like the changes before you spend so much money (currently £40-£50) on the game.

Two games inspired me to buy the full version of Cooking Mama 4 - demo version of this game, released on January 19th 2012 for European 3DSes, and WarioWare: Mega Microgame$ for the GBA (which is also available on the 3DS if your console is registered in the Ambassador Programme.

The game is great - 60 base recipes in Let's Cook mode, much more in Let's Combine mode and several minigames in Let's Help mode. In all 3 modes together, there are around 850 gold medals to collect.

There is more - you can unlock Mama's various clothes and customize your kitchen by collecting stars. You can also play with your friends. However, I'm unable to rate multiplayer games, because I'm playing alone.

I recommend this game for everyone. I bought Cooking Mama 1, 2 and 3 on eBay in order to have more recipes.

Bought it for my daughter and she loves it.
She plays it wirelessly with her brother on his own Nintend.