Pizza time!
What They Say:
Do your best to fulfill pizza orders from customers while making enough money to keep your restaurant open. Upgrade your restaurant with new toppings, decor, and kitchen equipment to compete against your pizza rival!
Content:
Have you ever wondered how it feels like to own a pizza joint? Well, now you can with Good Pizza, Great Pizza! As the name suggests, it’s a game about making pizza. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. You’ve got to make the pizza correctly. You’ve got to be quick. You’ve got to keep the customers happy. And of course, you’ve got to make a profit or else you won’t have a pizza parlor anymore! You also have to deal with your pizza rival from across the street, Alicante. He’s a real jerk. The pizza world is a battlefield. Are you ready!?
So, you’ve opened up a pizza parlor. Now what? Well, you obviously knead dough to keep the place running. I hope you’re ready for more pizza puns because I’ve got a lot more. Anywho, yeah, money. In the beginning, you don’t have much of it nor do you have much of anything in your shop. Ingredient-wise, you only have sauce and cheese. That sounds pretty cheesy. At least you can make cheese pizza! Alicante stops by every now and then to tease you. Can’t we all just get along in this pizza world? Hilariously, he does help us learn how to make pizzas so the joke’s on him! Every day, you will take orders from customers. It’s your duty to make sure that you get their orders right. If you don’t, say goodbye to your tips or worse…you’ll have to give them a refund! You certainly don’t want that.
Each customer has a happiness meter, too. The higher it is, the bigger your tips. The happiness meter gradually goes down as you’re making a pizza. That’s why quickness is important. Another thing that affects the happiness is the way you interact with a customer. At first, their orders are pretty straightforward. If they want a cheese pizza, they’ll tell you just that. As you get deeper into the game, their orders start sounding odd and random. You choose the “What?” option and the customer will clarify what they mean. If you do that though, their happiness meter goes down before you even have a chance to start the pizza. Eventually, you’ll learn what customers mean when they say certain things and you’ll be able to make their order from memory. I did find it fun trying to figure out what people meant by their orders. For example, a Stinky Pete is a pizza with anchovies and onions. I wouldn’t have figured that out without trial and error. It may take a while, but you will definitely learn what your customers want.
Ingredients make the pizza. As I mentioned, you start off with only sauce and cheese. Cheese pizza is great and all, but your customers will want some variety eventually. If you want to add more toppings to your repertoire, you’ll have to spend money to do so. Onions, peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, and all that good stuff isn’t free, you know? To make money you’ve got to spend money. The one thing I wasn’t a big fan of is that the game demands you place ingredients in specific places and on top of each other. That goes against everything I know and want in a pizza! You don’t put ingredients on top of each other. You’ve got to spread them out! And I don’t want to put my toppings in specific areas. I want to have the freedom to sprinkle them on top of the pizza however I please! Granted, you technically do have that freedom but you get penalized for straying from perfection. Customers will complain if you don’t perfectly stack the ingredients on top of each other. And that means less money. Cheesus crust! People knead to stop being so grumpy.
After a long day of serving customers, you get paid. What can you do with that money? Lots of things! Naturally, you’re going to want to buy more ingredients. The more ingredients you have, the more options you have. That also means more money! You can also buy decorations for your shop. In the beginning, you literally have nothing. The shop is basically empty. I’m surprised anyone would want to stop by this pizza place! Put up a poster or two. Add a jukebox to liven up the place. Maybe buy an arcade cabinet so that people can have fun while waiting for their pizza. There are so many possibilities! To my knowledge, decorating your shop doesn’t really affect anything. It’s just a cosmetic thing. Heck, you can even purchase different pizza box designs which is pretty cool. On the other hand, buying upgrades are beneficial. You can buy upgrades to make the day last longer, have customer’s happiness decrease slower, auto pizza cutter, topping buddies, etc. There are so many useful upgrades that will make your job a lot easier. Of course, buying everything will be very pricey. You’ll find yourself grinding a lot in this game. On the bright side, it’s a very addicting game.
Gameplay-wise, it’s very simple yet challenging at the same time. You put the dough on the table, place the ingredients you want on the pizza, bake it, slice it up, and place it in a box. Simple, yeah? Eventually, it is. When you first start though, it’s a bit of a challenge. You use both JoyCons while making a pizza. The left one is for spreading your ingredients while the right one is for selecting them. The L and R buttons keep things moving along. My initial thought when making my first pizza was that this game would be a great touchscreen mobile game. After a little research, I found out that it was originally just that. It made perfect sense. If I’m being honest with you, I wish the game had touchscreen capabilities on the Switch. It would have made making pizzas that much easier. But like I mentioned before, it’s only challenging at the start. As you progress through the game, you start to get the hang of it. Placing toppings perfectly is still a pain in the butt though. Cutting a pizza into perfect slices, too. But once you gain enough money, you can buy topping buddies and an auto pizza cutter that makes your life easier. Speeding up the pizza-making process means you can serve more customers. And serving more customers means more dough. You’ll be the best pizzamaker in town before you know it!
Hmm, what else can I say about the game? You can accept quests on your MyPad to make some extra cash. There’s also an achievement system if you’re into that. You’ll get news updates from the Pizza News Network every now and then. I will admit that they’re quite enjoyable. They cover anything from you and your rival’s restaurants to pizza holidays. I think PNN has helped me memorize every single National Pizza Day in a year. You’ll also get special customers walking into your shop that don’t have any or little money. It’s up to you whether you’re feeling generous and want to give them pizza. I always ended up giving them a pizza because I felt bad. What can I say? I care too much. I’d say that the game is aesthetically adorable. The warm color palette really makes you feel at home. The music isn’t too bad but it’s nothing special either.
Looking to check out the game? Find it on the Nintendo eShop here!
In Summary:
Good Pizza, Great Pizza is an addictively fun game. I can see people sinking a lot of time into this game. You think you’re done playing but you find yourself still making pizza late into the night! That could just be me though. Am I weirdough? Anywho, I’d recommend this game if you’re a fan of restaurant simulation games. Even if you’re not, I’d still recommend this game. It’s easy to pick up and you’ll probably have a good time. Crust me! Once you start playing, the game will always have a pizza your heart. Have you had enough pizza puns yet? No? I just want you to know that I’m a fungi that loves mushroom on my pizza. Eh, that was kind of cheesy. Okay, I’ll stop now. Have a slice day!
Grade: B
Publisher: PM Studios
Developer: TapBlaze
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
Age Rating: E for Everyone
Number of Players: 1
Release Date: September 3, 2020
MSRP: $9.99
Platform: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), Steam, Android, IOS
This review was done with a review copy provided by the publisher. We are grateful for their continued support.
