Reviews: Cookie Cutter
Spoiler free review of Cookie Cutter - a vibrant and violent, in your face, metroidvania
About the game
Fueled by love but driven by rage, Cherry embarks on a blood-soaked quest for revenge, explores the massive Megastructure, and eviscerates the armies of Infornet in a best-in-class action-adventure that breaks tropes and bones.
Margot’s stats
Device: Steam Deck Oled
Difficulty: Easy
Completed: yes - main story
Time: ~15 hours
Summary: Vibrant and violent metroidvania. That sums this game up. The hand drawn art style is refreshing, in your face and colourful, well red with a lot of blood. This is a fun, solid metroidvania, that takes a little while to get in to due to how long it takes to unlock the first couple of abilities, but then it gets really fun. Combat is slick and fast paced with a variety of moves and finishers.
Score: 7.5/10
Narrative and Gameplay
I discovered Cookie Cutter, due to my fascination with metroidvanias. This one looked different to any of the others I was playing while still being a 2D adventure and I just had to give it a go.
Cookie Cutter is set in a dystopian world, full of violence and androids, which are referred to as Denzels. You play as such an android called Cherry, whose creator has been kidnapped.
There is more to the wider story, that you can check out in the steam page or just start playing. The intro is really well done and I loved the interactive cut scenes, used to tell bits of the story.
Your character is full of rage and revenge and an incredible fighter, while being a bit of a brat in palces. The combat and movement feels smooth and fast. Sometimes too fast. During mob battles where you are locked in a room with several enemies, it can get overwhelming and I did lose Cherry on screen a few times. Maybe this is less an issue on PC than on the smaller steam deck screen.
The world is full of interesting NPCs that help you along the way, by providing a shop, or items to unlock new areas of the map. The biomes are diverse and reasonably easy to back track to, although a couple more fast travel points would have been nice in the more challenging to traverse maps.
For people who like finding easter eggs and references to pop culture and other games, there were plenty and it was fun to work out if they were easter eggs or not.
I got completely sucked into Cherry’s story and world and wanted to know more but the warning here is that it is very violent, unapologetically so, sometimes without reason, and risqué in places, when it comes to references around sex and violence, and some may find it crude and Cherry is rude. The game is rated as mature so 17+.
Some of the finishing moves seem inspired by mortal Kombat for me, which can be fun, but due to the art style may be too much for some. But the animation and art is stellar and I really appreciated how the team stuck with it and used it.
The parts I struggled with, were that the initial upgrades and fighting moves. These took a while to be explained and found in the game, making the first parts really hard and I kept wondering what I was doing wrong. Learning to parry (not my strong suit) definitely helped. Once I figured the upgrade mechanics out, which work a bit like an interchangeable skill tree, and found a couple of NPCs who had shops, I was on my way to fight all the boss battles.
It doesn’t mean it became easy but having a bigger variety of moves and fighting styles available made the combat more fun.
The boss battles in general were OK, but I enjoyed the challenges of the mob fighting rooms more. Throughout the game you get locked in a room with several enemies and more spawning each wave. To be able to progress to the next room you need to defeat all the waves. These need a bit more of a strategic thought about how you may engage the enemies and which ones you may engage first, ideally without having them all rush you at the same time.
Overall the game offered some variety in terms of enemies, several biomes and moves with an engaging story as a whole, while not necessarily full of twists and turns.
Sound
I wanted to call out the sound design as well, as it fits really nicely with the world and action that your character or other enemies make. Having played a few games now where sound was not something I noticed, I realise how it can help make a game. This game benefits from its sound track and general sound effects.
Verdict 7.5/10
This is a solid metroidvania, with a refreshing art style, but it is very violent and in your face which understandably may put some players off. For me it was a fast paced, over the top feast for the eyes, which I devoured in a few gaming sessions. It does have a slowish start but it gives you the foundations for the combat later on.
For completionists, there is a lot to go back to and do beyond the story and even not on sale, this is such incredible value for money. They are working on a switch port too and I hope it creates a real buzz for the game.