I honestly found the story ridiculous, but since you don't play these games for the story I will just skip it. Though the worst is seeing the character's uncle willing to move all the way from france to san fran to work as a greengrocer just to let a girl work at a steakhouse for a few weeks - so expect ludicrous plot developments. This game's appeal loses out quick as - especially in the later label you have to choose between having a high star rating and hemorrhaging money or have funds but awful ratings as pathfinding is atrocious for chefs and waiters - chefs will crash into each other, waiters take the long way around things and your restaurants tend to end up looking the same when you're trying to maximize the decor/comfort rating to get those stars. It hurts that space is painfully limited. It does help there's many more byzantine things going on as the necessity of dividers to reduce noise levels (a detail I could never find in the game). The cooking competition was as mentioned in another review, a wasted potential as the minigames where all about fast clicks and I found at least it was too easy to abuse it to get the #1 rating by the time you open your steakhouse, but yet I see no noticeable difference in my restruaunts' star ratings, profits, or customer satisfaction in any place I had high-ranking chefs working at.
I found this game ages ago, it is very in-depth with some of the deepest, most in-depth lore of any game I played, thanks to it's Glorantha roots. The artwork is fantastic, sharp illustrations that brings life to this world. The gameplay is quite easy to grasp, point and click interface though it provides many challenges as every game is different. Here lies the main strength: The customization starts with history of the clan, you decide who is their chief god, what specialties they have and ultimately how they would interact with part of the world, with getting bonuses if you follow lore. And there are dozens of events, many with differing chain ends, sometimes you have disaster dominoes, or streaks of incredibly good events, or a mix. For anyone who don't mind a laid-back pace and reading this is an excellent game
