Bear's Restaurant Review

There’s not too much I can say without absolutely ruining this beautiful and unique experience. Bear’s Restaurant more than exceeded my expectations and blew the lid off of the general idea of what a game is or what a game contains. I almost feel bad for calling it a game its much more than that, it’s an experience and a journey that I don’t think I will forget about. So, since it would be too easy to spoil by going in depth with an analysis I will try to be vague and only discuss specifics that have no bearing on experiencing this masterpiece. The game at its core is about a waiter/waitress cat, taking the last and favorite meals of people before they take their final train beyond the realm of existence to heaven. This is done by “diving” into memories to find out what those foods tasted like and peering into their lives and final moments alive.

This game has absolutely gorgeous and stunning pixel art in the game, and don’t let the larger block pixels deter you, the artwork in the game is so masterfully done and well refined in skill. Some areas that really blew me away were the memories of the mouse and the vibrant forest design and the boat on the River of Charon and its object source lighting with the skulls, absolute chef’s kiss!

The topics in this game might be difficult for some people to experience or watch, but there is an intention with showing these difficult things or situations. There is a story coupled with music that evokes emotion and adoration that a small group of people came together to make such a fantastic piece of work and art.

I only had a couple gripes while playing and I debated even including them because they are inconsequential in general. In the station I wish there were variations in the npc dialogs when trying to get through all the dialog options. This is just more of an immersion/realism thing but a very minute issue. The other issue I had was that my cursor disappeared when I clicked off the screen near the border. I fixed this by going into the settings and going back to windowed and back to full screen.

I loved this game, truly, and not even from a place of tactile gaming experience from just the unique experience that bleeds absolute love and pure passion. It’s so obvious playing this game how much of a passion project this game must be for everyone included. It’s beautiful and I am glad to have experienced it. Pro tip: there’s more even when you think you are REALLY done, there is still more to the story. THANK YOU Odencat!