Information
Good Pizza, Great Pizza
Platforms: Android and Nintendo Switch
Price: 9.99$ (Free version on android)
Even without knowing Good Pizza Great Pizza on Switch is a port of a mobile game, it’s not hard to figure out its “lowly” origins by its in-game upgrade shop and multiple types of currencies. Fortunately, the switch port is a complete game where you can earn everything in-game without too much of a grind.
As the name no doubt gave away, the game is a pizza baking simulator. You slip into the role of a pizza chef who just opened a new restaurant, and of course, you’re greeted immediately by a nasty rival pizza chef who also functions as a tutorial giver. Every level is a day where you spend taking orders from customers and delivering the pizza they want. Occasionally you will see a news report of the pizza news network (yes, I know) or get a visit from your old foe to inform you of an upcoming event that may require you to buy an ingredient you don’t yet own. You will unlock new story chapters and new features as you progress, but it’s all about making pizza. Good Pizza, Great Pizza uses a simple cartoon-like art style, which works well for its setting. There’s no voice acting – just characters mumbling – and the music is fairly basic and repetitive (though I guess it doesn’t need to be anything else).
The gameplay is relatively straightforward: listen to your customer’s order, make the pizza, bake, cut it, and hand the box to the customer. Rinse and repeat until the day’s over. Perhaps it’s too straightforward, though, as they’re hardly is a challenge other than trying to remember your customer’s orders while wrestling with the joy-con controls. There’s some tactical decision making involved in whether to focus on speed or quality. Speed also comes into play in making sure your customer’s satisfaction level doesn’t drop too low by asking too many questions (though this is unavoidable sometimes as their orders can be quite cryptic) or taking too much time. Screw up too much, and you may have to fork over a refund, which will eat into your profits.
The one real issue I have with this game is that it is meant to be played with a touch screen, using your analog sticks just feels too clumsy to be able to make your pizza’s as fast as possible. Considering the Switch has a touchscreen, this is perhaps a missed opportunity (there’s a limited amount of touchscreen use for the upgrade menu, but it’s not used during actual gameplay).
After the day ends, you can access a shop to spend your currency on new ingredients, upgrades that, for example, improve your oven or extend your opening times, necessary repairs, or just cosmetics. There’s also (daily) challenges during the day that can net you some extra cash or coins (the other currency). Other than that, there isn’t really much to do.
Conclusion and Score:
Good Pizza, Great Pizza is a fun little minigame to play when you want to waste a little time away rather than play marathon hour-long gaming sessions. Despite its low price and the handheld nature of the Switch, this game is probably better played on your mobile device. Especially considering it’s free there without any egregious microtransactions (you do have to bear with advertisements), you may want to consider if it’s worth buying for a platform it’s clearly not designed for.
6/10