Diner Bros 2 Video Game Review

Back in 2018 I came across an indie game called Diner Bros. Being a big fan of co-op game such as Overcooked, I was really intrigued by the game. I really enjoyed the original Diner Bros. Seven years later, I was surprised when I heard the announcement for the sequel. I was excited to try it out as I enjoyed the original game, and I am a big fan of co-op games. Diner Bros 2 takes what was enjoyable about the original game and expands upon it to create a really fun and satisfying co-op experience. 

In many ways Diner Bros 2 shares a lot in common with the original game. At its heart the game is a co-op game. You and up to three friends run a restaurant. At the moment you can choose between running a burger or chicken restaurant. The game is divided into days. Each day you will have to serve a number of customers. When you interact with them, they will give you their order and then you have to make it. To begin each game, you will only have a few simple orders that you can make. As you progress in the game, you will obtain additional recipes and have other ingredients that you have to work with. 

The gameplay is quite straightforward like the original game and most games in this genre. To make food you need to take the ingredients out of a storage area. You then have to interact with them in order to turn the ingredients into what the customers ordered. This includes cutting up the ingredients, cooking them, and placing them on a plate to assemble the customer’s order. All of this is done with simple button presses. Once you have completed an order, you will take it to the customer. When they are done eating, you have to clean up their plate before the next customer can order. 

Your customers don’t have a lot of patience. If you don’t serve them fast enough, they will leave which will leave you with a worse rating at the end of the day. As your restaurant progresses, you will have to deal with different types of customers which make things more complicated. You have runners which arrive quickly and need their food really quickly or they leave. You have customers that order a bunch of food. Others try to sneak off without paying or outright try to steal food. Others demand only specific types of food which can make it hard to plan ahead. 

At the end of the day you see a scorecard of how well you did that day. A shopkeeper then comes by your restaurant bringing things you can buy for your restaurant. You can purchase new appliances, ingredients, tables, counters to prepare food, and other equipment that can make your restaurant more efficient. Occasionally you can also upgrade the size of your restaurant. You can choose where you want to place each element of your restaurant with a few small restrictions. This allows you to customize the layout of your kitchen and serving area to make things as efficient for you as possible. The better you do each day, the more money you receive which allows you to upgrade your restaurant quickly. 

Fans of co-op games are probably wondering what type of game Diner Bros 2 is. Is it more like the Overcooked series, or the PlateUp! series? I would say that it is kind of a mixture of both. The gameplay feels similar to the Overcooked games, but doesn’t have the wacky obstacles. Meanwhile running the restaurant is very similar to PlateUp! except it doesn’t have the automation element. I mostly make this comparison to give players an idea of how Diner Bros 2 compares to these other co-op cooking games. Like both Overcooked and PlateUp!, fans of these type of co-op games will likely love Diner Bros 2 as well. 

Diner Bros 2 is a great co-op game. I think the game excels because it focuses on what makes these type of games so enjoyable. It doesn’t really revolutionize the genre, but it does just about everything you could ask for in a game from the genre. The game is the perfect blend of simple gameplay that can also be quite challenging. The game’s controls are really simple as you only use a couple of different buttons to perform every task in the game. Making the various meals is quite straightforward. The game can be quite challenging at times though, as you have to be efficient in creating the meals to get them all done in time. 

I think the main reason the game succeeds is because it works great as a cooperative game. You could play the game by yourself. If you are only playing with one or two players, you can eventually purchase servers. They help with some of your tasks to make things easier. While I think the game would still be enjoyable if you played it by yourself, the game really shines when you play it with other players. You need great teamwork with the other players if you want to succeed each day. There is too much to do at one time where the players need to divide up the tasks to more efficiently get the work done. Fans of these type of games where you have to work well with the other players, are really going to enjoy Diner Bros 2.

For the most part I will say that the game’s controls are pretty good. As I mentioned earlier the control scheme is really straightforward where there isn’t much of a learning curve. The controls are for the most part quite responsive which is important because to do well in the later days you will need to move really quickly. There were some occasional times where we ended up picking up objects that we didn’t want to. This was kind of annoying at times, but it wasn’t a huge issue. Probably the biggest issue was sometimes trying to place equipment where we wanted during the build time. There is no time limit while building, so it was just a little annoying as it took a couple attempts to place a object where we wanted it.

Presentation wise the game is similar to the original game with some pretty noticeable upgrades. The graphics maintain a similar style to the original game, but are considerably improved. The game still has the quirky sound effects which I appreciate since they bring a charm to the game. The music is pretty good as well. Basically the presentation maintains the laid back cozy feel of the original game. 

Lets move onto Diner Bros 2’s difficulty. This is kind of interesting as I felt the game’s difficulty could vary quite a bit at times. If you have ever played one of these games before, you will likely find the beginning of each restaurant to be kind of easy. You don’t get a lot of customers and it is easy to build up a supply of food where you can quickly serve everyone that arrives. Around day 20 or so though, we encountered a pretty big spike in the difficulty. We only played with two players so this might be different if you are playing with more or less players. Eventually we hit a point where customers arrived too quickly and wanted too many things, where we don’t think it is possible to keep up with all of them. 

Ultimately the difficulty doesn’t really matter that much. There doesn’t appear to be any real punishment for failing to serve each customer outside of losing the money that they would have paid. You get a worse rating at the end of the day, but your run doesn’t end if you fail to serve a certain number of customers. You just move onto the next day trying to do better than the previous day. There are some achievements for the game that I think could be quite difficult to achieve though. The game also has some difficulty sliders in the settings which can be used to make the game easier or more challenging. We used the default difficulty settings, so I am not sure how much these change the difficulty. 

Let’s move onto the game’s length. It is kind of hard to give a definitive length for Diner Bros 2. Currently you can open both a burger and chicken restaurant. Both use the same gameplay, but they play quite different. I would highly recommend playing both of them. To finish each restaurant it will take most players around 25-30 days. Each day takes around 3-5 minutes. I kind of wish it took a little longer to reach the “finish” of each restaurant.

Technically the length of each restaurant appears to be endless. Once you “complete” your restaurant, you can keep playing additional days and add more things to it. You eventually unlock an endless mode for each restaurant as well. This lets you keep playing a day until you miss three orders. The endless mode starts off quite easy so you likely will make a pretty long run each time you play the endless mode. Basically if you like these type of games, I think you will easily get your money’s worth out of the game. 

For the most part Diner Bros 2 is what I expected it to be. It doesn’t drastically change the gameplay from the original. It didn’t need to since the gameplay is still as fun as the original. There are some nice little tweaks here and there which improve the gameplay. The game succeeds because it finds that perfect balance between being easy to pick up and play, and yet still presents a challenge. You can play the game by yourself, but it excels when you play it with other players. At times it really tests your cooperative skills.

If you like these type of co-op games, you will really enjoy the gameplay. The controls for the most part are quite good with a few minor issues here and there. The difficulty can vary from being too easy to too difficult, but there are ways to tweak it so it is right for your group. The game currently has two different restaurants that play quite different. Combined with the endless mode and the fact that you can keep running your restaurant after you complete all of the objectives, you should get plenty of time out of the game.

My recommendation for Diner Bros 2 is quite simple. If you didn’t like the original game or don’t like co-op games in general, it probably won’t be for you. Fans of the original game or this genre of co-op games though will likely really enjoy it and should seriously consider picking it up.