Dosa Divas stirs the pot with cooking, robot battles and a dash of family drama

Indie biz studio Outerloop made a slosh a few years agone with Thirsty Suitors, a biz that mixed role-playing battles, cookery and skating with an earnest story of a young woman reconnecting with her family and confronting a sometimes wacky cast of ex-lovers.

Their follow-up, Dosa Divas, doesn't stray too far from its predecessor, but manages to streamline the experience to something that seems more confident, while telling a story about family reconciliation that feels realistic despite the colourful, fantastical setting.

Its most apparent failing is that it will likely leave players wanting more — more rhythm-based battling and cooking, and more stories from its charming characters. It's like the first season of a breakout streaming series that launched with eight episodes but needed about 12 to allow all of its elements to breathe.

Dosa Divas primarily tells the story of Samara and Amani, two sisters who used to run a restaurant they inherited from their parents. Amani's back after spending a decade away from home, and hopes to catch up on missed time with Samara and the rest of the family.

Meanwhile, their youngest sister, Lina, has built a sprawling corporation selling Lina Meals — soylent-like flavoured paste. People have become addicted to the stuff, and Lina — leading an army of lawyers and tech bros — is seemingly bent on outlawing the act of cooking "real" food altogether.

It sets up a somewhat blunt contrast between the sisters' worlds: cooking, connection and camaraderie versus corporate profits at the expense of one's humanity. But over the game's 10-ish hours, we learn more about the siblings' complicated history, which also involved their retired parents and former restaurant co-workers.

There's also a B-plot featuring Goddess, a walking robot-slash-food truck that Samara and Amani travel with (and who serves as your third party member in battle). She's one of the "DIVAs" — sentient robots currently partnered with one or more of the main cast members.

The other DIVAs offer challenging boss fights along the way, but you'll also learn about their own history, which adds a surprising, mythical thread to the sisters' more grounded narrative.

There are roughly three pillars to Dosa Divas' gameplay: exploring a handful of locations along Samara and Amani's trip to visit their parents and eventually confront Lina; fighting enemies; and cooking dishes for famished citizens.

The turn-based battles will be familiar to fans of role-playing games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. You control Samara, Amani and Goddess as they face off against Lina's corpos and the larger DIVAs.

Choosing normal or special attacks via a menu is spiced up with timing-based mechanics. Press a button right before it connects and you'll inflict more damage. Do the same right before an enemy's attack and you'll reduce or even completely nullify the incoming hits.

It's a tried-and-true format made famous by the classic Super Mario RPG, and has made a comeback with recent games like last year's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

You'll also forage, fish or buy various ingredients throughout the game's world to make dishes to serve hungry people. People's orders require you to combine ingredients for certain flavour profiles.

You'll need to play a couple of mini-games to complete the dish, like pressing a button at the right time to chop vegetables or rotate a joystick at the right speed to simulate spreading dosa batter.

These tableaux aren't as tight as the battle mechanics. Sometimes, you'll miss a button prompt without realizing it, for example, and there aren't many tutorials to introduce you to the six or so mini-games, leading to some frantic attempts early in the game.

Eventually, though, you'll get familiar enough with them to make it through. While a little loosey-goosey at times, it forms a satisfying loop of exploring the game's locations, cooking up dishes and serving them to customers to make money, and fighting enemies to level up your characters.

The game's scope makes sense given Outerloop's small team (14 full-time employees based around the world, including Canada). But it does feel like some narrative threads were left unfinished due to time constraints. We meet supporting characters with intriguing histories, but they fade into the background far too quickly.

Others are surprisingly bleak despite the vibrant colour scheme; one chapter puts a spotlight on overworked, underfed miners working for Lina's corporation in sometimes lethal conditions.

Samara and Amani have a complicated relationship with Lina — but could they possibly forgive her for literally working her minions to death? The main narrative doesn't have time to answer these kinds of questions of class and wealth divides. It's instead focused on the three sisters and their DIVA mechs, all of whom have a lot to get off their chests.

Despite the fantastical setting, it comes across as a realistic and sometimes brutally honest look at family reconciliation. Not every grudge is easily resolved and we don't always have enough time to neatly mend deep emotional wounds.

Dosa Divas isn't as mechanically complex as bigger-budget games in the role-playing genre, and some of its elements could use a little more time simmering before being served. But it tells a yarn that games don't often approach with such sensitivity, and it leaves us looking forward to whatever Outerloop has cooking next.

Dosa Divas is available now for PCs and the PlayStation, Xbox and Switch 1/2 home consoles.

Journalist

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