Town of Zoz Review – Slightly Underseasoned

Town of Zoz Review 

Town of Zoz is about young shaman who returns to his home town to help out with the family restaurant. From developer Studio Pixanoh, Town of Zoz is a fun experience of adventure and food with a 90s anime feel.

Fight with Flavor 

I’ve been playing a decent number of cozy cooking games lately. Town of Zoz joins my collection as a recent release that looked like a feast from the first look.

You play as Ito. Though you’re allowed to give him a second name. Stated as your “true” name. Interesting flavor mechanic for some player agency there. Ito is a shaman chef adventurer. Out in the wild to hunt and gather stuff for the family farm and restaurant. There’s a quick introduction to the combat. It’s a fresh set of combos and fighting alongside a little pet critter that’s essentially a ball of blue fire. With locking, free attacks and options to call back and focus on enemies with your little sidekick was a fun time for me.

The entire game is brimming with some really cool design work and visual effects. Like if Pokemon had a little more culture. Past the fighting, there’s of course the cooking. Food is how you build bonds in this town too. Between that, the farming, cooking and bond building, little Ito has a lot on his plate. There’s a bit of a chore heavy grind with Town of Zoz. In this case a chore heavy grind.

Art of Zoz

Town of Zoz has a big leg up on its artwork. With Latin American aesthetics, the game manages to showcase it’s creative passion. The characters are designed especially well with a myriad of interesting silhouettes and diversity in them. Each one with something vibrant and fresh to bring to the table. Both in the visuals as well as the storytelling and dialogue sections. Topped off with a nostalgic 90s anime vibe.

The art of Town of Zoz is especially beautiful. Each illustration more appetizing than the last. As it should be. Things especially serve a new look once the mysterious blood moon style thing covers the town. Which adds another interesting layer to the story and combat. Something about a curse and a connection to Ito’s shaman role.

The story is serviceable at best. For all the game has such in depth thought out designs, there’s a bit of a shallow progression in terms of interesting arcs. It would have been nice to be able to have a little more in depth time with the characters. But what is the works, no doubt.

Hit the Ground Cooking 

Town of Zoz takes a little bit to really get into the meat of the mystery. The first couple of hours will test your dedication. If that’s a deal breaker you might want to hold on and grit through the tasks and chores before the real deal. But once you get into it the story unfolds and you get to make friends, fight and cook and farm to your heart’s content.

As much as I enjoyed combat in this game, things don’t quite “snap” as they should. Especially with the mechanic of using you floating flaming eyeball buddy in combat. But it is indeed serviceable.Even with a little indie game jank like a somewhat clunky UI and the aforementioned combat issues, Town of Zoz is still a fun time.

The game is an ambitious debut that wins you over with its personality and cultural depth rather than its mechanical polish. It’s a mostly positive romp that feels like a rough diamond. The Bottom Line: If you enjoy vibe-heavy games like Cuisineer or Hades (but with a much slower, cozy pace), you’ll likely love the atmosphere of Town of Zoz. However, if you have low tolerance for technical jank or slow-starting tutorials, you might want to wait for the first major patch. Town of Zoz needs a little bit of polish to address some crashes, combat system and UI clunkiness. But the core story of community and healing through food is something special.

***A PC code was provided by the publisher for review***