When I first saw this game's low score on both PS Plus and Steam, I was appalled. "Look at these Hardcore Gamers, unable to handle a whimsical abstract sandbox involving photorealistic food! If they saw what was in the PS1 library, they'd weep!" I scoffed. Not me, though! I saw that ice cream with the sprinkle shower in the player icon and could not wait to download it onto my PS5!

Then I played it.

Well...it's sorta cute? I definitely respect Nour for existing, for daring to bring something quirky to the Sony subscription service that'd probably be remembered as a cult classic if it were 20 years older and a Japanese-only import. I can easily imagine a version of this game that I love, and I definitely did take some screenshots of some of my wackier food creations. There were genuine smiles while playing this, especially at the climax where the final level is one giant check that unfurls into outer space as the game tallies up all the food you wasted. There is, as the kids say, "Soul" in this game.

I just wish the game was less of a fucking mess.

As you might expect, Nour is more digital toy than video game, with no objectives (beyond the trophies/achievements of course) or plot beyond "do funny thing with food, possibly at the whims of a Big Corporation, maybe summon a hungry octopus in the process". There are 20 themes to Nour, each focusing on different meals or cooking processes. You start a meal, attempt to arrange an actual meals or create pure culinary chaos, exit said meal, and then start another one until you get to the check at the end of the course. You even get a selection of tools that let you manipulate your silly food monstrosities even further, like food dye, a knife, a shrink ray, and a levitation spell. Should be fun, right?

Well for starters, the controls are an actual nightmare. You're told, vaguely, about your options in which to manipulate your environment and none of it is intuitive in the least. You get absolutely no guide on what button spawns what food; you're supposed to just feel it out and remember across all 20 levels so good luck memorizing which one was the gummi bear button and which one was the slice of mushroom button. It felt less like I was in control and more like I was just bumbling my way into making a meal completely by accident. It's incredibly frustrating, and even looking up what the controls are doesn't really help because they're so messy and difficult to handle. Everything feels sluggish and just bad.

As I was fighting for my life with the controls, I couldn't help but notice that the physics also felt extremely odd. I know it's hard to simulate accurate physics with a game like this and the physics are the bane of any game designer, but it's also not great when "placing an object on top of another object to make fun food art" is the central part of your game and the mere act of putting a straw in a glass of tea causes clipping and object wiggle. I can appreciate a good janky-ass game with ragdolling models but none of it feels intentional or whimsical. Ramen broth goes haywire from the mere act of physical contact from ramen noodles. I want to play with these interactive 3D foodstuffs but they don't feel like they actually want to interact with each other!

Which brings me to a related gripe - Low entity limit. This is a 2023 release. I played this game on a PS5. You mean to tell me that my elite gaming console, the one that runs on 500 gigashits per megafarts, can't even spawn enough noodles to make a satisfying bowl of ramen before ingredients start to despawn when I'm operating in a minimalist space. You give me the option to put globs of red sauce onto a plate of pasta and yet start to despawn the pasta pieces before I make something resembling a meal, even if I don't spawn in any of the pizza ingredients.

Oh, and on top of all of that, it's also a rhythm game. A bad one. The rhythm game portion sucks and shouldn't exist. Why lock certain sandbox features behind hitting beats in a certain order complete with a little rhythm guide you can summon in the left-hand corner when you could...not do that.

But, despite all of my bitching, despite all of my disappointment, despite all of the clipping food and the vague controls...there was still that cute little ice cream level where the Neapolitan ice cream is sitting in a little bathtub and some of the button inputs activate the sprinkle shower. It's a fucking mess, sure, but golly, it's so cute. I can't stay mad at it for too long.

...at least until the bowl of cereal that I was trying to make starts making its individual cereal pieces wiggle out of existence.

Also, quick side-note - I found a forum thread of the poor sods who played the PS4 version of this game and, apparently, if you want the Platinum trophy of this game, you have to follow a spreadsheet and waste hours of your finite time on God's Green Earth making sure some goddamned whimsical-ass octopus that randomly spawns in goes and eats one of every food in the game, with the insistence that "maybe food-dye counts". Insane game design. Insane way to interact with a video game. Absolute batshit.