Slightly annoyed about cooking ( minor spoilers )

[Bag_of_BOnes]

The option for cooking would be much better if they added it before you visit the house with the red chimney - just after you leave the castle and meet the duke. I spent my time exploring the village map and found all sorts of animal meat, including the juicy game.
I started hording them, thinking they could be used as health items later, but I was doing well and thought I don't need them, so I sold them.
THEN I go do the story mission and go back to the duke AND find out they aren't health items, but stat increase items - kinda important for hardcore difficulty I'd say.
So I'm saving them up now, there are other animals still, but I wasted a lot simply because I didn't "go and do the story" despite been giving freedom to find these animals beforehand.
Honestly, I love the game, but this design ( when cooking is implemented as a feature ) really annoyed me.
The game would be much better if explained what to do with the meat, before finding and disposing of the rarest of it for new players. As for me, I'm moving forwards and hoping I can make it without the stat upgrades.

[Myztkl©-Kev]

I purposely in games like this don't get rid of any items until I know what it's used for. Since fish went into my normal inventory and wasn't in the treasure inventory, I assumed it was to be used elsewhere which turned out correct. Doesn't matter anyway because I missed 3 area's with fish that you couldn't return to later, so it took 3 play throughs to actually try all the upgrades since I didn't play NG+ on my second play through. You can't even unlock all of the food items in a normal play through anyways.

[Bag_of_BOnes]

Yeah it's my completely my fault for selling; I just had so much filling up my inventory with no way to use them because I didn't go into the house the game wanted straight away, so I feel I was being punished for exploring and finding the animal meat.

Good to hear you can't unlock all the food items first play-through anyway.

I just needed to vent that out. It was bugging me - a small graze on an otherwise great game.

[Myztkl©-Kev]

yeah i messed up and just started dumping food into whatever recipes just so they werent in my inventory anymore, then by the time I realized I missed a bunch of fish I was only able to get 1 or 2 of the recipes complete by the end of the game. On my second playthrough I collected all the food and I got everything except 1 of the block upgrades I think. On my 3rd playthrough I did NG+ using my first playthrough save file and I had all 5 upgrades before I got to the factory.

[Catpuppy]

There is a little bit of a problem with its introduction, yes. It gives you the message to 'give ingredients to the Duke' before you're actually able to access the cooking menu, which can mislead people into selling them.

[TyresTyco]

Lol ofc you can unlock all food items in one playthrough. If you explore and only ell like 3 fish. I had them all before the factory tho. I nearly also sold some of them at the beginning but I've read the item text. They are also totally minor. You wont really feel them imho. Unless playing VoS I guess.

Especially the moving speed one if a total disappointment.

[Stoibs]

Yeah already seen this brought up in atleast one review, and seen one streamer selling them because the menu doesn't come up after you start collecting meat.

I was following the game, watching some trailers etc. so I knew about the cooking aspect thankfully, but it is a bit of an odd design choice and decision.

[Bob]

On a side note, it took me a while of hoarding meats until I realised you can actually "store" them with the duke. So if you're going after a specific recipe, you can just drop all ingredient you have in that recipe, even if you can't craft it yet.

[Poljanan]

Same. I only noticed you could hunt animals after you returned to the village and thought the purpose was that you could sell the meat to duke. Then 15 minutes later I just unlocked cooking and I had already sold 4 poultry and 3 meat. I was so bummed out.

[iKyriousi]

I missed one fish pond and couldn't get the speed increase because I wasn't allowed to go back to the area. That is my only gripe with this game on a mechanical level.

[TyresTyco]

Originally posted by iKyriousi:

I missed one fish pond and couldn't get the speed increase because I wasn't allowed to go back to the area. That is my only gripe with this game on a mechanical level.

Thats true.. the game could have warn us before locking an area completly. The duke does it actually one single time but.. totally to late xD

[iKyriousi]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

Originally posted by iKyriousi:

I missed one fish pond and couldn't get the speed increase because I wasn't allowed to go back to the area. That is my only gripe with this game on a mechanical level.

Thats true.. the game could have warn us before locking an area completly. The duke does it actually one single time but.. totally to late xD

I can't see why we can't go back to the area though? Feels weird to just lock it off, it's not like anything story related happened that prevents me from going back. At least that I know of. Weird decision is all I can say.

[TyresTyco]

Originally posted by iKyriousi:

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

Thats true.. the game could have warn us before locking an area completly. The duke does it actually one single time but.. totally to late xD

I can't see why we can't go back to the area though? Feels weird to just lock it off, it's not like anything story related happened that prevents me from going back. At least that I know of. Weird decision is all I can say.

Might be a cheap way to encourage various playthroughs. But thinking about it further... thats probably why most of the loot is only money stuff or ammo and the important stuff is always marked on the map so the chance you miss it is lower.

[hot spring chimp]

Dude I was so mad about this too. WTF were they thinking with the "BRING THIS TO THE DUKE" message when there's no kitchen unlock until later? I sold all of the meat, poultry and fish out of my inventory assuming it'd trigger some kind of dialogue or event since the game directly tells you to bring them to Duke. bruh moment.

good to know it doesn't seem like you really miss out on much though

[Sotomar0]

If I feel the same way, I can only cook pasta and fry fish sticks. The rest is too complicated and time-consuming for me.

[SGT Skibidi Swag Boi α]

The game is full of odd design decisions. Even though I really enjoyed my time with the game (and will probably soon do a NG+ playthrough), there are so many missable things, just because you didn't do this-and-that at a specific point in time. For example, there is one particular treasure that you need to collect after a specific point in the story, else you'll never get the chance to grab it again, even if there is no logical reason why you can't get it at a later point.

I know that Capcom constructed the game in a way to advertise multiple playthroughs, and once you played the game you'll progress much faster because you already know the stuff, but it still doesn't feel right to me, though.