Metascore
70

Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 22
  2. Negative: 1 out of 22
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  1. 90
    The exploration will satisfy the adventure crowd, the asset management of finding ingredients and developing better meals will please the RPG fans. It will melt time away as you push to complete just one more day, but values your time because there really aren’t very many wasted moments. It’s a complete package that is hand tailored to be consumed as intended by the developers, and they’ve delivered a refreshing experience.
  2. Nov 3, 2018
    85
    Little Dragons Café offers a great adventure with a story that is developed from the feelings of the customers of the cafeteria. Although the graphic section could be improved, the experience is unique.
  3. Aug 23, 2018
    85
    Little Dragons Café is the type of game I walk away from feeling more hopeful in the world. Each chapter ends on such an earnest note that it raises my spirits. Sure, it doesn’t have the deepest mechanics, and it’s not the most polished title I’ll play this year. But it has a soul and a kind heart that uplifts the basic gameplay to a place that makes Little Dragons Café an easy recommendation to anyone looking for a soupcon of positivity in their life.
  4. Aug 23, 2018
    80
    Little Dragons Café first appears as though it requires constant attention to every little detail, but actually makes for a relaxing time. Exploration is well paced with each step further getting more creative and exiting, and managing the café is simple without feeling overly stressful. It’s a laid back title that is easy to get absorbed in and focus for long hours, but also makes for a wonderful time to pop into every once in a while and just explore what it has to offer. Little Dragons Café makes for a memorable, sweet journey that any person can pick up and enjoy without worry.
  5. Aug 23, 2018
    80
    Little Dragon's Café is a causal sim/exploration game which is simply overflowing with charm. It's easy to get drawn in by the game's forgiving gameplay, great music, heartwarming stories, and dramatic day-night changes, and hard to put down, given all there is to do post-game. While its sim mechanics aren't especially deep, LDC provides a delightful way to escape the woes of the real world alongside your own, adorable pet dragon.
  6. Aug 23, 2018
    78
    Would I recommend Little Dragons Café for a child? Absolutely. Would I recommend you buy Little Dragons Café for a child at its current price point? Absolutely not. There is plenty of content and it’s a decent game, but there are a lot of other games that are on-par with this one that are selling for less than half the price. Until the price comes down, I can’t in good conscience recommend that you buy it, and that’s a shame.
  7. Aug 29, 2018
    76
    Porting to Nintendo Switch is perfect for Little Dragons Cafe as it reads like a charming children's storybook fit for any age. Although gameplay feels like it's in a loop quite quickly, the characters are memorable and the artwork nothing short of awe-inspiring.
  8. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Oct 29, 2018
    70
    Like many of Wada's previous titles, Little Dragons Café is heartwarming from beginning to end, but it has a few flaws in its design that detract from the overall experience. [Issue #36 – November/December 2018, p. 84]
  9. Sep 4, 2018
    70
    Overall, Little Dragons Café is enjoyable, but it has its quirks. It takes some time to get used to the controls and pacing of the game, but when you do, you will find that watching a dragon grow and taking care of a café is a great way to spend some time.
  10. Aug 30, 2018
    70
    Little Dragons Café is an endearing feast for the eyes – and extremely unique in its concept – but can lose some of its charm after too much time spent waiting on technical issues like load times. Hopefully, some of these problems can be fixed with a future patch or update. Still, Yasuhiro Wada is the master of turning a simple game into a living, breathing story – and you can expect to experience that same level of care and detail in his latest adventure. It feels as if he is inventing a brand new genre of game all over again – just as he did with Harvest Moon. For those who seek a laid-back experience on the Nintendo Switch, this game will lovingly fill the void, even if it's a little rough around the edges.
  11. Aug 24, 2018
    70
    Little Dragons Cafe is a very good and relaxing game about raising a dragon and managing a cafe let down by bad performance on Nintendo Switch.
  12. Aug 23, 2018
    70
    While it definitely isn’t Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, Little Dragons Cafe manages to stand on its own and offer a simple, charming experience that’s easy to love in spite of the technical issues.
  13. Aug 23, 2018
    70
    Even with its technical flaws and progression structure problems, I still can’t bring myself to dislike Little Dragons Café. When Little Dragons Café hits its stride mid-game, it is indeed a beautiful, relaxing, and wholesome experience that I would recommend to those looking for a more laid back title to cleanse their palette before this busy fall season.
  14. Sep 13, 2018
    65
    Little Dragons Cafe is like ordering a delicious meal, and then finding a hair in it.
  15. 65
    I want to love Little Dragons Cafe, and up until a certain point in the game I did. But its buggy performance and overall shaky platforming hinder what could be an amazing game.
  16. Aug 23, 2018
    64
    With a breezy pace and a comically weird story, Little Dragons Café is a unique take on farming sims. While I loved cooking meals, establishing my inn, and the anxiety-free pace, its management mechanics have been watered down just a bit too much and result in stakes so low that much of it becomes meaningless. Without making important decisions or a wealth of more interesting side-quests to capture my attention, I eventually ended up bored by the repetitive tasks.
  17. Feb 26, 2019
    60
    Little Dragons Café starts from a good principle and its no-pressure approach, coupled with an open and varied world are worthy of praise. Unfortunately it gets too dull and repetitive too soon and the lack of pressure in taking decisions ends up harming the game's sense of direction- Not only that, the game's visual environment needs a lot of improvements and overall, it just doesn't do enough to captivate its players.
  18. Nov 2, 2018
    60
    The new Harvest Moon designer video game, despite being interesting for a children's audience, ends up being quite disappointing.
  19. Aug 31, 2018
    60
    If anything, it's a lovely game to relax to--even if you're forced into a slow pace.
  20. Aug 24, 2018
    59
    My time spent with Little Dragons Cafe was bittersweet. The story, graphics, and exploration are enjoyable for a while but the terrible pacing, graphical issues, and often annoying controls will likely make you leave a less than stellar Yelp review for this cafe.
  21. Sep 13, 2018
    58
    Admittedly, Little Dragons Café is a harder sell because of its tech problems, but it honestly does enough interesting things with its gameplay and narrative to warrant sticking through to the end. It’s rife with Wada’s requisite unique design flourishes and sensibilities. In Little Dragons Café, he’s produced a game that is full of heart. Rin and Ren are both easy people to sympathize with and pull for. Draco is similarly compelling, along with the rest of the cast. Watching the shop grow and working towards the end goal of reviving the kids’ mother is absolutely worthy of your time. It’s just a matter of how patient you can be towards Little Dragons Café’s hiccups and blemishes.
  22. Jan 16, 2019
    40
    Little Dragons Café is an extremely tedious exercise in repetition. There's kind of an initial thrill to the idea of managing a café and picking out the recipes that it'll use, but eventually you realize that you don't do much to help out other than providing the basic ingredients and occasionally bussing tables. The only real reward for slogging it out day-to-day is a handful of character focused cutscenes that don't really feel like a meaningful accomplishment. Add in some truly awful field controls and a constantly skipping framerate, and you've got a true recipe for disaster.
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 27 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 27
  2. Negative: 5 out of 27
  1. Sep 23, 2019
    7
    Little Dragon's Café es un juego bello. Bello en todo el ámbito de la palabra. Es un juego bello en términos estéticos, con gráficos un tantoLittle Dragon's Café es un juego bello. Bello en todo el ámbito de la palabra. Es un juego bello en términos estéticos, con gráficos un tanto poligonales y colores fuertes, pero da la impresión de ser un juego de 3ds más que de Switch.
    La historia se sustenta en resolver problemas cotidianos de distintos visitantes que tendremos en nuestro café, a través de nuestra especialidad que será la comida. No esperen historias épicas o de salvar el mundo, si no más bien dificultades emocionales o relacionales de los personajes que dejan lindas moralejas, en especial a los niños. Lamentablemente el juego solo está en inglés, lo cual será un inconveniente para quienes no manejen el idioma.
    El otro eje de la jugabilidad estará en la exploración de distintas zonas de la isla en la que vivimos, las cuales se irán desbloqueando en la medida que avancemos en la historia, la recolección de ingredientes para cocinar y la crianza de tu dragón a través de las distintas etapas de su crecimiento, el cual también viene dado por el avance de la historia.
    El juego podría haber sido una gran experiencia en términos de exploración, simulación e incluso algo de RPG, sin embargo, luego de unas horas se torna repetitivo. Ya que el rol de administrar el café no es realmente eso, puesto que la mayoría de las acciones tus ayudantes las hacen de manera automática. El protagonista solo debe preocuparse de crear nuevas recetas y que no se agoten los ingredientes para éstas, lo que le resta muchas acciones en las que podríamos estar involucrados.
    En general, LDC es un juego entretenido, muy emocional y estéticamente bello y agradable. Hay varias zonas, ingredientes y personajes por descubrir. Así como también la idea de criar y eventualmente montar a tu dragón para transportarte es realmente genial. Lamentablemente, el sentido de progresión es bajo. Las acciones que podemos hacer están limitadas a recorrer zonas nuevas, recolectar ingredientes y descubrir recetas, lo cual no resulta suficiente para mantenernos enganchados por mucho tiempo. De todas formas, es un juego recomendable para quienes les gustan los juegos lindos o de simulación tipo Harvest Moon.
    Full Review »
  2. Nov 7, 2021
    5
    This game feels cheap, which is very disappointing considering that it´s almost as expensive as the biggest and best executed titles onThis game feels cheap, which is very disappointing considering that it´s almost as expensive as the biggest and best executed titles on switch.
    The mechanics do not feel smooth, and I personally am not a fan of the game´s visuals. There are a lot of different art styles mixed in a strange way, from a beautiful drawn style of the background of the inner café to cheap feeling bright colors outside and bad textures.
    The story is told in such a short and plain way in the beginning that it felt like a bad joke. It´s literally: Your mom falls asleep, a strange man appears from nowhere, tells you she´s half dragon, gives you a dragon´s egg and tells you to raise the dragon to ask it for help, all within what feels like one minute.
    Beneath that, the game is pretty repetitive, you´re basically farming ingredients all the time.
    Moreover, farming means going outside and pressing A on bushes which always look the same, strange flowers and butterflies on them, and they randomly drop carrots or onions or whatever else. Also, your dragon finds ham in little caves. (?)

    I´m very disappointed because I thought the idea of the game was so cute.
    Not a big fan of the execution. Glad to at least have bought it on sale.
    Full Review »
  3. Aug 29, 2021
    7
    I will say from the start, I did enjoy this game. But it doesn't take too long to realise how repetitive it is. And that's ok if you're allI will say from the start, I did enjoy this game. But it doesn't take too long to realise how repetitive it is. And that's ok if you're all about the farming, collecting, cooking process . . . over and over and over again. But it does try to progress you through a story, and over time your dragon grows up. This is the hook, but it's not strong enough to outweigh the grinding away you feel at the last few chapters (80% of the way through) which induces cheating the game with acts like going to bed at 7 am just to force through the next event or chapter. That saying, it's a beautiful game, and the exploring is enjoyable. Discovering recipes, going on missions to find someone, making your way up the mountain etc are all things that keep you coming back and wanting more. It's just that it's a little too long to sustain the game format. If this is your type of game (and there are plenty of video reviews to show you if it is) then wait for a sale and get it. It's not bad. It's just long, repetitive and tedious. Full Review »