Delicious: Emily’s Road Trip (Gamehouse)

The O’Malleys are going on a road trip and Emily plans to capture every moment for her blog. Join them as they meet interesting people and help them through life’s many puzzles.

Be warned that there are spoilers for the plot. If you want to go into the game fresh, skip to the second to last paragraph. Now I’ll admit that the summary made the game sound deep and profound. Honestly, it’s really not. It’s just a fun family game where you get to reunite with your favorite characters. The focus isn’t even on Emily, but rather on the people she encounters along the way. First Emily reunites with Betty and her Elvis impersonator husband who can’t accept the fact that he’s getting older. Then the family stops at a farm where the farmer can’t accept that his son is more interested in art than farming. After that, the family stops at a biker bar where the owner, Rose, is trying to get the place in working order.

Boy does she need the help.

Then the family stops at a spooky restaurant where a man is trying to live out the dream he neglected for his own family. Finally, the family goes back home where Francois, being the ever-loving goofball, screws up the O’Malley’s garden.

Anyone who’s familiar with a Delicious story knows that Emily’s going to help the characters fix their problems and everyone she meets will get a happy ending. The Elvis impersonator learns that, even though he can’t dance like Elvis anymore, he can still sing like him. The farmer accepts his son for who he is. Rose gets her bar in tip top shape with Emily’s help. Finally, Ralph makes his spooky restaurant a success and reunites with his family. The only major character in the game who has a storyline is Patrick and, in all honesty, his story doesn’t even make sense.

Patrick starts out the game growing organic flowers only to see that they’re not selling. He gets so bummed out that he actually considers getting a more stable job. At one point, Ralph tells Patrick that he gave up his dream to support his family. While Ralph’s family might have been low on cash at the time, there are no signs throughout the game that Patrick and Emily are. Emily’s tea garden seems to be doing well financially so, successful or not, Patrick can still be a florist. Then we find out the reason Patrick wants to get a steady job and it is incredibly stupid. Apparently, he’s getting bored with flowers so he thinks taking a job working for the man will make his life more exciting. I know people who work for the man and, more often than not, they usually hate their lives because they have no control. Patrick is his own boss and he doesn’t have to answer to anyone. Why would he want to give that up? Thankfully, Patrick comes to his senses when he sees Francois not only screwed up the family garden but entered it in the gardening contest. Anyway, Patrick presented the mess as a story of his family’s recent adventure and wins, renewing his love of flowers. For those of you who follow the series, this is actually the second time Francois’s screw up has saved the O’Malleys.

The game play is just like any other Delicious game, customers come to the counter or the table and you serve them what they want.

Another typical day in the life of Emily.

In the case of table customers, you have to clean the table after they leave. Some levels come with extra tasks, which gets a little frustrating when you’re at the farm. Let me explain that the farm has a lot of cooking products that take forever to get done and, more often than not, you have to replay the level to reach the special goal you failed because of it. As for the diamonds, you can spend them on camping furniture which the family never uses because they never take a regular camping trip throughout the game. You can also play a daily level which gives you more diamonds and resets well… daily. If that’s not enough, you can unlock better versions of your products throughout the game. Unfortunately, that’s based on how many you serve, which can be really annoying if you’re a completionist and trying to upgrade a product customers rarely order. So be prepared to play the same level over and over.

This game is entertaining but doesn’t offer anything special. I give it 7 out of 10, a good purchase for any Delicious fan.

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