Best Served Cold Review

Ah, the roaring 20s, a wonderful time full of the star-studded glitz and glamour, economic crisis, and most importantly, detective crime noir. Best Served Cold is a stylish investigative visual novel that has you serve drinks to the good, the bad, and the glamorous, and somehow get caught up in the middle of it! It has to be stated just how much style was poured into this game, and solo developer and publisher, Rogueside, has done a simply phenomenal job crafting this game.

Best Served Cold is certainly the small Belgium studio's biggest project to date, with their other titles being the adorable hidden item game, Hidden Through Time, and its sequels, Hidden Through Time 2: Myth and Magic and Discovery, as well as the 2D run and gun shooter Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood and Teef, which is both incredibly fun and as silly as its title would lead you onto believe.

As mentioned earlier, Best Served Cold is an investigative visual novel set in the 1920s Prohibition era. However, in this alternate timeline, instead of the United States, this alcohol-free period takes place in the fictional European city of Bukovie. Much like the US, this was a time of quiet lawlessness, with secret underground bars popping up all over the place.

You are the bartender of one of the last of these illegal establishments, The Nightcap. To make matters worse, if dealing with Prohibition laws wasn't enough, a killer is on the loose, "The Bukovie Killer", and has claimed another victim, Natalie Reed. You get caught up in all this when an investigator leverages your troubled history against you to help get this case solved, one drink at a time.

Speaking of drinks, this will be your main tool during your investigation. In Best Served Cold, you will need to interrogate your clientele. They can range from dangerous criminals, former colleagues, to glamorous starlets who prefer to over-embellish their careers. Still, there's one thing they have in common, and that's that a good drink always loosens lips. 

It's important to note that certain customers like certain drinks, and you will need to consider several factors. One of these factors is Smoothness. This stat will indicate how long a customer will be willing to stay after they have been served their drink, and how many actions you will be able to take during dialogue, but that's not the only thing you will need to keep an eye on.

Another factor is the percentage of Alcohol in a drink, which means the higher the alcohol, the more inebriated your customer will become, which is useful for certain dialogue options. It's all about balancing these two factors. If you want to interrogate a specific customer while their drink may be smooth, you will not get much out of them if they're halfway passed out on the floor.

Another factor you will have to take into consideration is whether it's actually a drink your customer likes. For example, when a customer approaches your bar, you will need to figure out what they like; they will give you hints if you ask, but you will mainly need to use your bartending intuition. Some customers like fruity drinks while others like things straight and strong.

It's up to you to figure out what the perfect drink is for what scenario, but just make sure not to pick something they don't like, as that's a great way of ending your conversation early. After picking the drink of choice, a mini-game will pop up, here you will need to guide a pointer along a pattern that correlates to the chosen drink, it's best to be quick as a secondary pointer will appear and chase after the first one and when it catches up, the drink will be ruined.

It should be noted that the mini-game isn't particularly hard; you can adjust the speed of the secondary pointer if it's going a little too fast for your liking, which is a nice touch by the developers. If you are successfully able to make a drink and it's one of your customers' favourites, then on top of them being more likely to open up for you, you will also gain Affection.

Affection will gradually build as you play the game, and much like Alcohol percentage, you will only be able to ask certain questions when you have reached a certain level of affection. While making drinks is one way to gain affection, another way is picking the right dialogue options. Some characters like it when you're blunt and to the point, while others like it when you play along in their game of witty banter.

When speaking to characters, you will also gain Clues. These are important pieces of information that are vital in your investigation. Once you have spoken to all your customers and made a last call, you will be able to pin these clues together to create a Combined Clue, which is usually an important revelation in the case.

You will also be able to use these clues in your interrogation; however, you will need to be careful, as when you present certain clues or bring up certain topics, this will affect a customer's mood and might end your conversation short. As established before, Best Served Cold is a balancing act, and not just with your drinks. Customers have moods. Some have good moods and are willing to talk.

However, if a customer is in a bad mood, you might have a harder time getting information out of them. A customer's mood also plays an important role in how many actions you can take; that's why it's a good idea to get them a drink to raise their mood as soon as possible.

As you will notice, a lot of time and care have been put into the characters you will be encountering in Best Served Cold. Each character has their unique personality, preferences, and their own lives. While this is nothing special, especially within the visual novel genre, Best Served Cold makes these characters seem like so much more than just characters in a video game. They have realistic lives and come to you with problems that sound incredibly human.

While many of them are fictional, they feel entirely fleshed out, and once you get to know them better, they feel more like real people going through the Prohibition period. The Characters and dialogue aren't the only things that have been so excellently crafted. One of the most attractive things about the game is just how visually stunning Best Served Cold is and how gorgeous the art style is.

The character sprites are simply a delight to look at and are incredibly smooth and clean. With a colour choice that not only makes the sprites seem warm and lovely but also gives them an aged look, which works perfectly with the setting of glitz and grime of the 1920s. Not only have the character sprites been given so much detail and care, but so have the game's backgrounds, which have been packed with detail, which is impressive considering how detailed they are.

Another highlight, if the writing and character sprites weren't enough, is the soundtrack; the music in Best Served Cold is as smooth as the drinks you make. The soundtrack consists mostly of a few tracks that you will be listening to throughout the game. The most notable one is the smooth jazz track that plays in the background when you are making drinks for customers.

It's the track you will be listening to the most, but it is a treat. It's somber and smooth and never intrudes or gets annoying. It helps immerse you in the setting of the speakeasy. Its absence also highlights when things are about to go South. Best Served Cold can be described in one word: smooth.

The dialogue between characters is natural and never feels stilted or odd. The art style and character design are just a pleasure to look at, and the soundtrack is simple and effective and never overstays its welcome; everything about the game is smooth. The only real issue is a few bugs and glitches, such as text boxes skipping dialogue or sprites popping in too late, but those are all minor and will likely just be fixed in a quick patch or two.

Overall, Best Served Cold is a must-play. Every second with this game has been nothing but a delight. The developers have clearly put a lot of effort into delivering a smooth experience, and you can see it everywhere in the game, from sprites to music to even the mini-games. Best Served Cold is filled with style and will immerse you in its setting and maybe make you crave a cocktail or three.