A dosa is a traditional Indian dish created from a batter made of lentils and rice, resembling a crepe. The batter is fermented, and afterwards, is cooked in a hot skillet or pan. Families will often gather to eat the dish fresh, and, as families often do no matter where they are from, revel in each other’s company. Dosa Divas explores that familial bond, especially over shared food, through the lens of a turn-based RPG. Unfortunately, it all feels a little deflated.
In Dosa Divas, you play Samara and Amani, two sisters with a shared love of cooking. Their youngest sister, Lina, has gone off and created a corporation that seems to have the sole purpose of taking the cooking out of meal time. Samara and Amani must stop their sister from overthrowing the island of Meyndish and ending family cuisine as the world knows it. The story beats aren’t particularly new, and in fact, often feel rushed or downplayed.
The artwork, as eye-catching and vibrant as it is, fails to muster. However, it all falls apart if you scratch just below the service. While the portraits are detailed and emotive enough, the 3D models often feel lifeless, like they are stuck in the middle of a bad school play and are just trying to get their dialogue out.
The combat is a bit of a mixed bag. Similar to the Mario RPGs or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Dosa Divas uses contextual button inputs to avoid you just selecting something and letting it play out. You have to be engaged with the game at all times, which is really fun in and of itself. However, the implementation is a bit wonky.
The time to perfectly block an attack is a little too tight, and enemies, especially later in the game, can decimate in one turn if you aren’t careful. You’ll cook plenty of healing items, of course, but their usability is fairly limited as time goes on, healing insignificant amounts of health. The offensive side of things is much better, and some of the moves (like the Wakarang) are really fun to execute.
Now, there is a cooking mechanic outside of combat (a collection of simple but endearing minigames), and it is essential to helping people throughout the game, both as side content and main quests. Dosa Divas doesn’t do a good job of outlining what meals are new or who wants them, and the menu for selecting recipes is a bit of a mess thanks to this lack of organisation. Fortunately, as messy as the menu feels, the minigames themselves are fun for what they are.
As you free each town from the grasp of Lina, at least early on, you’ll unlock more and more special moves, encouraging exploration. It would be nice if these incremental rewards were more consequential when it comes to the later unlocks, but as it stands, they are more front loaded, resulting in a lack of meaningful incentive to keep exploring after a certain point. This just adds to the feeling that this meal may be a little too long for how many courses it really brings to the table.
