Diner Dash: Hometown Hero

The Good
I'll admit it, if I didn't add the game in MG's database, I would probably never have written this review. I'm honest, writing about the gameplay is just an awful moment for me, despite having a correct English level.

And as much as I have no problems when it comes to FPS or point-&-click game, a game like DD: Hometown Hero has a rich gameplay, making it for me more difficult to explain without being boring for the English native speakers.

So, what is Hometwon Hero?

Flo is going back to her hometown for a journey through her childhood memories with her grandmother, Grandma Florence. But when she discovers that her favorite places are in poor state and nearing the definitive disappearance, she decides to save them by working in their restaurants with her grandma in the kitchen.

The girl will never get a vacation, she's always feeling that she has to save the restaurant in question. Good Flo with a golden heart but well, she's not Wonderwoman... even if...

Diner Dash: Hometown Hero is the fourth game in theDiner Dash series, featuring Flo, owner of different restaurants in Dinertown. She has to save five different places in her hometown: the zoo, the baseball stadium, the museum, the lunapark and her grandmother's restaurant, which has been closed before her birth and can be saved by a jump to the past. That's Diner Dash for you, Flo can do everything in every time. After all, in Flo on the Go, she was serving in a space shuttle and in the latest game, Flo through Time, she is travelling from the prehistory to the future.

Nothing is new in the storyline: Flo is always trying to save restaurants from being closed and her help is always rewarded by a huge success. Flo is typically someone who will never fails at the end of the story, it's not a game with twisted plots or with choices to make. It's plain and simple, no need to write a complicate story for a time management game.

The gameplay is still the same: seat customers, take their orders, serve their meals and collect the money. Additionally, they can also ask for a snack or a dessert. Sometimes Flo will have to use the mop for cleaning the mess kids and babies made or bring a high chair for families. She can also phone for asking help (for speaking to the customers waiting when a podium is available, for playing some music, for bringing cocktails or for bringing plates). Each customer has five hearts. The more they are red, the more higher the tip will be. If a customer loses all his hearts, he'll leave the restaurant. And you'll pay cash this with dollars in less in your pocket. Note that the last restaurant is different from others, as you get four hands: yours and your grandma'. So, it means that you can carry four things at once, instead of the usual two.

The customers are also carrying colored clothes and seating them on seats with the same color brings bonus points. There are still the usual customers met in the previous games: Cellphone Addict, Business Woman, Bookworm, Family (including mothers with babies and Father with Son), Normal Girl, etc., each with specific features. For example, some customers like Business Woman or Bookworm don't like noises, so seating them near Cellphone Addict is a wrong idea. In the contrary, the noise doesn't bother Family, so you can put the Cellphone Addict near them.

There are also new customers like the Hungry Man who is ordering twice a meal, the Teen Boy/Girl, addicted to cellphone but flirting with each other when seated near each other or the Local Celebrity, who can replenish the nearing people's hearts. Local Celebrity is as impatient as a Cellphone Addict or a Business Woman, it was already hard to keep these two happy but with a third one... Anyway, they're also the ones to leave a big tip, so, you do understand why I'm concerned by not having the time to satisfy them.

When beating a level, you'll be giving the choice to redecorate the restaurant or to propose a new plate. Yes, you can customize the place: choosing new tables, new counters, adding something in the background or just changing the ground. Also, you can upgrade your oven/shoes/drinking station if you want. Beware though, because you have to choose between these three. Also, for the upgrades concerning the restaurant, you'll be given a third choice if you reached the expert level.

Because well, for beating a level, you have to collect money. And the more you can collect, the more you can expect to reach the expert score who is appearing after having beaten the normal score.

Each level is unique. Not in the background but you will always have something new: the drink station for making patienting the clients, the podium for chatting with those waiting in the queue, a bench for seating a group, the mop, the highchair, the snack (each restaurant has his own) and the dessert (see the snack). You can also have some... rock grounds, for example, in the museum, you have a mammouth. Well, from time to time, it's getting alive, do his noise and just hit the ground with legs, rocking the restaurant and making a lot of dirty ground that you will clean with your mop. It's a chance to have chains but also, it's retarding you for some other commands like the orders or the food delivering.

Also, you can customize Flo by giving her a new look, for example, in the baseball stadium, she can be dressed like a player or when she's helping her grandma back during Disco Time, she can be dressed in the fashion disco style. Personally, I find this feature very attractive, even if useless for the gameplay. It's giving the player more freedom for dressing Flo: as I didn't like the baseball clothes, I've just kept the Safari one during all the levels for the stadium.

Diner Dash doesn't need 3D for having good graphics. It's always colored and it's always getting to the essential. You can distinct easily each client, the customization presents some good choices and well, it's easy to see where the tables are. I didn't have problems with them.

The music in Diner Dash is always respecting the restaurant you're currently trying to save. For example, for the last one, set in Disco Time, you'll get a soundtrack reflecting it, a disco track. Even if you had to hear it for the ten levels consacred to Flo's grandma's restaurant. Also, it's easy to hear the typical sound of a baby dirtying the ground or announcing that a new client arrived. Also, it's practical to hear the menu put on the table, meaning that you have to take an order.

The game can be difficult sometimes, the previous game, Flo on the Go, surprised me with its difficulty (and it was my first Diner Dash game) and when I played Diner Dash 2, I found it too easy, except when I had to collect 34 000 dollars and that I was barely reaching 30 000. Hometown Hero is not easy and not difficult. But for beating expert score, well, if you like challenge, no doubt that you'll be coming back to play it, because by doing so, you unlock the famous third choice and can relook your restaurant if you think that this choice is better than the two standart ones.

The Bad
It's hard to describe this gameplay, however, it's easy to point the flaws. For example, I don't mind new customers, but I mind the Local Celibrity, because it's another one to satisfy nearly immediately, I mind the Teens because they're doing a lot of noises, like the Cellphone Addict, but fortunately, seat boys and girls next to each other, and they'll flirt, letting the other clients in peace.

I'm also cursing again the flower addition, because if it can bring points, it's not easy when you have a lot in your hands, to put a flower on table, I'm still forgetting it and then, well, it's not really helping for getting the already seated customers happy. It's just a feature that is useless and is only there complicating things.

It's like the reservation feature: now, you have tables which are reserved for people. You can seat other customers at it but be sure to have them out of it when the people who booked the table are arriving. Because they don't have patience for it. Booking a table means that you don't have to wait for it.

It's only adding more nervous gameplay for one who is already stressful. And I don't like being more pressured than normally.

Also, for making chains, sometimes, it's hard, you can loose a customer because you want to do chains. Note that it's possible to do them and that for some levels, it's necessary for getting the normal/expert score.

My only complaint for the graphics area will be for the HUD, where you have your clock and your progress bar. I feel like having a front of a car on my screen and compared to Flo on the Go and Diner Dash 2, I think that it was completely non-Diner Dash like. I largely prefer the ancient HUD, more of life for me.

The Bottom Line
Diner Dash: Hometown Hero isn't a revolution in DD: yeah, there are new customers, yeah, there are the flowers and the reservation thing, yeah, it's five new restaurants. But it's still the same and efficient gameplay, it's also our same Flo, who is working even during her rest, it's still that expert score that you wished for. If you're used to Diner Dash, no doubt that you'll be in your shoes with Hometown Hero. If you're not, well, try by Diner Dash 2, because you'll need to master some things and it will be more easier for you to beat the game, even if for me, I didn't finish it (damn' expert score resisting me in Flo's grandma's restaurant). It's to try, because the gameplay is nervous and that everyone can't stand it. I didn't want to because I thought I would be quickly lost with all customers and here I am, patienting for Seasonal Snack pack to be sponsored on iWin for playing it free with ads.

I'm only fearing that PlayFirst is trying to get more Diner Dash, that they'll never do some gameplay revamping and that the poor Flo can do the famous shark jumping, the final act that will mean that everything after that will be mediocre, without interest. Perhaps that it would be time after the next installement (I've remarked that Flo now was in the Land of the Tales) to begin a reflexion about DD. Sometimes, you have to write the final chapter of a franchise for its own well-being.

Hometown Hero was feeling like a game at the limit of what DD could offer but I really need to play the game that followed for checking if I was right or not.