Onsen Master is a hot spring management game pitched as Overcooked meets Spirited Away. If you’ve ever watched Studio Ghibli’s gorgeous animated film about a young girl who finds herself in a mystical bathhouse full of spirits, you might have contemplated what running such an establishment might be like. Onsen Master is a co-op game from Waking Oni Games that hopes to realise those dreams by tasking you with running various onsen, while staving off the antics of troublesome yokai.
Placing you in the shoes of the titular Onsen Master’s apprentice, Mu, you are tasked with running the onsen (the Japanese name for hot springs and the facilities that surround them) located on the island of Izajima. You must keep your customers satisfied, preparing the appropriate ingredients to soothe what ails them and making sure they make it to the right baths without wandering off and causing trouble.
The customers are the least of your worries, however – there’s a dark cloud hanging over the island, causing mischievous spirits called yokai to appear. These yokai will attempt to disrupt the flow of your business, so you’ll have to deal with them before resuming usual service. As you progress through the story and search for the Onsen Master, you’ll even come across boss fights such as a giant, skeletal yokai rising out of the water to cause havoc in your establishment.
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