Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends is a cooking simulation game for the Nintendo Wii. Players engage in preparing various dishes by following on-screen instructions from Mama, utilizing the Wii Remote for tasks like chopping and mixing. The game features approximately 80 recipes, each broken into mini-games, where performance is scored. Players earn medals based on their cooking performance, with bonuses collected as stars for unlockable items.
As in the original The Cooking Mama, players in The Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, prepare various culinary dishes using the Nintendo DS's touch screen. Following the on-screen instructions of the titular `Mama`, the player uses the stylus to perform various activities such as chopping vegetables or mixing ingredients. Each of these tasks is performed by completing a short minigame, with a number of minigames strung together to form an entire dish from a catalog of 80 different recipes.
After completing a dish, the player's cooking performance is evaluated and given a numerical score (out of 100) along with a corresponding medal. Failing to accomplish a step in Let's Cook mode or getting a `fail` within steps (in various ranges), the player will receive a `Broken Silver` medal, in which the medal is similar to that of the Silver medal with an addition: a crack. Unlike in previous Cooking Mama titles, bonuses earned during minigames do not influence the overall score, but instead accumulate as `bonus stars`. For every 5 such bonuses which are earned, the player earns an unlockable item upon completion of the recipe.