Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook Evaluation – Evaluation

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is a sport made up of many interesting components. It’s a roguelike technique RPG dungeon-crawler with an anime artwork fashion and crafting mechanics. For those who requested me to construct a sport out of buzzwords that attraction to me, Monster Menu would come shut. Nevertheless, it got here out not fairly matching the promise of its profitable idea, a bit half-baked if you’ll (I apologize for any and all meals puns on this evaluate).

Made by Nippon Ichi Software program (NIS), makers of video games just like the Disgaea collection, Monster Menu takes place in a fantasy setting the place your character has gone to discover a dungeon. Nevertheless, by way of poor planning and getting misplaced, your character is at demise’s door firstly of the sport, with no meals or provides. Ultimately, you come throughout a useless monster, whose arm you chow down on, regardless of clearly being disgusting. The secret right here is survival utilizing the supplies at hand, which on this case are monster components.

Shortly after this intro, you construct out the remainder of your get together utilizing commonplace fantasy character lessons, arrange a base camp, and discover a procedurally generated dungeon. The dungeon is made up of particular person flooring that you may relaxation between, and on the tenth ground there’s a boss combat. The subsequent ground after that begins a brand new biome. Exploration takes place in roguelike style – you undergo flooring, preventing enemies for so long as you possibly can, and when you die you return to ground one and begin over at stage one, holding your gear with you. You then begin from scratch.

The fight is that of a grid-based SRPG that types once you run right into a monster on the map, after which comprises all of the monsters which might be within the neighborhood. This results in some technique earlier than you even be a part of a combat, since you decide what number of enemies you wish to combat and might try and get the benefit by sneaking up on them. For those who run into an enemy from behind to sneak up on all of them the members in your get together can transfer first (nonetheless, the enemies can do the identical to you). With none benefit, the flip order is predicated off of pace. The remainder of fight entails turn-based assaults and expertise, utilizing your positioning to your benefit. The one uncommon menu possibility throughout a combat is Devour. Whenever you defeat an enemy, its physique will nonetheless be within the grid, and if a personality chooses the Devour possibility, it should devour that enemy, achieve again some well being, and likewise achieve some expertise for the actual battle it’s in. It’s a neat concept, however because it takes a flip, the well being restoration might be marginal, and since the talents wouldn’t carry over, I discovered myself not utilizing this as a lot, particularly since this might devour any of the objects you’d be capable to loot from the enemy.

The meals mechanic doesn’t cease there. The one therapeutic objects are meals and water, which you’ll be able to eat or drink within the discipline for a primary increase if want be. Nevertheless, it’s virtually all the time a greater possibility to avoid wasting your objects to your relaxation areas between ranges, the place you possibly can relaxation to heal on the expense of your starvation and thirst meters, that are additionally continuously draining. Whereas at camp, you possibly can prepare dinner objects based mostly on a wide range of recipes, which not solely make you much less hungry or thirsty but in addition provide you with stat boosts and passive expertise for the remainder of the run. Substances even have a freshness meter earlier than they go unhealthy and since all your components are stuff you looted from monsters, totally different meals objects can really have an effect on your happiness meter, which briefly lowers your stats. In the end, the cooking mechanic turns into a relentless balancing act the place you are attempting to verify all your characters survive, whereas additionally enhancing your stats and dealing with all these meters. There’s additionally a easy crafting mechanic as effectively the place you possibly can enhance and restore your objects. Monster Menu is all about balancing a number of totally different meters and stats which finally ends up changing into a real juggling act, the place if issues are going effectively you possibly can optimize your characters based mostly off of technique, however in case you are having a troublesome run you is likely to be struggling simply to maintain your characters fed.

The presentation is stable – the artwork fashion is a cute chibi anime artwork fashion that enables for personalization when you create your characters, and the music is repetitive however good. The largest subject with the presentation have been the repetitive voice traces. When every ground has a number of totally different factors the place you possibly can loot monsters or collect objects however solely a small handful of traces for that, it will get borderline annoying to the purpose the place I typically performed the sport on mute, if solely to not hear my character go “might this be?” each time I opened a chest. That mentioned, I do just like the artwork fashion, and the presentation of among the extra disgusting menu objects; there’s even an choice to censor significantly gross objects, which is a pleasant contact.

The largest subject with Monster Menu is simply how repetitive each run may be. Every ground’s map may need a special format however roughly the identical enemies. Since you are operating the identical characters you created firstly, you possibly can’t experiment with totally different lessons with out beginning a brand new sport, so the gameplay continuously feels the identical – there isn’t the enjoyment of experimenting with totally different builds that makes me love roguelikes. There isn’t a lot you are able to do to play with builds, and infrequently did I lose feeling like I at the very least realized one thing new, understanding a method to enhance my technique or gameplay and get just a bit bit additional. In the end, it felt like the one factor driving progress in Monster Menu was getting marginally higher loot, and it’s not a very compelling hook.

Storywise, there may be little or no past the intro as I described earlier and a few notes you possibly can decide up about one other get together that aren’t significantly attention-grabbing, definitely not sufficient to entice gamers to push forward. The sport additionally had a couple of crashes on Swap, which was irritating. This solely occurred a handful of instances all through my time with Monster Menu, so it wasn’t a pervasive subject–and the sport does have an autosave function–nevertheless it was demoralizing for a sport I used to be already not having fun with very a lot.

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is irritating as a result of I really feel like there might be a great sport in right here. The truth is, if NIS determined to place out a sequel, I is likely to be inclined to test it out as a result of they’ve made plenty of glorious RPGs up to now. It simply appears like they threw in so many methods, meters, and mechanics that they forgot to place in one thing to compel you to maintain taking part in. There are various higher video games on the market in all the genres that this one borrows from that regardless of attention-grabbing concepts, Monster Menu can’t come collectively to offer a satisfying meal.