Rating
Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook
A survival strategy RPG that combines exploration, tactical combat, and cooking mechanics to create the perfect dish of dungeon-crawling adventure! Customize the class, appearance, voice, and pose of your party members, then set off to find food in whatever way you can.
Details
- Released
- January 26, 2023
- Developer
- Nippon Ichi Software
- Genres
- Action · Role-playing (RPG) · Strategy · Turn-based strategy (TBS)
- Publisher
- NIS America, Nippon Ichi Software
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Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
If you're an RPG fan and are looking for something fresh then Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook is here to cook up the goods.
Cooking up monsters in Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook is a delight but simple gameplay and generic dungeons prevent this unique SRPG from making the most of its potential.
As a (mostly) classical roguelike, Monster Menu is a good time. It’s well-balanced in its efforts to be excruciatingly difficult. It also has an entertaining loot and character development system. Most importantly of all, the core cooking mechanic is engaging. It will force you to approach everything from exploration to battle in a different way than most roguelikes. But I really can’t help but wish the developers made better use of the strong concept. Monster Menu really could have had a compelling, if nightmarish take on humanity’s sheer will for survival.
Tighten your pack and loosen your belt before digging into this dungeon-crawling adventure! Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook spices up the classic SRPG formula with deliciously fun cooking-based mechanics. Indulge in detailed character creation for your party, gather resources, ingredients, and items while exploring, and fight monsters in tactical combat. Then kick back by the campfire as you use what you’ve collected to cook meals that can give you the edge for your next course of dungeon delving. Switch version reviewed.
Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is a dish that aims to bring together various ideas from dungeon-crawling JRPGs, roguelikes, and cooking games, but only a few satisfying flavours from each of those emerge. Only JRPG addicts with a trained palette will be able to find the enjoyment here to warrant digging into the entire dish.
Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is frustrating because I feel like there could be a good game in here. In fact, if NIS decided to put out a sequel, I might be inclined to check it out because they have made a number of excellent RPGs in the past. It just feels like they threw in so many systems, meters, and mechanics that they forgot to put in something to compel you to keep playing. There are many better games out there in all of the genres that this one borrows from that despite interesting ideas, Monster Menu can’t come together to provide a satisfying meal.
The last note I would give to people is to save before you cook up your ingredients to make food, since doing so will keep resources around to use for other things like ammunition or repairing cooking ware. The game also introduced a shortcut option for using skills, items, and guarding. So, trust your judgment, plan your route and always be careful of opening chests in the wild…because even mimics will take you out if you’re not careful.