I like weird games as much as the next person. Sadly, some games look fun and weird on paper but don’t have much substance in the final product. Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook has the bare bones of a delicious recipe but lacks the ingredients to make a truly great Dungeon Crawling Tactical RPG.

The biggest issue with Monster Menu also happens to lie in its setup and premise. The storyline for Monster Menu is so thin that once you get past the opening hour there’s not much there. The premise is basically that you play a group of adventurers (that you create) who find themselves lost in a dungeon they assumed was for rookies. Out of supplies and on the brink of starvation, they resort to eating a corpse to survive, only to discover that they are now mystically trapped in the dungeon.

There aren’t any NPCs, and you don’t really have dialogue among your created adventurers. As such, you’re pretty much exploring the dungeon, fighting enemies and bosses along the way. The weird thing about this is the gameplay itself has a fair bit of thought put into it, but the overall package is sorely lacking. NIS America is known for strong, fun, in-depth RPGs, but Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook really suffers from a lack of a substantial plot.

In terms of gameplay, if you’ve played other Survival-Based Dungeon Crawlers then you’ve got an idea of what’s going on here. Your characters have a calorie meter and hydration meter, as well as a health bar. As you fight enemies your characters will level up. Conversely, every skill you use with your characters costs hydration and calories. Scavenging out in the open dungeon also costs a little hydration and calories too.

The way you offset this is by cooking at camp using ingredients you scavenge or ingredients from fallen monsters you defeat. The cooking mechanic isn’t as deep as I would like, but it does allow you to tailor how you build your characters. Each meal offers different stat boosts depending on what ingredients you use. You can also eat the corpses of enemies during battle for a temporary buff that may give you a combat skill for the duration of the battle.

While these mechanics are interesting, it gets difficult to rationalize playing Monster Menu for more than a few hours. There isn’t much of an incentive to keep playing when the story is basically non-existent and there aren’t characters to help or a specific goal to pass through. Sure, there are various difficulty levels you can change to tailor your experience, but why would you? There’s also an unnecessary grind for things like crafting materials (for arrows) and food, for very little reward.

Overall, I find myself more confused by Monster Menu than anything else. It almost feels like the game never really progressed past the concept stage. It plays well on Nintendo Switch, and if you like NIS America titles you might want to pick it up on sale. However, I really think most people should skip this one. As much as I like NIS America’s work, Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook really seems half-baked at best.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook was provided by NIS America for this review.

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Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook

$49.99 USD

2

Score

2.0/10

Pros

• Controls are Decent
• Combat is Decent

Cons

• Story is Non-Existent
• Gameplay is Repetitive
• No Real Goal or Driving Force to speak of
• No NPC's or Interesting Characters
• Progression Feels Pointless