Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God (Nintendo Switch) Review

From the very start, the cute graphics and humorous script create a game that is pure fun to play. Coco may be the God of Poverty, but he tries his hardest to help Patty and her brother gain a better life. In the beginning all he does is cause more problems for the siblings, bringing misfortune on their small and not at all inviting new tavern gifted by the small town to them. Patty has to go out for ingredients to create new dishes both to feed those who visit the tavern daily, which provides money to buy ingredients and equipment, and to feed Coco who has an insatiable appetite because feeding him is a regular goal towards increasing the quality of the tavern. Once goals are met, Romano upgrades how the tavern looks - it receives a better grade and more people will come to eat there.

Cooking is a major part of the story, possibly the most important part. The natural plot progression sees new areas open up, each with a specific range of ingredients that can be gathered once a day without having to physically go into the area and fight all the monsters. The fighting is important to ingredient collection, but it is cooking dishes the way the team levels-up. When new dishes are revealed not all the ingredients are known. These are discovered through trial and error by combining ingredients using different kitchen appliances. Once the correct ingredients are known, the dish levels-up over time the more it is made.

Making a dish is only part of the cooking element. Each day a menu must be put together for tavern guests to purchase from. This has a significant role in increasing character stats. Choosing the right dish is essential. Some dishes when paired with others will bring more people to the tavern. It is no use selecting unpopular dishes for that particular season: picking the dishes with positive ratings will increase the amount of diners, thereby increasing the funds which are vital to buy more ingredients and equipment, and reach the various goals.

The random encounter, turn-based battles that happen on an area map while gathering ingredients is highly enjoyable because Patty is never alone. She quickly comes across team-mates who have their reasons for joining her. Each one is memorable for their back story and unique weapons, and any combination of fighters can be used making a balanced team to suit everyone's playstyle easy to create. Plus, the variety of landscapes in the areas that unlock when quests are completed provide diversity in the game.

Patty travels all over the realm across forests, meadows and beaches, to help others solve their problems; this eventually will enable her to keep the tavern in business despite the tricks which the selfish evil banker pulls to thwart her success. The wide variety of monsters are sometimes just coloured differently, but can be tricky to master if equipment isn't upgraded regularly. There are some tougher than normal monsters to find who can bring death to the party, but some levelling- up soon slays those tricky beasts.