Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook Review — A Strangely Satisfying Dish

Back in my hometown, we have a small mom & pop pizza shop that, for the most part, is very normal. It serves every basic kind of pizza that you’d expect it to—cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and so on. Every so often, however, you’d drive past it and see their sign proudly displaying something like “Try our deep dish Mediterranean pizza!” or “Grab a slice of cinnamon bun cotton candy pizza before it’s gone!” And, no, these weren’t jokes. These were real pizzas that you could purchase and consume. I have no idea how successful they were, so I can’t exactly extrapolate on that. I can, however, tell you that I started to look forward to whatever yearly or bi-yearly weirdness they seemed to come up with out of nowhere, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of other people do, too.

Why am I telling you this, though? Because it’s exactly how I feel about one or two one-off games that NIS seemingly releases out of nowhere each year—with Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook being the latest entry in their strange mix of releases. And, just like with every other random NIS one-off, I wasn’t disappointed when I dug into this strange-yet-satisfying delight. Also, you know… the whole “weird pizza” metaphor was too good not to open with, given the subject material.

I’m so Hungry, I Could Eat a Large Decaying Bug Carcass! (So I did!)

Aw, come on, it can’t be THAT bad.

Featuring what is quite literally the most no-nonsense, to-the-point storyline in an NIS game that I’ve ever seen, Monster Menu tells the story of the player, as a young and inexperienced adventurer, attempting to make a name for themselves as they set out on a brand new adventure in the Sealed Lands. Despite the name, the Sealed Lands were known to generally be an incredibly easy place for even the most inexperienced of journeymen (such as yourself), meaning that your first foray into danger shouldn’t have exactly been… well, you know, dangerous. But that’s not what happened, obviously. After experiencing some kind of mishap, you find yourself stranded, without supplies, and wandering the ruins for three days. Delirious with thirst and hunger, you find yourself on the verge of collapse when you come across… food! Well, technically. It’s actually a very rotten, maggot-infested carcass of what seems to be some insectoid monster/deity. Whatever it was, though, it’s dead—and it’s now going to be your next meal. Unfortunately, whatever that bug is made out of does not mesh well with human stomachs as you—after vomiting and promptly passing out—now find yourself stuck even deeper within the ruins than ever before. But, hey, at least you’re immortal… so you can die as often as you’d like while trying to get out!

Okay, so I know that that last paragraph was a little long, but there’s a good reason for that—that’s basically the whole story. While Monster Menu does have a very generous amount of world-building for players to enjoy via lore that can be collected, there’s none of the typical NIS-style banter that the company has long been known for. Instead, it’s mostly just you and the three other unlucky individuals who are stuck with you—all of whom are player-created (meaning that there are no set characters)—wandering around dreary environments, eating disgusting food, and dying… like, a lot. And honestly, I applaud NIS for doing something like this. I love and genuinely look forward to the stories and characters that this company puts out, but it’s neat to see them take such a different approach in terms of world-building an atmosphere. There’s still plenty of NIS-style charm, of course, but the entire game has a much more somber, hopeless feel to it. I’d love to see them experiment more with this kind of stuff in the future.

Eat, Sleep, Die, Repeat

Wow, what a treat!

When you first look at it, Monster Menu‘s recipe seems to be pretty simple. The game itself is a roguelite dungeon crawler featuring SRPG combat very similar to—albeit less complex than—Disgaea. All you and your team need to do is make through every floor of each of the game’s Orgonnes (this game’s term for dungeons), beat the boss at the end, and you’ll be out of the ruins in no time. Simple, right? Yeah, no, not really. Despite its overly simplistic approach to the dungeon-crawling aspect, the game has a surprising amount of mechanical depth when it comes to the actual progression of your party. There’s no way you’re getting through the entire game on your first run because you’re literally too weak to do so. You also lose all of your levels and items (save key items and equipment) when you die. So what do you do to get stronger, exactly? Well, it’s a bit complicated.

Rather than relying on grinding to get you through, Monster Menu places a ton of focus on character skill levels—weapon proficiency, elemental proficiency, cooking, crafting, and so on. Unlike everything else, these do stick with your party when you die. And, honestly, I’m cool with that setup.  I also, however, am someone who’s used to games like Disgaea. Truth be told, Monster Menu isn’t the greatest at emphasizing just how important these skills are, and things can also get a little cluttered when you start racking up from bonus skills and the other important thing we haven’t talked about—chowing down on grub.

Seconds, Please!

This place certainly looks a lot less dangerous than the last, but I wonder…

Food is, undoubtedly, Monster Menu‘s biggest draw. Not only are most of the things that you collect used to make food (there’s an impressive amount of nasty stuff in there, by the way), but food is also used to 1.) provide numerous, stackable, skill boosts that last with you throughout your run, and 2.) help you survive. …I mentioned that Monster Menu is also a survival game, right? I didn’t? Okay, let me fix that.

Along with being a roguelite and an SRPG, Monster Menu is a survival game. Adventuring’s hard work, and if your players get too hungry or thirsty, they die pretty much immediately. And, while you can bring back dead party members, it’s generally at a significant cost. So a dead party member is oftentimes a dead run. Additionally, you also have to keep your party members happy. While a lot of the food that you make is packed with power-boosting attributes, it’s also absolutely vomit-inducing. Like, there’s literally a vomit counter in this game—you make some really foul stuff. Eat too much of that foul stuff in succession, and their happiness plummets—causing your characters to go insane (which is almost worse than them being dead, trust me).

Circling back to the “power-boosting attributes” thing that I was talking about, keeping your party fed goes way beyond keeping them alive—it also bestows upon them a number of different skills depending upon what’s eaten. Not surprisingly, this mechanic is one of the most important in the entire game. Despite the game not being very good at making it clear, it’s very important that you not only feed party members, but that you feed them correctly. Foods that do things like boost attack and bestow poison touch need to go to physical fighters, magic-boosting foods to spellcasters, and so on. Oh, there are also some harmful effects that you need to watch out for, which just adds another layer. All-in-all, this system, despite being a little frustrating at times, is a lot of fun. While I wish the game didn’t essentially just pat me on the back and wish me luck, I enjoyed feeling like I learned something with each loss, and mastering the “art of eating correctly” really felt like a triumph. My only complaint is that there isn’t a ton of diversity in terms of ingredients. You’re pretty limited in terms of what you’re able to get depending upon where you are—the game could have benefitted a lot from making enemy and biome placement less set-in-stone.

An Acquired Taste, Perhaps?

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook feels more like a first try on NIS’ part than anything else—a fun first try, but a first try nonetheless. I legitimately enjoyed my time learning the ins and outs of the game and, as a fan of roguelikes and RPGs alike, didn’t mind having the game repeatedly stomp me into the ground. With that being said, however, I’d definitely call this one niche, and I’m not sure that everyone will find its flavor quite as appealing as I did.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 5; Publisher: NIS America; Developer: Nippon Ichi Software; Players: 1; Released: May 23, 2023; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $49.99

Full disclosure: Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook code was provided to Hey Poor Player by the publisher.