REVIEW: Dungeon Munchies
Developer: maJAJa Ltd.
Publisher: maJAJa Ltd, Chorus Worldwide Games
Released: 2019
Platforms: PC | PS4 & PS5 | Switch
I stumbled upon the collector's edition of this game at my favorite secondhand shop. There wasn't a lot to glean from the back of the box, but it gave me the impression that Dungeon Munchies would be a Metroidvania with a food theme.
It vaguely fits that descriptor, but Dungeon Munchies suffers from undercooked ideas and a dash of an identity crisis.
The level design for this sidescroller is fairly mindless to walk through. A branching path occasionally shows up, but “secret” areas aren’t that difficult to find. A few of them need return trips with upgrades to reach them, but I was able to collect most items on my first sweep. It’s not offensively bad, but it could be better.
My actual draw to Dungeon Munchies was obtaining weapons and upgrades via cooking. The player character has a slot each for primary and secondary weapons, as well as a tool belt to equip up to 7 passive buffs. After crafting a recipe, there's no extra cost to swap it, so it’s easy to experiment with custom loadouts.
The game isn't particularly grindy, so collecting the necessary materials for a given recipe is painless. At most, it took me 5-10 minutes to backtrack for resources I was short on.
Unfortunately, the staple appeal of Dungeon Munchies is where it drops the ball.
Of the three tabs worth of recipes, the first has wishy-washy results. The upgrades quickly fall off in effectiveness, especially once the second tab provides superior alternatives. Later in the game, the oldest recipes can be enhanced alongside the newer ones, but I still didn’t find myself picking many of the former.
Dungeon Munchies has a major annoying quirk that kneecaps experimentation in general. It's one of “those” games where the “challenge” is spamming enemies at the player. Unfortunately, I feel that a lot of equipment couldn't keep pace with said artificial difficulty.
Primary weapons work fine, but many secondary options have meager DPS outputs. Shields exist, but I found them to be cumbersome (dodging is a better strategy).
Even healing options are unreliable, as they're virtually nonexistent (trolls, like the guava that constantly bounces out of reach due to its garbage physics).
To make matters worse, the game eventually shifts gears into a bullet hell. Based on the equipment I found, Dungeon Munchies is a mindless button-mashing brawler, and wasn't balanced to accommodate for the genre swap. The two biggest tools to counter projectiles include a dash that deletes them during i-frames, or shields that partially absorb them before a cooldown. All that's left to pick is the cue to “get good.”
With this headache in mind, I sought for a build that could break the game so that combat wouldn't get on my nerves (as much). And I think I found it: scythes.
In short, scythes spawn familiars to aid in combat. Slain enemies drop healing orbs. These are prioritized to your familiars, but any excess goes to the player. This is an invaluable feature that's sadly limited to one weapon class.
But wait, there's more! There are two recipes that bring absolute chaos to this build. One causes enemies to also drop explosive orbs on death. Another infects an enemy with a debuff, which then passes to another one after they're defeated. This creates a violent circle of debuffs and explosions.
The cherry on top is a dual-ended lightsaber for the off-hand slot. Simply holding its assigned button (I went with LT) causes it to rapidly and indefinitely spin. Its own DPS isn't what matters; rather, it's the instantaneous trigger it pulls on the aforementioned orbs. If you use a scythe with a limit of 2-3 familiars, you can face tank and lay waste to all foes that try to cluster on screen.
Scythes eclipsed all other builds I tried out. I don't know how else I'd reliably beat this game, because I desperately needed the DPS output they provided.
The gameplay half of Dungeon Munchies has promise, but misses the mark. As for the story half, it's all over the place.
On a positive note, the game has simple but decent characters. Simmer, for instance, has a boisterous and overcompensating attitude that's given time to breathe in the story. As tensions boil, her insecurities slowly emerge.
Any amount of praise I could give, however, is weakened by the constant tonal whiplash of snapping between subtlety and memes.
Characters in Dungeon Munchies frequently wisecrack at each other, but with that “How do you do, fellow kids?” energy. For instance, Simmer's introduction kicks off with an unaltered Power Rangers reference. For another, existential questions are mulled over by “wacky” sentient vegetables. The writing often isn't clever enough to lighten the mood in a dark and depressing world, it's just immersion breaking.
(I wasn’t joking)
And then there's guts. And also vaguely Giger.
I was confused by the game’s M rating (aside from constant swearing) until this body horror twist dropped out of nowhere. I must admit that it was one reason I even stuck with Dungeon Munchies for its full runtime.
The lore explanation is that the main characters attempt to open a stargate leading to another human settlement. The surge of energy attracts the attention of Putrid, an all-consuming biomass traveling the galaxy.
When I asked my chat what they thought of this plot, they promptly told me to jump into Warhammer. Coincidentally, I did. Double coincidentally, I'm a Tyranid player.
Due to the way it's implemented, Putrid makes me think “Oh, it's a Warhammer reference” with an underwhelmed ellipsis at the end of the sentence, instead of a jovial exclamation mark.
Dungeon Munchies shows promise, but it ends up being a mediocre experience at best. Its food upgrade system needs an overhaul to better fit the game's multi-genre scope. The story is structurally decent, but brought down by trying too hard to be funny and self-aware.
I'll be returning the collector's edition to my secondhand shop, because I feel bad to let such nice merch sit on my shelf when I have a somewhat negative attitude towards the game it's connected to.
Thumbs Down
BONUS: Looking at the Merch
(If you’ve happened to follow my blog for a long time, you might remember that I once attempted a fancy photoshoot for my Cynder figures. I had a macro lens for my DSLR and everything. I realized I was putting way too much effort into something for a dumb hobby blog, so I’m going the lazier route and relying on whatever my Pixel’s AI enhancements can do. I’m not even going to touch up these photos; I’m embracing the dust.)
First up are a couple acrylic collectibles of a standee and a linked keychain. I like them both equally.
This print of Simmer is actually a 1mm-thick metal poster! I almost stabbed my hand on it mistaking it as generic cardstock. I'm impressed with this one.
A notepad featuring the saucepan and bacon-striped grocery bag seen in the game. I like that the border is from the game’s menu UI.
This sticker was loose in the box, so I don’t know what it was originally attached to. I only recall the featured living steak from a one-off gag, so it’s likely another one of those “wacky” moments in the game.
A cute sticker sheet as well as a larger glow-in-the-dark one.
A code for the game’s soundtrack. I don’t know if it was already redeemed, but just to be safe, I’ve censored it to give the next owner a chance.
Finally, there’s a poster (paper this time) folded up like Simmer’s cookbook, which opens to showcase the first two tabs of recipes in the game.
