Screenshot: Dungeon Munchies
I’m beginning to hate when games are surprised announced. Sure, it’s exciting for most people, and it creates an amount of buzz around a game that might not have that level of buzz by a more conventional release—but for game reviewers like me, it sometimes means that I’m scrambling to cover a game I might not have heard of before.
Dungeon Munchies wasn’t really on my radar before its surprise release during Nintendo’s Indie World showcase. It was a little bit of a surprise to discover that not only has
Dungeon Munchies been out on Steam since 2019, it’s still an Early Access game on that platform.
Dungeon Munchies is a side scrolling action role-playing game where you play a dead guy brought back to life—and you’re hungry. Your goal is to fight through a huge underground complex full of strange creatures, with the help of Simmer, the necromancer who brought you bake to life, who is also a chef that has a knack for creating body modifications out of monster parts. See, any monster you vanquish can potentially be your next power up. Bring monster parts, and you can get abilities like double jump, increased power, and much much more. Add to that a plethora of craftable weapons, and it’s action role-playing bliss, right? Not exactly. While
Dungeon Munchies is cute, full of great ideas and even occasionally funny, I just never found it very fun to play.
Screenshot: Dungeon Munchies
Combat in
Dungeon Munchies is a huge part of the experience, and while it’s not terrible, it’s not fun enough to keep me playing for long stretches. While aspects of combat are visually appealing, combat never feels very weighty or impactful. You can dual wield weapons, or mix and match between melee weapons and various shields and staves, all acquired through crafting the inedible parts of the monsters you kill. But while there are a good variety of weapons, they all fit into a few archetypes with all weapons of those archetypes feeling mostly identical. Combat encounters don’t feel very balanced. I could be playing through an area and never even get hit, and then run up against a punishing boss that takes a dozen attempts to pass.
One of the cleverest aspects of
Dungeon Munchies is its ability to mix and match power-ups based on the food you eat. Your stomach can only hold seven meals, so you have to maximize your power-ups for best results. Finding the best weapon and power-up combination is one of the best parts of
Dungeon Munchies, but without fun combat great synergy doesn’t make much of a difference.
Screenshot: Dungeon Munchies
I do appreciate
Dungeon Munchies’ character design, but its story is a little oppressive. There are long cutscenes that are unskippable. The character design is mostly generic, however, there is some passable humor—but nothing that made me laugh out loud.
Dungeon Munchies just doesn’t feel like a finished game. That could very well be the case, with it still being in Early Access on Steam. However, its Nintendo Switch version is released as a “complete” game, and it feels unfinished. Most aspects of the game—from combat to level design—require some amount of polish or even a bit of reworking. Other aspects feel completely unfinished—like the fact that you acquire more XP than you ever seem to need.
Dungeon Munchies may have surprise released, but it really could have done for more time in the oven.
Dungeon Munchies is
available now on Nintendo Switch.
A Nintendo Switch code was provided to us for this review.