Dungeon Munchies Switch Review – Monsters Never Tasted So Good

Dungeon Munchies is actually a game that released late last year on the Nintendo Switch. However, the kind people at Chorus Worldwide sent us a review code recently to help promote the game’s upcoming physical release. We missed out on reviewing this game last year, so here we are nearly a year later bringing you the delicious and munchable review.

So does Dungeon Munchies deserve the physical release? Or are these monsters not worthy of being served on a silver platter? Let’s find out!

Dungeon Munchies is a bizarre idea for a game, but its story is fascinating, fun, and loaded with creativity. You play as a zombie that is reanimated and is starting to feel the pangs of hunger, but you are no longer a human. Instead, you hunger for… monsters? Yup. And you quickly find out about a cook/necromancer named Simmer who claims to be your creator and tasks you with finding ingredients to create some masterpieces from her hardback cooking book, as well as others down the line.

Things can begin a bit convoluted, and it may be hard to follow in the early stages. However, the dialogs are consistently funny and draw your attention, and I especially love the interactions with Simmer, her assistants, and the various bosses you’ll encounter along the way. There are so many characters to connect with, and as you progress, understanding their place in the world helps you to better understand your own as well as the overarching story.

Dungeon Munchies is a classic RPG in this sense that the story is complicated, but it is also full of life, mystery, and intrigue. The only real issues I ran into with the story was the frequent amount of grammatical errors that made reading a bit frustrating. Obviously not game-breaking or story-ruining, but it does hurt the experience nonetheless.

In regards to gameplay, Dungeon Munchies is a 2D side-scrolling RPG with a couple twists. It almost feels like a roguelike of sorts as well, but that is mostly in the design. This is definitely an RPG where cooking and equipment creation dictate what your zombie is capable of and how strong they will be as you move through the game. Killing monsters and collecting parts from them gives you the opportunity to cook the parts in designated pots, and these meals give you special abilities that you keep until you replace them.

Similarly, collected items can also be used to create weapons and equipment to help on the journey. This is a super-fun idea that keeps gameplay creative and fun as you progress, and fighting new enemies along the journey will grant you new drops to use on future recipes to create abilities, weapons, and secondaries. Another awesome note is the checkpoint and teleport system that is truly incredible. It is set up in such a natural way, and when looking at locations you can teleport to, it indicates what monsters are in that area to help you know where to go if you need a particular drop for a recipe.

Gameplay and combat in Dungeon Munchies is side-scrolly but also twin-sticky, if that makes. Basically, you aim with the left stick as you move, or you can use the D-pad to keep your aim stationary. It is a strange control scheme, but it clicks after a while and feels quite natural, especially around the time you defeat the second boss. From there, and possibly earlier, you will be swinging your primary weapon, whether that be a standard melee weapon or a magic weapon, while also making use of your secondary, which can be a projectile, shield, or a secondary melee weapon. It may sound complicated, and it is, but like I said, it clicks pretty quickly and you will be slaying monster with ease in no time.

Bosses in Dungeon Munchies are spread out nicely along the 47 areas, and they are wonderfully designed, varied, and the right kind of challenge no matter what difficulty you decide to play on. Each of them have their own unique properties that will keep you on your toes, and even after “killing” them, they do tend to throw one last Hail Mary before going down. It is in this moment that panic can settle and poor decisions will be made, causing you to die and restart from the last checkpoint. This is why it is important to stay calm while fighting Dungeon Munchies‘ bosses and learn their rhythms.

Graphically, Dungeon Munchies looks quite good. It is a simple pixelated art style where the environments and the various hazards stand out quite nicely, and the character and enemy designs, especially the still images during conversations, are wonderfully done. Your zombie avatar is probably my favorite part of the game, though, as they evolve over the course of the game. What I mean is that as you unlock new items and power-ups, those additions physically attach to your zombie, so as you progress in the game, the zombie will get more and more ridiculous-looking.

The soundtrack and sounds of Dungeon Munchies are pretty damn good, too, although I would have loved some proper voice acting in certain storytelling moments. Because the characters are so well designed and lots of attention was put into their development, it would have benefited the story tremendously to have that addition. However, that definitely does not break the game, by any means, but it is just a preference of mine. Outside of that, everything sounds great, and the music is solid for this type of game.

At the end of the day, Dungeon Munchies is an excellent indie game side-scrolling RPG! There is a ton to do, and the main story will take around 6-7 hours for a casual playthrough. However, there are loads of extras, and completing everything will obviously take even longer.

The controls do take some getting used to and there are some little hiccups here and there, particularly in the text department (Grammatical errors), but overall, Dungeon Munchies is going to thoroughly entertain and feed you lots of great gameplay, hilarious storytelling, and challenging bosses.

If you are hungry for a unique indie RPG, look no further. Dungeon Munchies is awesome, and you can even buy it physically soon.

A Winding Path Switch Review provided by Nintendo Link
Publisher: Chorus Worldwide
Developer: maJAJa
Release Date: December 15th, 2021
Price: $16.99, £12.49, €14,49
Game Size: 1.9 GB