One day I was scrolling through various cat videos on Instagram and was advertised a game featuring what appeared to be a hot dog personified as a sexy lady. Despite being patently ridiculous, this game is entertaining as heck.
Gacha games like Fate Grand Order and Otogi Spirit Agents are a little bit silly. In order to keep coming up with new characters to summon, so as to entice players to keep summoning them and possibly buying premium currency to do so, Grand Order and Otogi Spirit Agents turn to history to fill out their rosters. That’s how you end up with Sexy Anime George Washington.
For the free mobile game Food Fantasy, the makers achieve the same effect by having every character be the anime personification of food. Here’s the main villain, Boston Lobster.
Here’s another character I summoned last night, Hot Dog.
Summoning characters in this game makes me feel like I’m losing my grasp on reality. Who am I going to summon next? Bonito flakes? Risotto? I bet Seitan is a villain.
Once you get over how bizarre this premise is, it’s actually a very fun game. I was so ready to make fun of it for being completely bonkers, but the more I play, the more fun I have with its systems.
One thing I really love is that when you take your Food Souls—that’s what they call the characters—out to battle Fallen Angels—the enemies you have to fight—you can unlock special abilities if two Food Souls are on the same team. When you pair up Milk and Black Tea, Milk gains a powerful healing ability, while Black Tea can use her gun to deliver a deadly blow that can confuse enemies. Yes, Black Tea has a gun. I don’t make the rules.
It also solves a problem I usually have with gacha games. What am I supposed to do with all the characters I don’t want to use that are cluttering up my inventory? Well, in Food Fantasy, you run a restaurant, and the lower ranked characters have special abilities that can earn you more in-game currency in that restaurant. While you’re out grinding monsters with your fighting team, you earn ingredients that you can then use in your restaurant. You unlock new dishes by combining ingredients in the research tab, and then have your Food Souls cook them for your eager customers.
If Food Fantasy was either a restaurant management game or a typical gacha fighter, it would probably be kind of boring. Because it’s both of those games, I find myself bounding back and forth between the restaurant and the battlefield when I run out of stamina to fight more battles. I’ve also found it pretty easy to earn the currency you need to summon more Food Souls. That’s great news, too, because I want a hamburger to go with my Hot Dog.
[“source=kotaku”]
