Food Fantasy is innovative in its attempt to combine two distinct genres. Clash of King’s publisher Elex’s newest creation manages to be both a JRPG and a restaurant management game. The free-to-play title is ambitious in scope, utilizing elements from the two unlikely genres to formulate the backbone of one cohesive storyline. However, despite Elex’s best intentions, Food Fantasy’s uniqueness also makes it fall flat as a game.
Food Fantasy commences by giving players some background to the world that they find themselves in. The story goes that peace of harmony ruled the relations between the kingdoms of mankind and the elves. However, evil could not be contained and spirits called Fallen Angels began indiscriminately attacking both races. In the midst of the encroaching darkness, anthropomorphized food items called Food Souls came into existence to defend the humans and elves.
Food Fantasy then jumps from its brief prelude and drops players in the city of Hilena. Although players can give the protagonist whatever name they desire, they ultimately do not have much control over the actions that the character takes. It’s a set script: the protagonist has just opened a new restaurant in Hilena and wants to become a successful and renowned restaurant owner.
On the first day, a mysterious girl comes to eat at players’ restaurants. She ultimately introduces players to their first Food Souls, among which is a woman representing rice. With Rice and other Food Souls in tow, the game kicks off in earnest. Players can begin to explore the RPG and restaurant simulation aspects of the game, and will need to engage in both to progress the storyline.
The designs for the Food Souls is generally good. It’s pretty evident what food each Food Soul is supposed to represent, and their character designs tend to be very well thought out. However, the difference between the designs as portrayed in the Summon screen off the main menu and how the characters actually appear in battle is a bit jarring.
One of the main drawbacks of Food Fantasy is that there isn’t much interaction between the game’s two sides. The fights and leveling system found in the game’s RPG elements don’t hold any real bearing on its restaurant simulation levels, and vice versa. It feels as though Elex mashed two separate games into one title, which makes Food Fantasy give off an extremely odd feeling.
Moreover, the fighting system in the RPG aspect of Food Fantasy is not that great. The game encourages players to mindlessly grind until they reach high levels instead of inducing them to cultivate actual skill.
On the restaurant sim side, the game is fairly standard. Players need to research new foods, develop new recipes by mixing together various ingredients, and help ensure that customers have good experiences at the restaurant. This part of the game can be fun, but it does not stand out from the multitude of other management simulators out on the market.
Food Fantasy also requires players to have a Wi-Fi connection at all times or use data, which is a turn-off all on its own. The fact that Food Fantasy makes players accept its Privacy Policy and check off that they are over 16 years of age every time they enter the app also tempers the game’s likeability. Elex put many barriers up that players need to get through to even open the game, which is never a good idea.
The game also features a smattering of grammatical errors and odd turns of phrase. While franchises like Final Fantasy limit the amount of mistranslations that come over to the English versions of their games, Food Fantasy does not always manage to do so. It can ruin the sense of immersion to be reading through the game’s storyline only to come across words that are clearly out of place.
Food Fantasy tries to be two games, but it fails to provide a singular product that feels fully realized. A lot of great ideas went into the game, but many of them needed better implementation than what they ultimately received. Elex’s newest game has the potential to be an intriguing title, but as of now it has not come close to reaching that ceiling.
Rating: 6/10
Check Out the Food Fantasy Launch Trailer:
Food Fantasy is available for download on the App Store and Google Play.
Android Review
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Overall Score - 6/106/10
I'm a recent graduate of Columbia University. Gaming has been a passion of mine my entire life; I enjoy everything from RPGs and FPSs to stealth and narrative-driven games. I love the deeply immersive quality that good video games inherently possess, and am looking forward to highlighting games worthy of acclaim. When I'm not studying or reading, you can catch me playing games like Uncharted, Dishonored, The Witcher 3, and Far Cry.
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