Ready to be floored by a game that attempts to do it all? The Tale of Food is just that—part visual novel, gacha, resource management, and part fighting gaming. Madfun Games is determined to do it all.
You play as a Master Chef (name and gender changeable) whose home, Kongsang, is destroyed by a demon. To restore the palace, they must destroy the Tale of Food, a book containing all recipes in the known world. If they destroy the book, all of the happy memories made with the personified food will vanish, but their home will be saved.
MC is told by some of the personified food to destroy the book. “Don’t worry, chef” the foods say, “we’ll find you even if we don’t remember you, and it’s thousands of years before we meet you.” Determined to find the friends they’ve lost due to destroying the friends’ existences, MC travels to the past.
Confused? Yeah, same.
The motivation for the MC is to collect all their friends once more, but it’s hard to understand the motivations of the personified Chinese dishes. Some are willing to go with MC after a single conversation; one character remembers everything inexplicably, while others decide to go to the demon’s side.
The story may improve over time, though the dialogue needs edits for clarity and fluency. It is strange as the characters are not voiced by Chinese actors and might mispronounce words. English is not a tonal language, unlike Mandarin, which has four tones. One cannot help but wonder if we are missing cultural nuances.
Beauty in Elaborate Meals
The Tale of Food is incredibly pretty—everything is made with care, from the battle scenes with chibi sprites to the main home screen. There are even more areas with different art styles, but none of them clash. It’s one of the prettiest mobile games I have seen. The soft anime style that is distinctly Chinese and not Japanese, shines when gaining a new card. The chibi forms in the battles hop as though gravity does not apply to them.
The gacha has a pity system after 80 pulls, and there are no differences between single and consecutive summons. One is not better than the other. Repeat cards are common, and they do not merge automatically. I cannot tell why this feature exists.
In terms of battles between story beats, you can play the game on auto with Auto Walk and Auto Battle, but Auto Battle is risky as they dole out ultimate attacks without the player’s input. Four characters can be on the screen at once to attack shadow creatures. There is also a miniboss with extra health and attacks at the end of the section. Characters each have three special attacks and one basic. Special attacks refresh after a certain number of rounds have passed, such as 1, 3, or 5 rounds.
An Entire City
The city of Konsang is also explorable and opens up as the player levels up. There is a kitchen where characters make certain dishes to sell in the restaurant. The dishes level up and become more complex, drawing in more customers. There is a study, restaurant, kitchen, farm and even more places I did not explore.
