Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God

Last week, I previewed Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God for the Nintendo Switch. And now I’m finally ready to give you my full thoughts on the game. Is Marenian Tavern Story worth check out?

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God doesn’t have a very good story. The game puts a lot more focus on its tavern running than it does the story itself. The dialogue in the game isn’t good either. What about the gameplay though? Is Marenian Tavern Story a fun game?

Marenian is one part simulation game, one part turn-based rpg. The two elements do work well together, but this game doesn’t offer anything new to either genre. How much you enjoy Marenian depends on how much you like old school simulation (like Harvest Moon) and old school turn-based rpgs.

The sim elements in Marenian are very Harvest Moon or Little Dragon Cafe like, though simplified a bit. There isn’t much to running the tavern: cook up some meals and then open up the place. Some farming elements pop up as you go but someone else does the farming for you. I do wish there was more to do in and around the tavern.

As for the turn-based rpg elements, the battle system is a lot like what we’ve seen in other games: you take your turn, the enemy takes their turn, and so on. I’m a fan of the turn-based rpg genre, so I like Marenian Tavern Story’s battles. Oh and if you don’t like random battles, you won’t like this game. There are a lot of random battles in the dungeons. Those are also the places where you find most of your ingrediants for recipes, though you can get special cards that let you skip exploration if you feel lazy. Neat!

Meanwhile, the game’s controls are simple to learn and work well, for the most part. I did notice the occasional input lag here and there. It doesn’t hurt the game too much but I did wonder if the game was going to freeze up on me a couple of times. No freeze ups though.

Marenian Tavern Story is a good game. It could have been a bit better I believe, but if you need a good rpg to play between bigger releases, you may want to consider this one. It does have pretty good graphics too!

I really like the graphics in Marenian Tavern Story. It has good old school graphics and design. The game looks good in handheld mode and on the TV too!

Most impressive, to me, is that the menus are very readable in TV mode. You don’t see that often in Switch games, most games format the menus with small lettering that fits handheld mode more. Either way you go, Marenian is just a good looking game. It does have occasional minor framerate issues though.

Then there’s the games music which is just ok and the sound effects are alright. Neither are special but they don’t take away from the game either.

Marenian Tavern Story isn’t the best rpg/sim you’ll find on the Nintendo Switch, but it is a good game.

I had fun with Marenian Tavern Story. Its story isn’t great but I like its sim and rpg elements. I do wish the sim elements were a little more complex, but what is presented here is a good rpg/sim. If you need something to play while you wait for the next big rpg, you could do worse than this game!

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God gets a 7.0 out of 10.

Thanks to KEMCO for providing a digital code for this review. Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is currently available on the Nintendo Switch eshop!