This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is a traditional turn-based RPG that blends in elements of cooking games. It presents a quaint tale that follows the plight of Patty, who, along with her butler and little brother, becomes possessed by a curse of the God of Poverty. The God also happens to be a small, rabbit-like creature called Coco. Classic anime. It’s refreshing to see an RPG of this style not take itself seriously, with a low-stakes, character-centric plot, rather than the typical ‘fate of the universe’ malarkey.

The main gameplay mechanic comes from building up your tavern in order to level up, progress the story, and earn more cash. You accomplish this by (what else?) cooking. You’ll prepare meals to serve customers, increasing the sales of the Inn whilst also satisfying the appetite of Coco and feeding your team to increase their skills and level up.

The turn-based RPG elements come into play as you leave town to explore dungeons to collect the ingredients and supplies required. This can also be accomplished by purchasing what you need at the local store, which you may find preferable to the daily grind that comes from exploring dungeons, especially as you don’t gain XP from fighting enemies. This is the main criticism of the game; it becomes quite grind-heavy and repetitive once you get into the swing of things. The story does keep things fresh, but getting your tavern to the level it needs to be for completion takes a heck of a lot of time.

Presentation-wise, Marenian Tavern Story takes character visual cues from SNES titles like Final Fantasy 3. The art style is obviously anime-infused, but the overworld characters contrast a little with some of the 3D environments sometimes, making them appear blurry.

Overall, Marenian Tavern Story is an engaging RPG with hours upon hours of content within it. It is a solid offering with addictive gameplay that can get slightly tedious after a while. For an RPG fan looking for a new fix, however, you won’t go far wrong with this one.