#Everyday♪ Today’s MENU for EMIYA Family Switch Game Review

Everyday♪ Today’s MENU for EMIYA Family appears to be a successor to the beloved cooking franchise Cooking Mama on Nintendo Switch, but just featuring cute girls from the Fate series. Anime Trending staff members Agnes and Nico do a deep dive with Anime Trending Editor-in-Chief Kwok-Wai to uncover the hype behind the game, feel the “comfy vibes”, and truly determine if the game plays out more like an intense cooking session or a relaxed visual novel with bonus episodes. 

The video game adaptation is based on the spin-off manga written and illustrated by TAa, which also received an online net animation adaptation by ufotable in 2018. 

STORYLINE PROGRESSION:

In terms of the main story, players are subjected to three-story routes where they play as “cooking assistants” to Emiya Shirou. These assistants take the form of the three female protagonists from the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel. All players begin with Saber in the easy mode, followed by playing with Sakura in the intermediate mode, and finally Rin in the expert mode. Between Emiya and the three heroines, there is a substantial amount of dialogue and friendly banter. You’re allowed to select dialogue options that give a light visual novel feeling and open up new episodes exclusive to certain characters. 

This particular feature can be a little confusing at first. We found out that we could progress forward in time through the seasons, but jumping to an earlier timeline would reset all our choices up to that selected episode. It almost felt like a permanent ending or fixture to the game, rather than allowing us to go back to save points typically seen in other visual novels. While this was not detrimental to our overall experience, it did make us more careful when it came to decision making.

CHARACTER INTERACTIONS: 

Interacting with the three protagonists is a real treat. For players who are fans of the three female protagonists, each of the isolated routes provides an adequate amount of time to spend time with them. You really feel this sense of connection growing between you playing as Shirou, and cannot help but feel so much affection for any of the females. 

However, unlike the animated adaptation of Today’s MENU for Emiya Family that spotlighted various Fate characters through each meal, Everyday♪ Today’s MENU only name-drops certain characters like Lancer, Rider, and Fujimaru-sensei. Because the gameplay is so focused on the three girls, we never get to see cameos of our favorite characters. If the game ever gets a DLC added, it would be nice to cook a meal with Lancer and toast over our success with a spot of beer.

GAME MECHANICS: 

Everyday♪ Today’s MENU features quick-time events (QTEs) of button smashing and raising gauge levels to cook the meals. At first, the events are deceivingly easy in Saber’s route, as they are much slower and designed to ease players into the gameplay. But by Sakura’s route, the intensity increases, and the sensitivity between button mashing and swinging the Joy-Cons varies wildly. 

All three of us were quite frustrated trying to achieve perfect scores in the QTEs, as only near-perfect scores to overcome goal milestones would guarantee unlocking new content. This differs from any other video game that values gradual game progression over score perfection. Additionally, the variety of QTEs are limited and do not include the full experience of preparing multiple-course meals from start to finish, which is strikingly different compared to Nintendo’s more intensive Cooking Mama franchise. 

Interestingly enough, Everyday♪ Today’s MENU also offers alternative modes to enjoy the game, including daily missions to unlock memories if players cannot achieve perfect scores, eight different practice sessions to polish their QTE skills, and a customizable mode to dress up the three girls throughout the story. For cooking aficionados who manage to complete the game, Everyday♪ Today’s MENU includes 20 recipes to recreate each meal with real-life ingredients. 

We found ourselves liking this extra tidbit because it lessened the intensity of the game and lent itself to the actual fun of Everyday♪ Today’s MENU: to cook with your favorite girls and learn new recipes along the way. 

CONCLUSION:

Even though the game was a little more challenging than we thought, we really enjoyed Everyday♪ Today’s MENU as long-time fans of the Fate franchise. We thoroughly appreciated the time spent with each of the protagonists in a setting that wasn’t charged with Holy Grail War tensions or complicated interpersonal relationships. Not to mention, our efforts toiling through this game wasn’t in vain, as we were rewarded with unlockable costumes, including unique New Year’s outfits specifically created for this game. 

Currently, Everyday♪ Today’s MENUis available through download only for both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite. The Japanese version was released on April 28 and received an English localization exclusive for North America on June 2, 2021. However, the game is only available with Japanese audio and English subtitles.  

The price tag of $49.99 is quite high for what the game has to offer. However, if you are a fan of the Today’s MENU For Emiya Family premise of depicting Fate/Stay Night’s characters in a peaceful setting, the game is a pleasant way to spend time with Shirou, Saber, Rin, and Sakura.