"Anyone can cook" may be the big line from Ratatouille, but it fits just as well here. Even though she and everyone she knows is too dead to taste food, necromancer/chef Simmer still holds on to her passion thanks to the sheer intrinsic joy of expression and experimentation. What Dungeon Munchies does best is allow the player to share in that joy - although what you'll be cooking up is character builds.

Dungeon Munchies doesn't have stats or simple vertical progression. Instead, your build is determined entirely by your gear: two weapons, and seven dishes that grant unique buffs. This makes trying out new playstyles dead easy: have you been using spears but want to try out that new recipe that buffs magic? Just regurgitate your current build at the next checkpoint and have a new one ready in seconds! It's a great system that cuts a lot of the fat from RPGs while maintaining the fun factor. I was pleasantly surprised to find almost no grind in the game at all - you don't even spend ingredients to craft things! This does change later, when you gain the ability to upgrade dish effects, but even then I never felt like I needed to grind to keep up.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the narrative. The game keeps a tight focus on a small set of characters, and what seem at first like bit-parts will stick around and justify doing so. The cast members have clear history and relationships with each other that elevate them beyond the game's surreal and shitposty tone.

The pacing does fall off in the last act, as you're yanked away from the final boss to rehash some themes and wrap up a silly side-plot. By that point I had already found a build that trivialized most of the game, so there weren't many places to go mechanically either. Still, though, I'm quite glad I played this, and it's an easy recommendation to anyone interested.