Hungry Hearts Diner: Memories Review

Food & Stories

I did not expect to tear up over a mobile game. Hungry Hearts Diner: Memories is the fourth entry in the diner sim series from GAGEX Co. The focus is on elderly couple Granny and Gramps as they try to keep their diner afloat in Showa era Japan. Make over 50 unique dishes for a varied cast of regulars, each with an emotional story to tell. The more you listen to their tales, the more you learn about them. And some are connected in surprising ways. Things get a bit slow at times, but the stories make the wait worth it.

Simple To Exquisite

In the beginning, the food that Gramps makes is basic. Examples of simple food: rice ball, grilled sardines and nori. Making food costs energy, represented as hearts. The lowest a dish can cost is one, while the highest is six. Examples of fancy food: fancy eel box, tantanmen and steamed meat bun. The more complex the dish, the more energy it costs to make. This same principle can be applied to the money costs. For instance, a simple bowl of rice costs 100 yen, while a fancy eel box is 500 yen. There are times when you run out of energy, the only stressful part of the game. Energy takes time to refill, so watch an ad to get it back all at once. Or wait for the diner to level up, though that also takes time. Hungry Hearts Diner: Memories makes it a bit challenging to unlock better food.

Often, you’ll need to make two dishes over and over again before achieving something new. Leveling up the rice ball, for example, unlocks several other rice dishes. The highest level I’ve seen dishes need to be is seven. An issue I have with the food is that a handful of them don’t earn money. Since money is needed to upgrade the diner, it makes me wonder why they need to be made at all. While food takes time, the stories in-between make the waiting easier. Aside from the generic characters, i.e. the Salaryman and Blue Collar, everyone has some favorite foods. There are 12 people to learn about, with nine of them coming to the diner and three of them needing food delivered. I believe this game is the first in the series to add food delivery, and it was nice to get out of the diner for a bit.

Interconnected

When first meeting the characters, it seems that their lives don’t overlap in any way. What could a wannabe director, a highschooler, an odd foreigner and a con man have in common? Though they don’t all overlap, there were some that I certainly wasn’t expecting. For example, the scientist, Professor Toki, is the father of the studious highschooler, Kino. Both are working through shared trauma in unhealthy ways, and doing so leads Toki to make a discovery. Which then connects him to the odd foreigner, who might be more than human. The build up with all the character stories was very engaging and emotional. I was honestly tearing up at some parts. Plus, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the translation was. In my experience, games made in Asian countries usually come with several grammatical issues in their translations. Hungry Hearts Diner: Memories has none to speak of, thankfully.

There was one issue I had with the delivery characters. They would often call asking for food I hadn’t unlocked yet. And since I didn’t have what they wanted, I had to refuse their order. Though there didn’t seem to be any penalty for this, I still felt bad and frustrated. Had they asked for certain food after I unlocked them, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Strange Aftertaste

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do love this game. It’s very cozy and really tugs at the heartstrings. But it can be rather slow. Stories only move forward once a character eats certain food. It takes a while to unlock food and collect enough money for upgrades, not to mention waiting for energy to replenish. I know the developers don’t want things to go too quickly, but the wait times really soured the experience for me. If unlocking food took less time, I believe there would be less wait time. Other than that, Hungry Hearts Diner: Memories is a solid entry in the diner sim series. The characters are believably written, the food is varied and the stories are full of emotion. While there is some waiting around, there’s enough content to keep you wanting more. I honestly recommend this game for everyone. Full hearts and full bellies indeed.