Top 5 Games to Play While Eating Soup Alone on Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is all about love, and putting the time in for the most important people in your life. Such as yourself, via the medium of my two favourite things — gaming and food. Food, of course, being important to fuel your gaming, and also enhance it through sensory seduction. Skillful gamers can even do both at the same time.
Different foods and different games will pair differently, as any “foodie” would tell you about pairings. Soup is perhaps the “ultimate” — the most prestigious food to eat while doing something else. It’s also the most romantic food because it is just other food put into a liquid together just like how love is. As such, here are some handy tips for some great games you can pair with your soup (including bread and/or cheese toasties) this special Valentine’s Day… and which soup they’d be ideal to be paired with!
Mobius Final Fantasy – Cream of Chicken Soup
Having just released on Steam there’s never been a better time to eat soup alone while playing Mobius Final Fantasy. It might be turned based, but what’s especially useful here is Mobius‘ extremely competent Auto Mode. At times good ol’ Wol knows what he’s doing in the battles way more than I do. I can feel perfectly at ease letting the game play itself as I watch on, sipping on some cream of chicken soup — because no matter how hard you wish it to be true chocobos just aren’t real. This just edged out Fire Emblem Heroes, which might do the job, but the AI on Auto just isn’t as good.
Hatoful Boyfriend – Spicy Wood Pigeon Soup
What’s better than truly and luxuriously treating yourself with a lovely romantic visual novel alone on Valentine’s Day? Pigeons are unarguably the most romantic animals, definitely as far as the bird family is concerned. All it takes is one touch on a mouse or keyboard to progress the story, leaving you plenty of room to enjoy a nice, warming pigeon soup on a cold, solitary evening. It’s the perfect pairing — ultimately the true testament of love is whether or not you can consume it. Or whether or not you’d be willing to consume it.
Pokémon Sun/Moon – Hawaiian Saimin Soup
The Aloha region is based on Hawaii — not only a great, romantic holiday destination, but also a great foodie hotspot. Now, thanks to Pokémon you can combine both at once from the comfort of your own home, and with a lovely Pokémon twist. As it’s a turn based, slow paced game, you can take it as slow as you need while tucking into your noodle soup. For best results I would suggest eating at a table or a desk and laying your 3DS flat with the screen raised, reaching over to adjust the cursor in battles when necessary so as to avoid accidentally spilling soup on your 3DS screen. Once stained, it’s difficult to unstain a 3DS. Just trust me on this one.
Yakuza – Miso Soup
“Eating soup while playing an action packed brawler like Yakuza?” I hear you cry. I shake my head. It’s clear you are not a true Yakuza fan. Yes, Yakuza is one of the best action series in the entire world, but that’s hardly all there is to it. Every Yakuza game is soup-packed with a huge amount of fantastically written story. Next time you have a series of cutscenes coming up it’s the perfect time to crack open your soup can, pour it into a microwaveable container, wait for a few minutes for it to heat up, wait for a few minutes to cool down, and then get slurping while you enjoy some of Yakuza’s superlative story cutscenes. For an authentic experience you need to pair it with a Japanese soup, such as Miso, or potentially ramen if you want to get noodly down there.
Mario Party vs CPUs – Mushroom Soup
A lot of people say that Mario Party is one of the most fun multiplayer experiences out there. A lot of people are also wrong. Mario Party is one of those games best experienced solo, alone in your room, while eating soup on Valentine’s Day. Yes, there are some intense, high-octane mini-games — but these all have lengthy gaps between them where you’re welcome to dine on your soupy treat as you please. In fact, playing with these short breaks in mind may actually aid with digestion, meaning that eating soup while playing Mario Party is almost certainly healthier than eating soup without playing Mario Party. Take note, New Scientist.
Mario Party just about managed to knock Wario Ware off the list as the definitive “eating soup between mini-games” entry on this list. Like it or soup with lumps it, Wario Ware is just a little bit too energetic for the perfect solitary soup excursion. It will only end in tears.
But that’s just our list. What about you? I’m sure there’s a lot of great soup games we missed off this list and just couldn’t fit in! Let us know what you’ll be playing alone on Valentine’s Day while eating soup in the comments section below!
