I want to see Miriam eat (in-game item consumption)

I personally disagree. The wonkiest thing about SotN was having to equip food in a hand, throw it on the ground, and then pick it up to get the bonus. It reeked of an item system bolted on instead of baked in from the beginning.

That said, I wouldn't mind an animation or sound effect of some kind once you come back from the menu to make it more apparent that something has happened.

I like the idea. The thread title sounds kinda like what a stalker would say though and I find it hilarious. "I want to see her put the meat in her mouth and swallow that drink" lol

I want to see a more elaborate Miriam cooking animation. Like Miriam flipping food in a pan,  putting ingredients in a pot, cutting vegetables...The Miriam finished cooking animation is cute though.

crocodile So the strategy/difficulty side of this is mostly ancillary to my main point (fun and gamey-ness to me), since I don't necessarily think that these games are about being challenging, but if we're going in this direction then that's cool because I still think what I said holds (and yeah, for me personally it would certainly enhance it).

It's convenient that you brought up RPGs there, because I don't think that instant healing is standard at all for RPGs actually. I can't think of a scene that goes like this -

During encounter with enemy, monster is animating an attack that would kill your character/the party, so you pause the game and heal appropriately, unpause to take the hit and keep playing.

There has to be at the very least turn order to consider after issuing commands, if not most often casting time and animations. If the enemy is already in the process of doing a move, it's definitely too late in any game I can think of.

Now, of course healing is instant in-menu when you're not in any danger in field screens, overworlds and whatnot, but that's fine since it's a time saver since you're not in battle. In battle, that would subvert the idea of the game's system/mechanics and the strategy it wants you to use to think ahead on how you can restore your characters. One semi-exception I can think of is the limited "cheat" mechanic that Bravely Default has called Bravely Second, which stops time and lets you get an immediate free action. It's pretty strong and a big deal as a mechanic because afaik it hadn't been done before

What portable Igavania essentially lets you do, if we're thinking about it in RPG terms, is let you Bravely Second at any time you might die to heal yourself. I don't think it can be diminished that it's more strategic comparatively to have to think ahead of time, or distance yourself from the enemy, to heal...because it is.

Wished it could work like MGS3 Snake Eater, she would rate the food when eating. Would be 10/10. What a thrill.

I wrote earlier my views on potions.

In my opinion, potions should be a fast regen, instead of an instant heal.

Like, if you use a potion in menu, it will actually show a light-color that doesn't fill (if you are at 32 / 300 hp before, you're still at 32 / 300 hp after using a potion), but when back in combat, will quickly fill over 3 seconds.

Let's say you are at 23/150 HP. Using a potion will fill 50 HP of your bar visually, but won't heal you until you pop out of menu. This allows you to stack 2 potions on top of eachother to heal 100 HP over 6 seconds.

Doing this means you can remove arbitrary item limits (9 of a potion, 5 of a high) as the crux is taken off of use exploitation and put more on planning.

This also enables them to add rare rejuvenation potions that have a very high cost but heal instantly.

There already appears to be a delay between exiting the menu and actually receiving the healing effects of potions. Someone in another thread mentioned dying in that interval.

I would like it if the food was a bit more involved. The cooking animation is way too fast and abrupt; I don't know what she's doing at the end there, sticking her arms out. It's hard to tell what purpose food is supposed to serve, other than the permanent first-time bonus. It currently seems like you can't eat the same dish again, though it also seems like you should be able to. Otherwise, why have it as an item that you need to use, rather than it just being immediately consumed for the permanent bonus after cooking? Perhaps food should not be useful in combat, but have an animation, so you could use it to recover between fights, when you're far from a teleporter or save point, and have the potions serve for quick in-combat recovery.