Battle Buffet

The Battle Buffet (Japanese: バトルバイキング Battle Buffet) is an all-you-can eat buffet in the Hau'oli City mall frequented by many s. Dining costs 1,200. Customers can browse the buffet and take their choice of the offerings, but if another person wants the same dish, they must settle it with a.

After the player pays the fee to dine, they can approach the buffet line and browse the dishes on offer. Every dish is also being watched by a Trainer who will challenge the player to battle if they attempt to take that dish. If the player wins, they can take that dish and then move on to others to repeat the process. As the player takes dishes, they will be replaced with others, and untouched dishes will gradually deplete and also be replaced. The player's time at the buffet is limited by the number of turns they take in battles, with 10 turns allotted for the player to choose as many dishes as they can. When their time is up, the player will return to their table to eat.

After the player has eaten, the waitress will assess the player's satisfaction. This depends on the number of servings the player acquired for each dish and the quality of the dishes. After her assessment, she will give the player an item depending on how satisfied the player was.

After clearing the game and dining five times at the Battle Buffet, a woman known as the buffet queen will appear when the player next enters the restaurant. She will challenge the player to a competition to see who can get more satisfaction from the buffet. If the player wins, she will confer the title of buffet queen/king on the player. The player must obtain the highest satisfaction level (a score of 50 or more) to beat her. If the player does not beat her, she will challenge the player again on their next visit. When the buffet queen is present, eating at the buffet is free, but the player cannot eat at the buffet without accepting her challenge and will not receive an item after completing their meal.

The player has full access to the menu between battles. The player may choose to leave the restaurant at any time, but they will not be given a refund. If the player leaves before finishing dining, they can return and start over again. Otherwise, in Sun and Moon, the player can only dine at the buffet once a day. Although the once-per-day limitation was lifted in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the player can still only acquire one item per day.

Mechanics
There are nine dishes that can appear at the buffet, each having a different inherent quality as reflected in the colors of each dish's cover. Better dishes satisfy the player better, but they also deplete more quickly if they are left alone.

When the player examines a dish at the buffet, they will also be able to tell how much remains of it. This corresponds to the number of servings the player will receive if they choose that dish.

Initially, the buffet has four random dishes with random amounts of servings remaining. Whenever the player takes a dish, that place becomes empty and is only replaced by a new dish after the player takes their next dish. If a dish runs out of servings without the player taking it, then it will immediately be replaced by a new dish. New dishes always start with the maximum amount of servings.

When the player finishes a battle, all dishes in the buffet line lose a number of servings depending on the dish and how long the battle took. If the player took enough turns for a dish to be depleted of all its servings, it is replaced by a new dish, which can also lose servings (and be replaced again) if the number of turns the battle took exceeded the number of turns required to deplete the previous dish. The game always performs this process fully for the leftmost dish before moving to the next dish. The queue of new dishes that can appear at the buffet is also set when the player pays to dine (meaning it will always be the same if they save and reset in the middle). As a consequence, where it may seem intuitive for the dish with the least servings remaining to be depleted and replaced first, if a battle takes long enough that a dish to the left is also depleted, that one will instead receive the first new dish in the queue and the dish that started with less will be replaced by the dish after that (or potentially later depending on the dish and the length of the battle).

If the player speaks to the man in a pink shirt standing away from the buffet, he will inform the player if the next dish in the buffet's queue is a popular dish (with a gold cover).

Satisfaction
The player's satisfaction at the end of the buffet is scored by the number of servings they acquired for each dish, each multiplied by the dish's satisfaction multiplier. For example, 5 Chansey omelettes and 5 plates of Tamato pasta would have a total score of 20. The waitress will give the player an item depending on this score. While the buffet queen is present, however, no item will be rewarded at the end of the player's meal.

Trainers
The Trainers who watch each dish are selected randomly when the dish appears.