Coffee Talk Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Coffee Talk
Genre: Visual Novel, Adventure, Simulation, Communication
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS4, Xbox and PC)
Developer|Publisher: Toge Productions
Age Rating: PEGI 3
Price: US $12.99 |CA $16.37| AUS $ 19.50 |£11.69 |€12,99
Release Date: 29th January 2020

Review code used, with many thanks!

Ooh, Your Coffee Talks

I need to know, know, know
What do ya need, need, need?
To drink to-night, night, night?
‘Cause I’m gonna whip it up right!

‘Cause I will use milk, coffee, and tea!
You can tell all of your problems to me, ‘cause
Ooh, it’s Coffee Talk, it’s Coffee Talk
Ooh, ooh, it’s Coffee Talk!

If you think you might have a sore throat,
I can add honey and ginger you know!
Yeah, you can tell me all your troubles:
Ooh, ooh, it’s Coffee Talk!

 

”It’s Coffee Talk”
Song Parody of “Body Talks” bridge & chorus by The Struts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc3XIbUuTMc

Written by: Ash Mercia

 

Story Time!

Did you enjoy that song parody? I find I am particularly good at writing (and singing) them. First let me just say that I would highly recommend listening to the song, and then trying to superimpose my fun new lyrics on top of the original ones! Whee!

Here’s why I did that: Every. Single. Time. I look at this game – whether it’s booting up the game on my switch main screen, or just looking at the title of my own review right now – I get the riff from that song immediately in my head.

My brain does this: “Ooh! Your coffee talks! Your coffee talks!”

See, this is why I love my brain. Thank you brain for being so random and awesome. *hugs brain*

Good Goddesses, Get To The Review Already!

Coffee Talk is a sweet little visual novel game with amazing artwork, and the one of the chillest soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a game, ever. 

The point of the game is that you are a barista at a coffee shop in Seattle. The year is 2020, and this is no ordinary coffee shop; this coffee shop is open late at night. Now if you think that’s strange, it gets stranger: 

This coffee shop exists in a version of Seattle where humans aren’t the only race. In this Seattle, humans coexist with elves, orcs, succubi, incubi, werewolves, vampires, even sea-creature-people! Don’t worry, these other races don’t run around with clubs trying to force everyone to roll for initiative. Rather, these races are just leading normal lives trying to eke out a living, just like we do now.

In fact, I absolutely loved the story line involving a female orc who is a video game developer! I’m sure there were plenty of in-jokes in her dialogue that hinted at the – from what I’ve seen and read – pretty hardcore non-stop work life game developers lead.

But I digress.

It’s All About Character

Since this game is a visual novel, it is obviously text heavy. Now if you hate reading (blasphemy in my opinion) then you’re likely not going to be first in line to pick this one up. 

But if you are like me, and you LOVE reading, and you LOVE a good story, and you LOVE well crafted characters, then Coffee Talk is going to be a definite buy for you.

Don’t worry, Coffee Talk isn’t all just pressing A and reading. You are the owner of this late night cafe, as such, people entering your cafe are not only looking for someplace to chill and vent, but also someplace to drink a good cuppa joe.

This puts a little side game into the story of making the caffeinated beverages for your patrons. 

It’s as simple as could be: you choose the three ingredients you are going to mix together (a base, and two secondary flavours), and then a cute little cut-scene with sound effects happens and you blend it all together. It’s kind of an ASMR experience. 

Ding! The order is ready! You can serve it. if it’s a latte you can add some latte art, and if you’re not satisfied you can trash it (but only up to five times per day! So be careful what you dump in the dump)!

With such a simple premise, the controls are easy as pie. Mostly just moving the cursor to what you want to select, and then pressing A to select it.

Latte Art?! More like, “OMG WHAT?! I’M DESTROYING IT!”

Okay, so for me, the latte art was a delightful challenge that I literally screwed up every time.

But it didn’t make me upset at all, on the contrary. I found myself laughing at how horrible I was at it. I could not, for the life of me, even pour the milk into the coffee properly, let alone use the little “etch” option to carve in a design.

I found it hilarious when I would swirl and mix it around a bunch of times, trying even just to make something simple like a heart, and end up with some terror from the depths of a Lovecraft short story.

The funny part, for me, was just serving it to the customer anyway, and them just being like “It’s good, thanks.”

I thought to myself, “Are you SURE you didn’t see the Child of Dagon I drew on the top of your latte? Don’t you think you’d much rather throw it on the ground and burn in just in case it starts to spawn demons from the deep?”

Hilarious!

Try To Remember Some Stuff

So this is one of those games where it’s going to be to your benefit to try and remember things. 

Now here’s the aspect I really liked about the “making coffee” portion of this game: it does NOT mess around. There are a few recipes already saved in your character’s cell phone, but those are just the basic espresso, hot chocolate, cafe latte type things. 

Now if you are to just mix some things together, and happen to stumble upon a new drink, boom, it gets saved into your recipes! Woo hoo! When that happened I felt like a rock star, I thought to myself “Look at me, I could probably go be a REAL barista right now and rock it!”

BUT…

Then I had a character come in and ask me for a Teh Tarik. I check, already knowing that it’s not in my recipe list, and sure enough it’s not there at all.

So, I do what anyone would do, right? I Googled “Teh Tarik” and it comes up with all kinds of recipes for this really scrumptious looking Malaysian milk-tea beverage. 

I look at some recipes, and they don’t really help me figure out what – out of the 7-10 ingredients on my video-game barista-shelf – I would have to put in it, and in what order.

So, naturally, I mess up and mess up and mess up, and use up all five of my trash/remake options. Until I just have to serve this poor lady some kind of monster hybrid milk cinnamon latte thing… YES, WITH horrible Cthulhu art on top! Okay! You happy now?!

I say this lovingly though, I liked that the game didn’t mess around. I LIKED that it didn’t tell me the exact combo and recipes for everything. In fact, when I beat the game, I had more undiscovered recipes than recipes I had figured out. 

To top it all off, a few times I DID happen to make a drink with a fancy name. This is why I highly recommend remembering (or writing down) the combos you do come up with, because if you trash it and try again that special one you “discovered” doesn’t actually save into your phone’s recipes. 

Bummer dude.

Characters Are Da Bomb

This game has some stellar writing; and some pretty darn lovable characters as well.

I don’t really want to give away the characters, because I’d really like you to buy this game and experience it for yourself, and then YOU decide who you loved the most.

I will say, however, that my favourite story was the tumultuous relationship between the elf and succubus. Baileys and Lua. Lua was so cute, I just loved her so much – I guess I’d even say I related to her the most in the whole story (duh, probably why I loved her so much).

She and Baileys had a complicated relationship, mainly because of outside influences. BUT, what I especially loved about them was that they were a healthy couple. They weren’t perfect, but they were (eventually) good at communicating with each other, discussing boundaries, and telling each other how they felt. 

I LOVE IT! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! When video games do a good job of portraying healthy relationships. When I see games like GTA5, with that crazy Trevor guy just rolling around the city doing whatever he likes and treating people like crap… well, I get a little bit worried for the future of mankind, especially since – and yes I know games have ratings blah blah blah and kids shouldn’t ever end up with these games and blah blah blah – but face it, kids ARE going to get their hands on games like that, and it might show them that it’s okay to just stroll around being a jerk. And sure, people like Trevor really do exist, and they have stories that can be told, but… so do us normies who are just trying to be better people to those around us.

That’s why I love Coffee Talk (or Dream Daddy, or Akash: Path of the Five) because it (and they) all portray what a healthy relationship can look and sound like.

So kudos to Coffee Talk and it’s creators! Be proud of the excellent art you have created!

As well, I have to add that I want the chill soundtrack for this game just on my regular music playlist. It definitely gives me the “I am sitting in a super chill coffee shop” vibe. And, as someone who goes to her local coffee shops several times a week to get work done, I think I can call myself a good judge of the subject.

Conclusion

Coffee Talk mixes excellent writing, with some amazing artwork and chill-vibe tunes to create this fun experience where one can learn that sometimes the best thing you can do to help someone out is to just sit and listen to them.

This game oozes respect and positive communication, and I think anyone who likes good stories, characters, and music should definitely consider buying this game.

It’s easily affordable, as well as re-playable. There are unlockables, if you’re into that kind of thing, in the form of original artwork. I think what you unlock depends on how well you do with each character’s story.

I know I fudged up the coffee orders several times, and didn’t get the best endings… in fact, the game even told me as much after I beat it:

Almost didn’t screenshot it in time… I hope you can still read it.

My only niggle is that the game had the tendency to crash; it would crash only when I was trying to save in the middle of a day/scenario. I had to leave at one point, and when I tried to save, BLEP! The game just crashed and booted me off.

Thank goodness the game saves itself after every day is finished, but it was still a little annoying to have to start the day from the beginning.

There is a fast-forward option, which not only helped when my game crashed, but will also help on my replays.

All in all, definitely worth picking up! The creators, artists, musicians, programmers… everyone who worked on this game should feel proud of what they’ve done! Thank you for such a fun and interesting experience!

Final Verdict I like it a lot!

I like it a lot!

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