Coffee Talk Review (Aout Besson)
Gameplay & Storytelling
Gameplay was alright, although I found the coffee recipe system strange due to unnecessary inaccessibility of unknown recipes that you have to unlock by an oftentimes random mixing of ingredients. Despite such obscurity, I found the coffee making + dialogue gameplay the best thing about the game. Too bad it was so short, I barely tasted a thing. The storytelling itself is ok, though it lacks flavor. Perhaps, special flavor is the last thing the setting needs, as we only listen to everyday problems of everyday people, although even the most interesting stories lack something. The twist at the end of the game felt too random and farfetched, even for a fictional world.
Besides storymode, there are also two modes where you can freebrew coffee (perhaps to discover new recipes or to memorize them) and the limited time mode where you have to get as much coffee brewed in a limited time. Both of them were kind of "meh" for me, as the first mode I tried and never touched it again, and the second one is stressing for a game with a seemingly cozy atmosphere.
Graphics
Loved it, not too many details. The characters are pleasant. The drinks design looks sooo yummy, would have loved to try some of them irl. Cookbook when?
Overview
I genuinely love coffee and tea. I love trying out new coffee drinks, I love the feeling of comfort and better times I came to associate with it. The best thing about Coffee Talk to me is the lack of cynicism in it, a plenty of coffee-ness and an overall warm atmosphere. That's where its charm starts and ends for me.
Coffee Talk doesn't really have the length, nor focus to develop a substantial storytelling. The stories and problems that it very obviously tries to cover are extremely short and kind of shallow. It might seem very "slice of life", but again it lacks the length and gameplay to deliver that everydayness and routine. It feels like a TV series that you watch and forget. While the visuals are nice, and I somewhat liked the coffee aspect, the well-designed characters lose all their significance and meaning in the unexpected and shallow ending of the game. Subsequently, the stories that are told though those characters feel mostly superficial, as most of their outcomes we don't even see. There are too many flavors, none of them feel deep enough, and the cup is too small to fit.
If you love coffee, you could play it and find something charming in its atmosphere. If you don't like coffee, I could not see how you will like this game, though you surely wouldn't hate it either.
5.5/10