Okay really random thing but I LOVE the expressions in Coffee Talk Tokyo! I feel like they really went all in on the pixelated anime style in this game which is very fitting since it takes place in Japan where anime originates. Here's a few of my favorite expressions but ❗MILD SPOILERS❗ for Coffee Talk Tokyo due to out of context dialogue.
I love Erika's expressions the most in general. She's so adorable and probably my main example of how varied the expressions of a single character can be, even in a pixel art style!
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"It's been a while" -Staind. In my defense I haven't had many new characters to hyperfixate on... UNTIL NOW! FINALLY COFFEE TALK TOKYO IS HERE I'M SO HAPPY!
So have a Jun edit. Don't worry there will be plenty more Coffee Talk Tokyo edits to come! I just have to figure out how I want to do the rest of them...
Who else remembers seeing adverts for this on Instagram about three years or so ago?
This post contains spoilers.
I searched far and wide for the screenshot of the Instagram Stories advert but couldn't find anything.
I remember it actually irritating me slightly because it seemed slightly ostentatious for a visual novel to be paying ad money for a game. I also remember it being advertised as being on disc as well which is also bizarre. It put me off because I thought most VNs are the raw product often made by an auteur or at least, one would like to imagine that were the case. Especially in the case of the dreaded Doki Doki Literature Club made by Dan Salvato where he pretty much did everything bar some of the art and some of the music. If it were published on disc, I would immediately label it as a corporate product in my mind. Maybe, that's just a misty-eyed fantasy and I am talking out my ass
Anyway, I'm reviewing a game not the marketing strategy of said game.
Screenshot courtesy of rpgsite.net
Persona 5 has a lot to answer for in regards to merging weeaboos and hipsters together to make the feel of sitting in a coffee shop seem cool and chill. I think without Persona 5, this game does not exist. To anyone who has played both, I have to reveal that unfortunately, there are not smokey, lo-fi vibes in a café. I associate cafés with noisy machines, your bad local radio station and staff who think you somehow know their unique, bizarre ruleset every time you go in.
Luckily, for Coffee Talk, it is a fantasy.
I've been putting off writing about this for a long time because I am slowly realizing that I have almost nothing to say about it. So I'll keep it brief.
I think it's interesting to approach making a visual novel like this. By 'like this', I mean that it's almost "vibes only". A lot of what is in this game is what people who play and/or do not like visual novels complain about the lack of. Most people agree a lot of visual novels need some kind of thing for you to do in the in between to justify it's existence as a 'video' 'game' and more of an atmosphere so you aren't just reading with anime characters in the background just looking at you.
Obviously, this isn't always the case and it doesn't have to be the case but it certainly helps.
This game has a coffee-making mechanic because it couldn't have anything else. It's very hit-and-miss and stumped me from time-to-time because I had no idea what the game was asking of me. This almost feels like it belongs in some kind of 'Diner Dash'-like game and this game does have a mode not unlike that for after you finish it. It's satisfying to do and it keeps you busy, I suppose. I can't really say much more than that.
The Plot
The story is okay, as it goes. It largely concerns a world where monsters and humans live together but are largely divided which is nothing you haven't seen before. The characters are charming enough but you basically have no choice but to absorb all of their personal struggles and I can't help but feel like this game confuses a barista for a bartender. To compare it unfavorably to VA11-HALL-A, the story is way more stretched out and far more passive. You aren't really involved in the story in any way other than your ability to make coffee, correctly. You're just watching stuff happen.
It ends by revealing that you are an alien studying humans just like the astronaut is/was. I honestly can't say I really cared.
But the problem is with this game is that it's not really asking you to care, particularly. It's trying to be as lowkey as possible but so much so that if you were to try and explain to a friend what this game was about, you really would struggle to pitch it in an elevator. It's way too quibbly with it's qualms. Characters just come through the door and demand "you must care about me now" and I just couldn't, I'm sorry.
Freya was the only character I liked because she's clearly supposed to be the self-insert spectator and she's unobtrusive enough that you don't become bombarded with 'writer-in-book' syndrome. If you don't know what that is, it's what you think it is.
The problem with me is that I can't switch my brain off to the fact that, whilst I found the characters pleasant at best, not a lot went on with them and I didn't really care what happened to them. The visual novel is not long enough and so, there's not enough focus.
Mildly Disappointed
If you like good vibes and that's it; fill your boots. Otherwise, make an actual coffee, put on bossa nova japanese jazz 3 hours no ads and have an actual conversation with a real human being.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
While driving to work I realized how bad FFXVI has hurt me. I only recognize the first stanza of “Cascade” because of how many fucking times I had to see Tsunami.
In ADDITION to that, they missed an amazing opportunity to have Dion in my party doing all the work because he has special skills required for this age group of boss.
It could have been an entire thing where Dion is like ah yes I don’t have to unalive the children but that one child was a special case.
Depression can be a tool to make people underestimate you. I've never had as much fun as I do in my goblin-mode.
I work in TV with a bunch of really, really gorgeous people who have high energy and makeup/hair skills. I used to do the work daily to be part of that but, I'm not on-cam, so when my depression arc hit I just started doing the bare minimum to keep employed.
Smashcut, walk past the News Director and some others in the hall talking about hair and how they have no idea if their hair is dead.
I'm in frumpy baggy stuff, hair is dry shampooed and doing a nice white-girl windstorm blowout. Dry skin. Dry face. Peeling from lupus rashes.
"Yeah just get your hair wet and see how much tension you can put on a strand before it snaps. If it has give it's fine."
Walk past the ND and co. watch them in their confusion try and judge if I'm actually homeless or just homeless adjacent.
