Coffee Talk Tokyo Review - Hot and Steamy

ScrambledAshton
1 day ago
7 min read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6gkr3DkXAs

There is nothing more chill than sitting in a coffee shop on a warm evening while the summer rain taps on the window, and the Coffee Talk series has really perfected the formula to give players a cozy visual novel that seeps right into your skin and gives you a cozy warm feeling in your tum tum. But does our new entry in the series, set in the iconic Japanese capital of Tokyo, live up to the caffeinated bar of the others, or is this one a little too milky?

Coffee Talk: Tokyo is more talk than coffee and tells the story, over 15 night shifts in an old-school cozy cafe, of a variety of regular customers from all walks of life (and death). You have the family who lives upstairs who are dealing with their child’s change in behavior, a newly retired salaryman, a pop superstar, and even more. And then in between yapping with the patrons of your coffee shop, you’ll get to concoct coffee recipes that fit with their descriptions or that you found while scrolling on your in-game phone.

As I mentioned, there is very little actual gameplay within Coffee Talk: Tokyo. You never get to choose replies to conversations, you don’t get to jump into the coffee-making section at any time, and you don’t get to ‘play’ any hands-on moments. You are simply there to witness and read the conversations between our barista and their patrons.

You’ll spend a lot of time clicking through speech bubbles, listening to the lo-fi mix that plays on repeat in our late-night coffee shop, which, may I add, feels totally at odds with when I think we should be drinking coffee, though I am not sure I should have an opinion as someone completely intolerant to caffeine… Anyway, while you click through speech bubbles, listening to the woes, advice, and stories of your customers, you’ll occasionally be asked to brew up a drink. Some requests are specific, a royal tea, a matcha latte, etc., but some prove more of a challenge, with patrons requesting flavors, vibes, or styles, leading you to trial a few flavor combinations from the ingredients on your station.

Which would feel more fun if there felt like there was any rhyme or reason to what customers actually wanted, or even ways to figure out the recipes from dialogue clues. The only way to potentially find some recipes is to look at the Tomodachill app on the in-game phone, the made-up social media that features lots of additional context and info for the conversations that happen day to day, but also occasionally (and I mean occasionally) random accounts may post coffee recipes that you may want to note down to try another day as they’ll only sometimes be relevant to the day’s requests.

But most of the time, when asking for a random concoction, you’re really flying a bit blind, and it felt a bit like luck of the draw whether I would put the right ingredients in the right slot…which is impressive given there are only ever 3 ingredients in each drink. You can play the ‘free brew’ mode instead of the main story if you’d like to practice your barista skills and uncover new recipes, but I personally feel it shouldn’t be something you have to do to make the correct drinks.

Giving customers the wrong drink (even if it is the right ingredients in the wrong order) doesn’t really impact the game at all. It just means your recipe book may not be full by the end of the 15 days. Customers will still tell us their stories even if the hot chocolate they ordered ended up being a triple espresso. Though you may miss out on unlocking all their friend level information if you mess up their drinks, and could potentially miss out on some valuable context or moments.

Now, my other issue with Coffee Talk actually made me think I was either insane or had accidentally selected something I wasn’t supposed to. The Steam page talks of making dialogue choices that change the outcome of the game. I made exactly 0 choices for the entire game, other than which coffee I delivered to customers, so it is impossible to know what I could’ve done differently to gain all the ‘best’ endings other than be a better barista…also nobody EVER paid me for my hard work making coffee, what the heck!

The story is where Coffee Talk Tokyo really shines. Our colorful cast of characters all bring their own interesting and challenging narratives to explore, tackling sections of our culture we have come to accept as normal. Ayame, a young ghost, searches for her unfinished business and clues to her past life, asking questions about what is important in life and what happens once we pass on. Global megastar Jun struggles with the pressure of keeping up his music career while losing his love of the craft, and Vin, your roommate and coworker, has recently survived a life-changing accident and is grappling with their new body, health, and lifestyle.

Our characters also come in a variety of flavors, namely that each of them represents a different species or story in Japanese mythology. Our Salaryman is a Kappa, forced to adapt to modern life after his family and species were driven from their river homes. Ayame is accompanied by a Marebito, Fuku, who has been assisting the dead to pass on for hundreds of years, and more than a few people who are either Kitsune-human hybrids or a bunch of furries, dealer's choice.

The stories our customers tell are entwined with one another, talking of parental responsibility, helping your partner, the afterlife, and even passion run through all the lives of our clientele, which they use to uplift, educate, and assist each other through any challenges they may be facing. Watching these conversations take place is truly heartwarming, the way having too much coffee could make you feel, I suspect. And with a game that is so focused on talking and telling stories, I can’t fault it for the depth of the narratives that developers Chorus Worldwide Games have created. They feel honest, true to life, and important—all things that you’d want from a game like Coffee Talk.

Coffee Talk focuses on ambience and atmosphere over voice, and while our characters aren’t voiced, the music, rain sound effects, and coffee brewing details layer to create a wonderfully full world around you, though I will say the walking to the door and leaving sound effects take FAR too long.

The music has been composed by Aremy Jendrew, with a whole playlist of lo-fi tunes that are about as chill as an iced latte, punctuating this rustic, old-school coffee shop with a modern relaxing sound that you’d almost certainly find in one of those cool coffee shops that’s just called something like ‘Brew’ but with 2 o’s instead of an ‘ew’.

Coffee Talk Tokyo has evolved the series’ designs significantly, with the character, coffee-making, and backdrop designs having a beautiful finesse that brings this magical, but surprisingly grounded—no pun intended—world to life.

Every character is colorful and uniquely designed, with the bald Makoto being particularly spooky to look at… but with so little opportunity to convey emotion, tone, or reactions, the devs have created lots of incredibly emotive, subtly moving, and full-of-personality designs for each character. While our cafe may be brown and autumnal in its coloring, including our sad static fish, each character is full of color. Splashes of pink cover Vin, Ayame, and Erika, while Jun, Fuku, and Yuni are beams of blue, all stunningly designed by the studio’s character artist.

Also beautifully designed and implemented are the individual coffee designs. With so many combinations you can create, every individual design is not only beautiful but impressive. There are, of course, the random assorted drinks you’ll accidentally create, but where these designs really sing is with the crafted drinks. While the espresso may just be a mug of brown, the other more creative drinks are just as beautifully designed as our characters.

The game runs well on PC and Steam Deck, which isn’t a surprise given that it isn’t particularly intensive, though I don’t think any slowdown would make too much difference if we’re being honest. You can adjust the speed of the text, how quickly they move on, and how loud the music or sound is, but they are the only adjustments you can make to the way the game plays.

Overall, Coffee Talk: Tokyo is a lovely game, but I am also not sure ‘game’ is the right term for it, especially as the gameplay is so minimal. But even with what little I got to interact with in the game, the narrative and stories of the characters brought more than enough joy and whimsy that I don’t begrudge it at all.

The characters, their stories, and their designs are so standout special that, though I may not rush back to play another Coffee Talk game, I am glad I got to experience their lives and watch as relationships formed, questions were answered, and virtual lives were shifted. The writers over at Chorus Worldwide absolutely deserve a raise.

But as much as I enjoyed the narrative, I still wish there was a bit more interaction in my interactive visual novel, but perhaps I will be in the minority and that laid-back approach is exactly what fans of the series are looking for. So with all that in mind, I feel I can only give Coffee Talk: Tokyo a bronze genie lamp. While I think it’ll be for some gamers, I fear most of us will find it a little bit boring and that we might need a coffee to get through it.

BRONZE/GOOD