Developed by Toge Productions
Published by Chorus Worldwide
Released for Xbox One (1/31/2020)
Also on Mac/PC/PS4/Switch
Coffee Talk is a visual-novel game where you play as a barista at a coffee bar, serving up beverages to an interesting cast of characters. The setting is in Seattle, which grounds the game in reality somewhat, but the characters are completely far out. You'll encounter a vampire, werewolf, mermaid, and a cat-lady among other strange patrons, each with their own story to tell. I can't really say I've played anything quite like Coffee Talk on the Xbox One before, so if you're looking for something different this just might be it...
The bulk of your time with Coffee Talk will be spent playing the main story, which will last somewhere between 3-5 hours, depending on how fast you read and if you skip text or not. The majority of gameplay just consists of reading the dialogue between characters, with the occasional chance to brew a drink for your patron. This should inform you right off the bat if this is going to be a game for you, as I know how so many people can't stand reading, especially when it comes to video games. This alone makes Coffee Talk a niche title, but there's nothing wrong with that and there's more than enough room in the gaming marketplace for titles that cater to a smaller audience. The customers you'll serve are an interesting bunch and the writers did a great job giving each of them unique personalities. Occasionally you'll be requested to serve up a certain kind of drink and you'll have to select the proper ingredients to mix it. These sequences do a good job keeping the player involved without being too challenging.
To help add some replay value to Coffee Talk, there are a few other things to do after you've finished the main story. There will be some new dialogue if you go back and re-play specific days in the story, giving you a little additional insight into the who the barista is. There's also an endless mode, which contains both free play and challenge modes. Free play allows you to brew up whatever you want, which will let you experiment and find new concoctions. Challenge mode has a time limit and tasks you to serve up as many customers as possible before the timer runs out. If you serve the proper drink that the customer requests, you'll gain additional time to keep going. As you progress further, the requests will get tougher. Both of these endless modes can be fun for a few plays, but they're not something you'll keep coming back to.
With Coffee Talk being a visual novel where the gameplay is much more limited compared to your average game, it's obviously not going to appeal to everybody. For those who enjoy a well-written story with interesting characters and don't mind some reading, I can easily recommend checking this one out. The laid-back mood of the game makes it a great title to play at night before bed, since it's a game that doesn't require your senses to be firing off on all cylinders.
Coffee Talk was developed by the Indonesian-based indie studio Toge Productions, at least as far as I can tell. From looking at their website, they appear to be more on the publishing side of things but I can't seem to find anybody else credited for the development, so perhaps they're publishers that dip into the creation side of things from time to time. Correct me if I'm wrong on the publisher as well, but it looks like Chorus Worldwide would handle publishing and some of the translations for Asian territories. I'm interested in all this mainly because I enjoyed Coffee Talk and was hoping perhaps there were more games similar to this from the developer, but all of their other works look to feature more standard gameplay (which is why I question who actually developed the game).
Final Verdict: Coffee Talk is a visual-novel where you play as a barista, serving up a colorful cast of characters at your coffee shop while chatting it up about everyday life and the problems that arise from it. Highly recommended for those looking for something a bit more laid-back.
Related Links:
Buy Coffee Talk - Microsoft Store
Toge Productions - Official Site
Chorus Worldwide - Official Site
Coffee Talk - Metacritic
Coffee Talk - GameFAQs
Coffee Talk - True Achievements
Coffee Talk Achievement Guide - Xbox Achievements
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