Coffee Talk Tokyo

Coffee Talk Tokyo was provided by Chorus for review. Thank you!

Coffee Talk has always been one of those games where you can just sit back, take it easy, and make some coffee while learning about your patrons and the problems they’re dealing with, and Coffee Talk Tokyo is no different. However, this time, we’re in Tokyo. And while the core of the series remains unchanged, we have new people to meet, new stories to hear, and a new setting to fall in love with.

Throughout each day, our memorable cast of new characters will come in to drink some coffee or tea and vent about their problems. Generally, we will take their order, make their drink, then listen and have a discussion about the troubles that are eating away at them, all to the sound of fantastic lo-fi beats.

Even though I had played the other two games in the series, I still felt engaged and excited with Coffee Talk Tokyo. I’ll also realize how deep the topics can get. These can be a little lighter, like discussing how difficult it is to make friends as an adult, but it can go into deeper territory, like pulling yourself up out of rock bottom, not feeling like you belong, or finding yourself again after retiring from work, and facing those around you who felt neglected by work being a priority. Each of these topics, despite how serious they are, is handled with grace, and even if I couldn’t relate to them directly, I still found them very interesting. It even has some hints of Japanese culture nested in there, especially when it comes to work-life balance.

It also helps that the cast is great. Their designs all feel so unique and memorable, while their personality shine through the lines of dialogue that appear on the screen. Blue’s excitement as she introduces Kenshi to Jun’s music is contagious, while the pain Kenshi feels after describing how he felt ignored by his wife hit me hard. The combination of the atmosphere, the character, the designs, the music, and the way the text is accentuated based on how loud or soft someone is speaking, all work together to set the tone that can be felt. It was like I was there, feeling the pain, excitement, joy, and sadness that they were all going through.

Ultimately, I loved the story. I fell in love with each of the characters and wanted to see their conclusions to the end. And with the expanded Tomodachi social media tab, there was more to discover. It’s great to check the social media often to find new recipes for drinks you can make, but by highlighting hashtags, we can find hidden posts that will give us even more background information about the characters, the overall world of Coffee Talk, and see what some familiar faces from previous games have been up to.

I really like the idea behind this, but the implementation does feel clunky. Other than finding those new recipes, I didn’t really enjoy using the social media side of things. The notification system, for it was also a little inconsistent. Sometimes, all I had to do was look at a hashtag to get rid of the notification, while for stories, I had to click on each one to get rid of the notification. It also just feels a little slow, too look through everything, and the fact that the selection always started on the recipes instead of what I last used kept tripping me up. These are whole minor issues, but they still contributed to the overall clunkiness of the UI.

Apart from the new hashtag system, we are able to brew new coffee and tea, choose between iced or hot, and add stencils. These are nice little touches that allow us to personalize the drinks we are making. And with the endless and challenge modes, we can keep making these as long as we want. I wouldn’t say these modes were a reason I would keep coming back to the game after beating it, but they are nice little touches if you want to play a relaxing game where you’re just making coffee and listening to good music.

Coffee Talk Tokyo - Steam Deck Performance

Coffee Talk Tokyo is perfect to play on the Steam Deck, which is not something I really doubted before. It runs at 90 FPS without any changes and will stick under 8W of battery drain. This means we will get around 6+ hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED and 4.5+ hours on the Steam Deck LCD. All while the game still looks gorgeous and feels great with the controller. I also never felt the text was too small, though it gets very close to being on the very small side.

結論

Coffee Talk Tokyo is another great entry in the series, one that’ll be perfect to play lying on a recliner while sipping a cup of coffee. The cast characters are memorable, with stories that hit emotionally thanks to the great atmosphere, lo-fi soundtrack, and the visual cues that express them. The social media and phone UI clunkiness doesn’t detract from what is otherwise a great experience; there is one worth opening your heart to.

On top of that, it is flawless on the Steam Deck, making this game a great one to take on the go.

このレビューはPC版に基づいています。

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