About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article entitled “Goodbye Volcano High – Proving Visual Novels Don’t Have to Suck.” And, to date, I am very glad nobody noticed when I released it because it is one of my worst articles. With an unfounded distaste for a genre (and arguably entire medium) that I hadn’t ever earnestly explored, I went through explaining why this new game I found is “different” from those around it. I was at least correct that Goodbye Volcano High did end up being a good game, and told a good story, but my reasoning for liking it — that what it did was so revolutionary in the Visual Novel space — was ridiculous. I have since learned that what Goodbye Volcano High was doing was not so out-of-line; Visual Novels have, actually, always had some very good titles.
In the time since, I have played a good deal of VNs. Fate/stay night REMASTERED has me exploring its dramatic world of magic, Sucker for Love: A Date to Die For was one of my highest reviewed games in the last year, I played through a half-dozen newer VNs as they came out and, yes, I finally played Coffee Talk.
The new character designs look just as stellar as always for the franchise
And, of those, it was Coffee Talk, both the original and Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterflies, that I most deeply connected with. The relaxed atmosphere and cozy core gameplay, which sees you brewing up beautiful, specialty coffees for a wide variety of unique and fantastical people in a little coffee shop in downtown Seattle… Well, it’s just fuzzy, relaxed, and calm.
But unlike other similar “slice-of-life” VNs and games I’ve played, Coffee Talk is not without conflict (even if it is usually low-stakes). Instead, your coffee helps your patrons navigate through their inner turmoils, as you lend a listening ear to them and a watching eye to their budding, interpersonal relationships. All embroiled with some level of magic and mystery because of the fact that Coffee Talk’s world is inhabited by modernized versions of basically every popular fantasy species you can think of — banshees, pixies, vampires, werewolves, and more.
But, I’m not here to talk about Coffee Talk generally. I’m here to talk about Coffee Talk Tokyo. Because, while I didn’t have a chance to play the newly announced title at PAX West 2024 (it’s a bit too early for that), I did have a chance to talk to Creative Director of the game and head of Toge Productions, Kris Antoni Hadiputra, and ask him a few questions. Giving me more than enough excuse to express my complete excitement that there will be another game in the series, despite much fan skepticism.
I first asked Kris the most obvious question: “We’ve seen Hendry already, who had a big role in the first and small role in the second games, but will we see any other returning faces? Freya? Gala? Silver?”
To which, his response was an ever-elusive “we’ll see,” though he did make it clear that at least a few other characters we recognize would show themselves. With that, though, he also made it clear that, with a new location (deviating from the always-rainy Seattle), the new characters would largely take center stage. Given that Coffee Talk, as a series, was always made by its eclectic range of interesting, troubled characters, I have faith that these new faces will fill the shoes of those who came before, who should be off enjoying their good endings from the previous games.
After that, I did get the brief chance to enquire a little bit about what directions the story would take, and what kind of issues we might be dealing with in Japan. To which Kris was happy to answer: with people not only more lonely, but also more overworked than ever, that they would need a nice coffee or tea in order to soothe their nerves. Work-life balance is something at the front of everyone’s minds, and Tokyo is the best place to be to explore that.
That caused me to remark about how I appreciated the slightly different angles that the series always takes to modern life, with the first game being mostly about relationships and navigating them, and the second game largely centering around careers and hardship. In that way, Coffee Talk proves once again up to the task of taking on modern social issues (something it has always done), while still being, at the end of the day, about the connections between people, and the soothing cups of hot coffee they drink.
I didn’t have much time to talk extensively about Coffee Talk Tokyo, and Kris could only share so much, but what little we did discuss left me jittery about the game’s future, even at the very end of the last day of PAX West (when I had had far too little coffee). And, in general, I know Coffee Talk is in good hands with developers Toge Productions and Chorus Worldwide. You can wishlist the game now on Steam here, and I highly recommend checking out both the first game here, and the second game here.
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Graves
Graves is an avid writer, web designer, and gamer, with more ideas than he could hope to achieve in a lifetime. But, armed with a mug of coffee and an overactive imagination, he'll try. When he isn't working on a creative project, he is painting miniatures, reading cheesy sci-fi novels, or making music.
