The Coffee Talk series has become a staple of the cosy game genre with its heartwarming storytelling and relaxing vibes. Be the barista at a coffee shop and help out your customers with the issues they’re facing, all by making them the right cup of coffee (or other beverage of their choice). After two games set at the same shop, the series now branches out to Tokyo, where we meet an almost entirely new cast of characters struggling with their own situations.
First off, for those who already enjoyed the previous two games in the series: gameplay remains practically identical. Most of the game is still reading through long and interesting conversations while only being able to somewhat influence them by making the correct drink. Making the beverages remains the only true gameplay element, and a very light one at that, but as with its predecessors, Coffee Talk Tokyo doesn’t suffer for it. On the contrary, the focus remains on the actual highlights of the game: the characters and the strong writing.
The cast of Coffee Talk Tokyo is an interesting mix of humans and yōkai, both familiar and new. There’s a recently deceased girl who can’t cross to the great beyond because of unfinished business and the person who is trying to help her. There’s a child prodigy and her worried parents, and your barista’s assistant who struggles with the consequences of a major event or the pop star who seems to have lost his mojo. And that’s only a few of the characters you’ll be meeting during your stay here.
All of them have interesting issues or dilemmas on their own, but it’s the effect they have on each other that really intrigues me. The game rarely focuses on one issue at a time, even though they all get their time in the spotlight, and characters are not always at the same place in their narrative when they interact with one another. It creates this dynamic where they’ll help each other find ways to move forward, sometimes without even really trying. All they do is just share their life experiences and hope for the best.
There is one caveat here. Although the writing is excellent and the insights into human psychology and sociology feel well researched to the point of feeling more like they’re lived experiences rather than book smarts, the resolutions in this game do come quite… easily. The most interesting moments in Coffee Talk Tokyo are when there is friction between characters, for example, when one of them is not ready to hear what another one tells them. These moments are so well written, with the human emotion truly exploding off the screen.
But these instances are rare, with the game often opting for a smoother exploration of what’s happening. Someone will state what they are struggling with; other characters will chime in with bits of wisdom, but when a little bit of resistance rises up, it’s often the barista who will ask for patience before all characters settle down and take everything in and calmly resolve whatever conflict has arisen. Don’t get me wrong; it would be absolutely wonderful if this were how conflict worked in the real world. If we didn’t all need time to absorb information or to let our thoughts and emotions fall in line with each other.
However, that’s not how we function. And sometimes, we learn more from getting into those instances of friction than we do when just being gently prodded about our issues. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way in therapy: I could rationalise everything infinitely, but that didn’t mean my emotions would allow me to heal. Sometimes, my therapist had to trigger something within me by asking the right questions or making the right remarks to get under my skin, to allow me to get in there as well.
Ultimately, that leads to Coffee Talk Tokyo feeling incredibly safe. Yes, it gets emotional at times, but it feels limited due to the way these sensitive topics are tackled. And that’s a shame, because there are plenty of issues at hand within the game that start out so promising. There’s a lot of representation within the problems these characters are dealing with, with plenty of them not being highlighted enough in different media. They’re also handled in a delicate way, opening the player up to empathy they might not have experienced otherwise.
That’s why it’s so cruel to have to be a bit harsh on the game for not going full on with the emotions at hand. Again, it’s a lovely sentiment to believe that people would deal with these things in such a healthy way, but at the same time there’s so much more to learn from how these characters could have bounced off of each other through a lack of understanding or being taken over by their own emotions.
Then again, it has to be said, this is my only critique of the game. The presentation once again is completely on point, with the game’s art design being a particular highlight, even if it has become familiar to fans of the series. The lo-fi soundtrack by returning artist Andrew ‘AJ’ Jeremy hits the perfect notes to carry the story forward, and the writing, despite its choices, remains excellent and full of insight.
I also haven’t mentioned the Tomodachill element of the game yet. This is the game’s version of social media, and while it is light on interactivity, it does allow the player to learn more about the protagonists of Coffee Talk Tokyo and even about the wider Coffee Talk world as well, which I particularly liked. I do believe returning fans will be getting exactly what they want or even need from another sequel in the franchise, and even new fans will find themselves with a perfectly cosy experience here. It’s just frustrating that the game could have been even more.
