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◆ This review contains some information about the game story.
The cafe that stayed there
The cafe is the same. The gloomy Seattle sky with a hazy rain, the neon sign behind the cafe lighting up the dark night streets, the jazz music playing in a pleasant atmosphere, and the bar with slightly peeled edges are all the same. And the barista who listens to customers’ stories as warmly as coffee and tea steaming up.
However, the cafe has a new menu with red hibiscus and blue blue blood, and Tomodachil has a story function that makes it a little more annoying to know the news of friends. Ah, Tomodachi is the previous Tomodachi. The name was strangely changed as if it were a typo.
And one more, instead of the familiar green-haired Freya, New Face creator Satyros and singer Banshee, here another alien friend starts visiting the cafe. They ring the bell of the cafe at night, full of new worries and stories about life that are different from Freya and fit so well in the present of 2023.
Of course, there are still regular customers who are familiar with it. Three years have passed, but they still look extraordinary and enter the cafe with ordinary concerns. That familiar look gives the feeling that this cafe would still be facing them every day on one of the streets of Seattle for three years.
But they, too, have changed, little by little. After three years, relationships around you, work, and where you live often change.
Officer Jorge, who still hates milk and uses an old foldable cell phone, still struggles with his relationship with his daughter, but still shows a little more intimacy than before. A couple who was worried about not being recognized by their parents because of their ethnicity are now reconciling their opinions ahead of the wedding.
Rachel, who seemed young, has become a musician enough to listen to other people’s concerns and give advice. Myrtle, Aqua, and Gala are all welcome and familiar, but they are having new concerns about the reality surrounding them and their relationship.
The new characters who appear here also naturally tell their ‘story’ while drinking ‘coffee’ through the cafe, just like the others. In the process, you interact with existing regulars, get advice, and dilute the pain again.
I wonder if the strengths of the previous work, which perfectly solved the very fantasy material of ‘a world where many different races live together’ in the current society, have been carried over to this work. The story of the worries, worries, and confusion that any ordinary person living in the present era, especially office workers, have experienced is melted into the game.
In particular, this time, the most controversial issues of 23 years, such as social media, rapidly changing society, pouring content and stimulation, and humans in between, were brought naturally. through the backgrounds of the new characters. And when you listen to their concerns, when you immerse yourself in the story, you can experience so many different options. It’s not an answer, it’s a choice.
The second story unfolding in the cafe
If you play Coffee Talk Episode 2, or as soon as you press the play button, you can clearly see why this game is called ‘Episode 2’ and not Coffee Talk 2. I expanded the inside while maintaining the frame.
The system, the background, the characters, the playable characters, and even the opening scene where the cafe lights come on and the newspaper of the day appears, nothing has changed from the previous game. The strengths of Coffee Talk, the characters who have a unique appearance but are very similar to us in their heads and hearts, and the concept of ‘listening’ to the stories they tell, may have been brought to life in this work as it is.
But instead of keeping all of that intact, we expanded the ‘story’. Freya, who played the role of moderator, occupying a seat in the cafe every time and announcing the beginning and end, has disappeared, but thanks to that, I can hear the stories of a much more diverse crowd. You can also experience a much more organized and unified story as several major events that cross the whole are overlapped among each of their own stories.
Oh, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t any changes. After taking care of the things customers leave behind, you can deliver them to the right person at the right time, or you can enjoy the finished coffee or tea with a single cut. As mentioned earlier here, through Tomodachil’s added system, Story, you can see what customers and friends are doing and thinking even after they leave the cafe. It feels like there is a short piece behind the scenes.
That’s how Coffee Talk Episode 2, instead of a big change, included a little bit more advanced content through a very small expansion. Instead of overturning all the menu boards, it’s like keeping the menus that existing regulars liked, but offering more options.
Thanks to this, users who enjoyed playing the previous game can enjoy the next story that follows naturally, and on the contrary, users who started the game for the first time can be curious about the story of the previous game. The balance was not bad either. The characters continue as they are, and the story that happened between them remains, but the main thing is that it is related to the ‘new’ story. In addition, it is possible to infer the contents of the previous work to some extent through conversations between characters and Tomodachil’s profile function.
Of course, of course, but I strongly recommend playing the previous game if possible. Not only can I empathize with the characters much more, but I can deeply immerse myself in the story itself. Both the previous game and Episode 2 can be played through Game Pass.
There is a saying called dawn emotion. I think Coffee Talk Episode 2 is a game that depicts such emotions at dawn, somewhere depressed, exhilarating, yet romantic, and sometimes tearful. In a world that changes so quickly, this is the kind of game you need when you miss the time that has passed and when you want to warm up your heart.
And it is also a work that warmly embraces those who live hard every day, but sometimes go through ups and downs in the process.
Those of us who are hurt and fearful by the gaze of others, those of us who are barely adapting to the fast pace of modern society, those of us who are trying to find someone whose heart beats amidst the coldness of computers and cell phones, and those of us who are hurt by that coldness.
