Coffee Talk Tokyo is a cozy visual novel title developed by Toge Productions and Chorus Worldwide, and published by Chorus Worldwide. This game is the third installment of this barista simulator. Where Coffee Talk and Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly are set in a coffee shop in Seattle, Coffee Talk Tokyo is set in Tokyo with a new cast of characters (plus one or two familiar faces).

In this game, you play as a faceless barista who runs a late night coffee shop along with their assistant, Vin. Despite being set in a real-world place, this version of Tokyo is home to many supernatural beings, who also happen to be regular patrons. Each customer comes in with their own relatable issue, chatting with the baristas and the others. Every story intertwines and the characters give strong found family vibes.

For example, there’s Kenji, a kappa, who’s struggling to find his purpose after retirement. Ayame, a ghost, is recently deceased and can’t remember who she was before and is trying to move on. Ash is a stay-at-home dad werewolf, and his young daughter, Erika, is keeping a tight lip about her issues at school. Vin, our assistant, struggles with health issues after recovering from an accident. Their story gave the chronically ill community some representation which was refreshing for me to see since I’ve been going through that myself.

Coffee Talk Tokyo is first a visual novel, reading through the woven storylines. It’s single-player, but my sister and I played through it together, assigning ourselves characters. The little gameplay involved is, of course, making drinks. You can make tea and coffee, hot or iced, and this game introduces floats with whipped cream and ice cream. 

Each drink has three ingredients–a base, primary, and secondary–and the order in which you add these ingredients matter. For instance, adding coffee-coffee-soymilk will be one type of drink and coffee-soymilk-soymilk will be something different. Likewise, if you use the same three ingredients in the same order but one is a hot drink while the other is iced, you’ll get two different drinks.

Sometimes the characters will tell you what they want, and other times they’ll be a bit vague about it. There are fifty-four recipes to discover and, if you make a mistake, you can trash the drink and try it again. However, you can only trash five drinks per in-game day, which is plenty because you typically only need to make three to five drinks per day. You’ll have the option to create latte art for some of the drinks, but it’s just something extra and fun to do.

The more drinks you get correct, the more friendship points you’ll receive with that specific character. The happier everyone is, the more likely you’ll receive the best ending. I was able to get the best ending for the main story (I believe), but there was one character who I messed up with twice, so I don’t think his end of the tale was the best for him.

Once you discover a recipe, it gets unlocked in your Brewpad, which is an app on the player character’s phone. You can refer back to it at any time. Also on the phone is an app called Tomadachill, which is the in-game social media. It’s a fun extra to check out each day to see what the characters are up to, even if they don’t come to the cafe that day. It gives more insight into their personalities, and you can see the relationships with the many customers grow outside the coffee shop. Plus, there are hashtags you can check out, such as the #recipes, and get hints on certain drinks.

The heart of Coffee Talk Tokyo is the interaction between the many characters, which I’d love to discuss, but I’d be sharing spoilers. So, all I’ll say is that the ending made me sob (in a good way). If you enjoy strong stories, amazing characters, and chill, minimal gameplay, this is the game for you. It’s a relatively short title with fifteen in-game days. Each day takes roughly thirty to forty-five minutes to get through. Also, you don’t need to play the previous Coffee Talk titles to understand this one. However, they’re amazing, and quick enough that it wouldn’t hurt to play the other two games.