Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly Review
“Perfectly Brewed Comfort” Written by: Hunter (ReaperHunter23)
I thoroughly enjoyed the first Coffee Talk when I played it last year. Its simple gameplay and easy going atmosphere made for a rather relaxing experience. I was pleased to soon discover that its sequel, Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, was due to come out in the near future. Well, here we are about a year later, and I’m eager to jump back into the world. So let’s take a look to see what Coffee Talk Episode 2 added to the blend.
Image Credit: Toge Productions
The general premise of the game is that you play as the owner and operator of a late night cafe located in an alternate reality version of Seattle. You make drinks for customers and listen to their stories. The twist is that this world is host to a large swathe of mythical creatures. This leads to your customers being rather outlandish, or interesting at the very least.
If you played the first game, Hibiscus and Butterfly plays how you would expect. Customers will come in and tell you what they are in the mood for. It is up to you to make a palatable drink for them with the ingredients on hand. Sometimes the customers will be straightforward and name the drink outright. And sometimes they will simply request that they want something with mint in it and leave the rest up to you.
If you make a drink successfully, it will usually have a snazzy name and some sort of art work on the top of the cup. If the ingredients don’t mix together nicely you’ll get a pitiful cup of nonsense juice. You can trash a poor concoction 5 times before being forced to serve it. Every time you successfully make a drink it’ll be added to the drink notebook on your phone for you to refer back to if you need to make it again.
If I had to make one adjustment to the gameplay it would be that I would remove the limit on how often you can throw out an incorrect drink. It’s sort of disheartening to lose a couple strikes to one customer and then have to potentially serve a later customer an incorrect drink. There’s a quicksave feature so this isn’t experience ruining by any means just kind of inconvenient.
Hibiscus and Butterfly’s main contribution to the formula is the addition of more ingredients. Most notably, the titular Hibiscus and Butterfly teas. Thankfully mixing them into a drink is rather easy as most of the other ingredients pair with it to make a special drink. They also look really cool most of the time.
The game does a good job at encouraging you to get the orders right as often as you can. Correctly serving customers, especially on one of the more vague orders, will increase your bond with them. If you max out your bond with the customer in question, you get the good ending to their story.
Image Credit: Toge Productions
The main draw of Coffee Talk is getting to hear and experience the stories of the customers that come into the cafe. Hibiscus and Butterfly takes place about three years after the first game. This game gets two notable additions to the cast. First is Riona, a melancholy banshee with aspirations to be an opera singer. The other new addition is Lucas. An exuberant Satyr who makes his living as what is essentially a Youtuber.
Most of the favorites from the first game make a return in Hibiscus and Butterfly as well. Many of the story threads are followed up on pretty naturally, while a couple of characters go in interesting new directions. This game does a good job at mixing and matching the interactions that occur between customers. There were a few occasions where I realized that certain characters never interacted in the first game, so it was cool to see those dynamics play out in this story.
The writing in general is rock solid. Everyone bounces off of one another in fun and unique ways. It's equally fun to watch Hyde bluntly dole out advice to a character like Baileys as it is to watch him mess with Officer Jorgi with one of his wacky vampire stories. In turn its pretty enjoyable to view interactions between contrasting personalities like Rachael and Riona. Even the one on one conversations a given character will have with the barista are all pretty great. Honestly, I can’t think of a single combination of characters that I wasn’t enjoying when they were on screen together.
There are a couple of pretty cool themes running throughout the stories of the customers. One is about how you define success and staying true to yourself in the pursuit of your goals. The other is about leaving your mark on the world that is always changing. Be it through interpersonal connections or the work that you do. The game does a lovely job at portraying these very human struggles through the lens of Vampires, Orcs, and so on.
The way that these stories are paced works to the game’s favor. I never felt like I was seeing too much of any given character and I was always pleased to see whoever was onscreen at the time. By the time reached the end of each character’s story, I couldn’t help but smile at the culmination of this chapter of their story.
Image Credit: Toge Productions
Coffee Talk does an excellent job at bringing the lofi rainy mood feeling to life. The music is distinct but unintrusive. The constant tapping of the rain outside works with the rest of the cafe’s ambience to set the mood perfectly. The artstyle of the game is visually pleasing. It has a pixel style while still being rather detailed when it comes to the character designs. The character designs themselves are also all pretty swell. Each design is a fun spin on what the given mythical creature would look like in a contemporary setting.
The characters seem to be a touch more expressive in Hibiscus and Butterfly. One early example is the look of fear on Officer Jorgi’s face during a particularly loud thunder crack. Riona has a sprite where she gets a bit misty eyed. Lucas has a really good shocked expression. All of the additional sprites really help to sell their feeling that much more.
One neat addition Hibiscus and Butterfly has comes in the form of these cool comic styled panel scenes. It's nothing crazy, but it is a nice change up from the typical static screen that you are usually looking at and gives those scenes a bit of gravitas.
Image Credit: Toge Productions
Summary
I highly recommend Coffee Talk Episode 2 for fans of narrative driven adventure games. The straightforward gameplay is complementary to the happenings of the story without ever getting in the way. It curates a pleasant atmosphere that helps bolster its slice of life charm. The setting adds an interesting flavor to the world. And most importantly in a game like this, the characters were endearing and had interesting stories to tell. All of these elements blend together to make an exceedingly comfortable concoction.