Recent reviews by Drall

disappointing

Works very well for me, with very rare crashes.
Played at 2560x1440 165hz on Windows 10 and latest drivers.

20 bucks is a little disrespectful for nostalgia, but on my system it atleast runs well.
In that regard, it's Sims 1 as expected, and for that I can recommend it, assuming it works on your system aswell.

UPDATE:
Since "upgrading" to Windows 11, the game absolutely refuses to work under any circumstances. Spent hours troubleshooting and compatibility testing. No dice.

truly art

fimsh

singleplayer is fine.
legacy characters are expensive DLC.
online is unplayable 50% of the time.
update: ♥♥♥♥ company and incompetent developers that are disconnected from fanbase and reality. completely dropped any interest I had garnered in the game. I regret wasting my time.

I feel whatever little is left of my brain atrophy away

very easy and hand-holdy even on the hardest settings.
sterilized and sanitized for mass-market appeal, no nuanced personality or depth.
feels as though it's designed to make children accustomed to slot machines.

expected it to be good, somehow exceeds my expectations.

1 owo vs game industry

lovely and detailed

Light and heavy, short and sweet, simple and confusing.
My first playthrough was in normal mode, and this review is based on that particular experience. (Good ending).
This is the first game from these developers that I have played.
Minor spoilers ahead.

My first impressions are that I would've liked to have more direct influence on the story. More choices, strategies, tactical decisions, and larger freedom in how to interact with the characters I became involved with. There are elements of this few and far between in the short experience, but it never quite felt like the player was in control. Rather, I felt like an observer, when I wanted to act more. That's not to say the writing isn't good. It's certainly not bad, but I feel it really yearned for something more involved. I felt the story kept poking me, asking me to act, but when I started thinking of ways how, it made the choice for me. It was a little frustrating, and a little demoralizing, but that's also a testament to the strengths of the story, namely; the characters.

It was easy to feel as though many could very well be based on real people, and made decisions, and had motivations, that could very well reflect upon our own reality. The themes are heavy, they're existential, and they're obviously designed to pose a philosophical question, which I appreciate. But I can't shake the feeling that the studio behind this game had to make one compromise too many, in the blend of the story, the setting, and the particular narrative. That said, a lot of work clearly went into it, and it shows. For such an apparently small team, with seemingly a lot on their plate, I can give nothing but kudos for not only the great effort, but the standard of quality within the experience they've managed to reach and uphold throughout. The game, in its own right, is brilliant.

The gameplay? It's, well, fine. It's a little confusing at first, but I quickly got the hang of how to find things, how to use them, etc. It is however a little unintuitive at times. The boundaries for where you have to click and drag from, feel a little wonky at times. Things can blend into the environment a little bit, such as the lever for the coffee machine, in particular. I didn't feel it hindered the experience too much, but I can see why someone might find it a little frustrating. I did however enjoy getting thrown into the deep end relatively quickly, in respect to the food and drink making, albeit thankfully formally simplified. Though, I have one caveat in particular, in this regard. You see, from what I can tell, there isn't really any overarching reason as to why you're doing the legwork of running a café. There's no business, no economics, and no managerial responsibility involved in running it. The setting of the game is but a stage for the story around it to unfold, and that's completely fine. But it reduces the tedium of labor into nothing but. The addition of the story mode to alleviate this problem is definitely a welcome one, but that leads to the question. Why is it there to begin with?.
It can be therapeutic, almost. Running a kitchen, cooking, orchestrating and producing from an elaborate selection of menu items with each their own poetic justification for belonging, and scrubbing off and cleaning the slate at the end of a day of bringing smiles and joy to your patrons. There's an excellent foundation for a simulator or tycoon here, where you can actually grow and prosper within the community your business is a part of. But, Zipp's Café is more concerned with political analogy, personal struggle, and the darker side of society. That's fine, and it does it relatively well, but the combination of gameplay mechanics, genre, and narrative, results in a clash that, personally, makes me want to go much deeper in almost every direction, but allows no such opportunity. Could it work? Certainly, but such scope is an absurd challenge. I think of this game as little more than an experiment of sorts, or perhaps developers biting off a little bit more than they could chew, but I think the latter unlikely. In any case, the game has its strengths and weaknesses, and for the price as of this review, (3,99€), it's above and beyond worthwhile.

If I could offer the team of developers any potentially worthwhile words of advice, it would be that Zipp's Café, as a project, has phenomenal intrinsic value. It displays major strengths in diverse and nuanced fields of videogame and narrative design, and the greatest downfall of Zipp's Café lies in how you combine and elevate a title above its components. It does everything well, but it tears at the seams when juggling it all simultaneously. I don't consider it a shortcoming of individual talent, but conversely, the game suggests ambition and even ability greater than what has been possible within the time allotted to the project, or the expected scope thereof. But that's only mere subjective speculation. I could certainly be wrong. But regardless, I'm impressed, and I'm excited to see how much the talent has been able to learn and improve upon for their next endeavours. (P.S, is Moses a fox or a cat?)

TL;DR
Game is an unorthodox blend of well designed mechanics, genre and narrative, but struggles along the way to tie them together, and appears stunted by ambition. Art direction is excellent, but has room for improvement too.
The game is not perfect by any means, but it certainly doesn't pretend to be, either.
It is easily worth the full asking price as of review. (3,99€).

Thank you for reading my incoherent projectile thought-vomit.

Playing for a little bit, seems like a competent port so far.

Has a few issues with loading times compared to on the PS5, with some hiccups in what's supposed to be seamless transitions despite being installed on my M.2, and performance dips when using certain weapons that have lots of effects. So far, it's rough around the edges, but it's definitely not a Last of Us P1 situation.
For a launch, I'd say it's competent, and certainly playable. Lots of options, and no denuvo.
Assuming there will be lots of performance updates and running support, it's a recommend from me, as long as you can stand some crashing here and there.

Note: there currently are no achievements or trading cards. Really wish there was. Perhaps in the future, I hope. This short review is subject to change as the game gets updated. 26-07-2023.