Recent reviews by Coffee In The Rain

EDIT : Since this has been posted, Sony have gone back on the decision to force players to sign up for a PSN account. This is a solid move and I'm genuinely incredibly happy that's the case. However until the game is playable in the original countries again, I won't be changing the review to positive. For a better understanding of what i'm talking about, go to SteamDB and look at the countries it cannot be activated in.

Phenomenal game, I absolutely loved playing it with friends and fighting the good fight for Democracy and Liberty against those pesky automatons. However, it looks like the robots have taken over and are attempting to force players to sign up for a PSN account, which is something I'm not looking to do. Hopefully they'll change their stance on the matter but for the time being I can't personally advise it.

TL:DR - So far, not impressed. I'm willing to keep going with the game as it is so far due to my mild enjoyment of the story, as well as some unique mechanics (e.g. beating up a pillar to control where it drops on opponents) that I found refreshing. As is though, I can't recommend this game, at least not for it's current price when it feels wholly unfinished, but if it can have some updates I feel like I can change my mind with ease.

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Initial thoughts: Not amazing. £35 game and yet it feels like the quality of a £20 game. Bought this game thinking it'd be 40k's take on XCOM, and to an extent i was right, but there's some really big differences. Mainly, you're exclusively the aggressor and are punished for being defensive.

Cover is somehow even bigger in this game, with full cover giving 100% damage reduction (as every shot is guaranteed to land), but overwatching, which is a conal targeter with a very short range, can take you out of said cover to stand out in the open. There is a ticking timer throughout every combat mission that ramps up the difficulty through events, so taking it slow is akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

Speaking of said events, these range from literally ineffective to hell itself, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. A great example of the polar opposites in terms of event difficulty, is one reduces your MAXIMUM willpower by one point, where willpower is used to fuel more powerful hits, or to heal squad mates. But reducing the maximum changes nothing if you've already used some willpower. On the other hand, you have an event that summons three pods of enemies at once, which can quickly turn a reasonable engagement to guaranteed death.

Outside of gameplay itself, the audio leaves much to be desired. Voice actors in areas such as the tech priest feel really well done, and then in terms of the inquisitor feel bland, as if they didn't want to be in the booth. There are also areas where (in cutscene mind you) audio clips will just cut out, or fade out for background elements when it's unnecessary to do so. In some instances where talking with other individuals aboard the ship, only a fragment of the speech is voice acted, which is wholly inappropriate for a game of this price i feel.

Animations are sub par with next to no secondary action, a core rule of animation, being implemented. This causes animations to feel unfinished, especially in cutscenes, where it looks as if it was outsourced to a bunch of students who forgot about it until two days before hand in.

The UI feels a little off, with too much being implemented in some areas and not enough in others. Primarily too much on the ship, where everything you would like to go to is in its own tab, and then behind a text box. In combat, it links the melee attacks soldiers can do to movement, (where you have to click once to move, then again to melee, then again to confirm) as opposed to it simply being another option. Sometimes it can also be a struggle to understand quite what is going on with the soldiers themselves, as so far with units (both friend and foe) being able to apply debuffs such as 'fire' and 'plague', there is no way to check if a unit has said debuff. Text tooltips don't help this either, with 'Aegis Shield' stating it has 'Immune' on it, but never elaborates further. Does it make you immune to debuffs? Is the buff it applies immune to being removed? It needs more clarity.

Let me start this off by saying this review is spoiler free.

I'm a pretty big fan of danganronpa games, and absolutely love the entire premise of the series. I went into this with high hopes, and in return didn't get any of those hopes fulfilled.

In terms of the cast, the majority of characters were exceptionally dull, with the majority of them causing me to be irritated by even simply seeing them on screen after a while. There were a few good characters, that actually had personality and/or had character growth, but for the most part the writers seemed to just forget that characters are necessary in a visual novel. A lot of these characters felt like they were written after the trials, in order to make something that vaguely fit. Several of them also had the problem of having an ultimate talent, that wasn't added to at all, outside of "this is my opening character trait, we're... Not going to come back to this. At least not in any meaningful way."

As for the trials, the big things that everyone loves danganronpa games for.. I have never been more disappointed in something- And I look in the mirror on the daily. Trials were for the most part what some would call complete idiocy, and it felt like a lot of the logic behind them was either thrown out of the window, or was primarily based upon the player having no more than three braincells to rub together. I'd like to say it got better over time, but sadly, i can't say they did. Between legitimately dragging every single character through seventeen different loops individually in order to get them to understand "grass is green", how eyeballs work, and how idiotic the player must be for expecting characters to have the ability to use eyeballs, the minigames themselves were very much a nightmare for controller users, and the absolutely god awful implementation of the lying mechanic, trials were purely an experiment to see how much aggression the user can bottle up before wanting to break someone's spine.

Speaking of the lying feature. Yes, this game, a game of truths, has a lying feature. A feature that more often than not is used as a cover for the writers not actually knowing what they're doing. As far as lying goes, because everyone can have a different input on what the opposite of an event is, it can cause several issues trying to translate what the writers want you to use, to what the user thinks they should use. This comes into play primarily when truth bullets with explanations paragraphs long are meant to be changed into the opposite, where the user has to seemingly guess and hope.

Executions! The juiciest part of a danganronpa game.. These were actually pretty decent, for the most part. My gripes for those i disliked were typically based around holding a scene for too long, or simply not reaching remotely close to the potential that it could have had.

The environment itself was a mixed bag. Some areas were exceptionally well done, with a general atmosphere that suited the place, whereas others felt.. Out of place and shoehorned in. Sadly, it was also an incredible pain attempting to navigate areas sometimes, especially as the game progressed, but thankfully the ability to teleport to certain areas (to an extent) was incredibly useful, as was the map that could be brought up as you're running around.

And finally, the actual mechanics of the game. They were okay, but for a good portion of them, they were useless, forgettable, or even just punishing to the player? And I don't mean punishing as in "oh this is made slightly harder", i mean just flat out disrespectful to the player and the core gameplay. Perhaps this was due to controller limitations, as friends didn't recall having the same problems in the same stages of the experience that I did, yet these limitations paired with the gameplay mechanics at the time was a rather rude way of saying "Good luck. Figure this one out.

The following will be a spoiler for the ending of the game, so read at your own risk. Past the black box text is my closing thoughts.

As for the ending of the game, i've never seen a company (outside of recent Blizzard shenanigans) call out their playerbase quite so hard, as well as be so seemingly fed up with their fanbase that after giving potentially the worst writing i've seen in terms of character and trial, they go out of their way to flame them. I would honestly be incredibly impressed if I hadn't just spent 50 hours on the game to be spat on by the writers.

All in all, I would severely recommend avoiding the game if you enjoy the series, or if you just want to play a visual novel with interesting mechanics thrown into the mix. The game itself feels clunky with very little driving it onwards, and for a visual novel in which the writing is supposed to come first, the writing was fairly poor, even considering it was seemingly written by recovering crack addict monkeys that were completely black out drunk.

If i sound salty, it's because I am. (Do you know how many dota matches i could hate myself over in 50 hours?)

Coffee Talk is a game that originally I was skeptical about. Whether it was worth the price tag, and if I would even enjoy it. After much thought (And a little too much to drink) I sat down and bought the game.

About the gameplay. Coffee Talk is essentially a Visual Novel, with some mild gameplay elements mixed in. The pacing of the story works well, in a very nice environment. The art style of the game feels warm and inviting, and the Lo-Fi in the background gives it a very relaxing feel. Needless to say, it's best enjoyed with a warm cup of coffee.

About the price. I will admit, to begin with I was put off by it, but after putting some time into it, and getting into the stories of the different characters, even looking forwards to seeing them enter the store, I have to say it's worth it.

All in all, it's a very nice, relaxed game. If you enjoy Visual Novels, or hell, if you just need something to relax with as we get through COVID-19, this game is amazing for it. Give it a shot, you might be impressed.

I've put a little bit of time into this game, and gone through multiple Free Companies, static raid groups, and a large amount of content, and all I can say is give it a shot. The community is friendly (For the most part, there's always going to be some idiots though), the game itself is intuitive and entertaining, the storyline is decent, but gets to be amazing after A Realm Reborn (Requires the Stormblood expansion however), and each class brings new things to the table, and is interesting in it's own right.

If you're not sure if you want to play this or not, make an account, play the free trial, and give it a shot. It's worth trying it at the very least, but just bear in mind the free trial causes you to miss out on a good few features, including a majority of the social ones.

I'll be honest. The game is irritating. This game is painful. But it is under no circumstance a bad game.

Pros:
Wide character variety, for monsters and hunters
A super sneaky wraith in pink. Bright pink.
Every game, depending on what side you are, feels new based on the playstyle of the other team.
You can easily tell when you're improving.
The slow grind for cash.

Cons:
For lower end PCs it doesn't run too well at times. Set everything to medium and play a custom game as Meteor goliath or Kraken, and if it lags, go lower. You won't be able to do anything if you lag, trust me, it's hell.
A few balancing issues. For instance, stage one of three is the weakest, however as soon as the hunters trap you, on certain monsters you can kill them all and win.
The s l o w grind for cash.
Perks are a wierd thing when it comes to how you unlock them without paying "Silver Keys".

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All in all, i'd give it a seven out of ten. If there is a group of four of you, it is amazing to hunt someone down, especially if you understand the game. If there's five of you, one of you just has to find the opportunity to wipe everyone out.