Cafe Enchante: Initial Thoughts
Nov. 23rd, 2020 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrMasterlist
So for my birthday I got a copy of Cafe Enchante, another game by Otomate/Idea Factory, the people who made Hakuoki, Amnesia, Code Realize, and Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. It's currently only available for Switch.
I was worried the ridiculous premise would be a bit much for me but so far I'm having fun!
The heroine is a 19 year old Japanese office worker who has inherited her recently deceased grandfather's coffee shop. But when she arrives she discovers a SECRET DOOR TO OTHER WORLDS (behind a "staff only" sign lol): it turns out the cafe was popular with SUPERNATURAL CREATURES, specifically a VARIETY OF HOT DUDES.
Since they're all very fond of the cafe, and were close to her grandfather, they offer to help her out. But then a foxy middle aged SHADY GOVERNMENT AGENT tells her these creatures are DANGEROUS and she should SHUT THE CAFE DOWN!!
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT???
...thus far, a bunch of cute slice-of-life coffee-shop-for-the-supernatural vignettes, but I hear it gets more intense later.
No spoilers below! So far nothing has really happened you COULD spoil but I'll still keep my more detailed thoughts for another post.
The heroine's default name is Kotone, which is voiced by other characters if you keep it. She has no voice herself.
Our cute dudes, as they seem to me so far, in reverse order of age:
Misyr the ancient Demon King, 10,000+: He's the default love interest and a Nice Self Confident Charmer, like a slightly flirtier version of Lupin from Code Realize, which isn't really my jam. But every now and then he'll cheerfully offer to, like, horrifically murder people or blot out the stars, which makes him more interesting. Also his design is pretty cute.
Il the fallen angel, 2000ish: gentle cheerful eccentric. Likes to stay in his room all day playing otome games and swooning about the beauty of love, and people find themselves instinctively wanting to take care of him. Kicked out the heavenly realm for "breaking the rules". Pretty!
Canis the headless knight, 200ish: polite reserved Knight type that gets flustered by flirting. Which is totally my jam but HE HAS NO MOUTH so HOW WILL WE SMOOCH. He's very strong and into weight lifting and gardening and seems to see himself as useless except for his strength.
Kaoru Rindo the government agent, 42: Reminds me of Aleister from Code Realize (though he actually shares a voice actor with Van Helsing and Victor Nikiforov) and kinda creeps me out, but I'm curious to see where the story is going with him.
Ignis the fire beast, 25: a hot tempered tsundere. I like tsunderes and he's endearing but he hasn't done anything super interesting thus far. His irises are unpleasantly small but I'll get over it. Comes from a Beast Realm where it's kill or be killed.
Clockwise from the bottom: Il, Rindo, Canis (that helmet is empty), Misyr, Ignis, and Kotone in the centre.
Everyone has been endearingly friendly without being so blandly nice I get bored, and there's a cute found family vibe. The fact they were all friends of her grandfather's is a bit...something, but Misyr, Il and Canis are such strange inhuman immortals it mostly gets past my age gap squick, and I think Rindo is supposed to feel a bit creepy. Though apparently Misyr met her when she was four.
I like Kotone so far. She's not SUPER interesting, mostly she's just Nice, but is mildly feisty, perceptive, and determined as otome heroines go, and has a little angst about the shitty job she quit to run the cafe. Also she has a very pretty design, normally otome heroines are drawn looking a bit young for my tastes but she looks like an adult.
The graphic design and sound design is great, they use the cafe theme really well with little bell jingles when you select things, menus that look like a food menu etc, but feeling more classy than twee.
The sprites are very competently made and expressive, but I don't like all the design choices. Ignis in particular has weird eyes and overly saturated colours that look jarring against the muted browns and creams of the rest of the game.
The backgrounds are a weird mix of detailed and lazy, some are definitely just photos/3D renders with a filter over the top, but on other cases I think someone went to great pains to create art that looks like a photo with a high contrast filter over the top, implying that they genuinely like that as an aesthetic?? But I, alas, do not.
The music is fine, and the voice acting is good. I've heard complaints about the translation, I don't speak enough Japanese to have noticed anything wrong myself, aside from a few obvious typos, and it's all enjoyable enough so far.
So for my birthday I got a copy of Cafe Enchante, another game by Otomate/Idea Factory, the people who made Hakuoki, Amnesia, Code Realize, and Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. It's currently only available for Switch.
I was worried the ridiculous premise would be a bit much for me but so far I'm having fun!
The heroine is a 19 year old Japanese office worker who has inherited her recently deceased grandfather's coffee shop. But when she arrives she discovers a SECRET DOOR TO OTHER WORLDS (behind a "staff only" sign lol): it turns out the cafe was popular with SUPERNATURAL CREATURES, specifically a VARIETY OF HOT DUDES.
Since they're all very fond of the cafe, and were close to her grandfather, they offer to help her out. But then a foxy middle aged SHADY GOVERNMENT AGENT tells her these creatures are DANGEROUS and she should SHUT THE CAFE DOWN!!
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT???
...thus far, a bunch of cute slice-of-life coffee-shop-for-the-supernatural vignettes, but I hear it gets more intense later.
No spoilers below! So far nothing has really happened you COULD spoil but I'll still keep my more detailed thoughts for another post.
The heroine's default name is Kotone, which is voiced by other characters if you keep it. She has no voice herself.
Our cute dudes, as they seem to me so far, in reverse order of age:
Misyr the ancient Demon King, 10,000+: He's the default love interest and a Nice Self Confident Charmer, like a slightly flirtier version of Lupin from Code Realize, which isn't really my jam. But every now and then he'll cheerfully offer to, like, horrifically murder people or blot out the stars, which makes him more interesting. Also his design is pretty cute.
Il the fallen angel, 2000ish: gentle cheerful eccentric. Likes to stay in his room all day playing otome games and swooning about the beauty of love, and people find themselves instinctively wanting to take care of him. Kicked out the heavenly realm for "breaking the rules". Pretty!
Canis the headless knight, 200ish: polite reserved Knight type that gets flustered by flirting. Which is totally my jam but HE HAS NO MOUTH so HOW WILL WE SMOOCH. He's very strong and into weight lifting and gardening and seems to see himself as useless except for his strength.
Kaoru Rindo the government agent, 42: Reminds me of Aleister from Code Realize (though he actually shares a voice actor with Van Helsing and Victor Nikiforov) and kinda creeps me out, but I'm curious to see where the story is going with him.
Ignis the fire beast, 25: a hot tempered tsundere. I like tsunderes and he's endearing but he hasn't done anything super interesting thus far. His irises are unpleasantly small but I'll get over it. Comes from a Beast Realm where it's kill or be killed.
Clockwise from the bottom: Il, Rindo, Canis (that helmet is empty), Misyr, Ignis, and Kotone in the centre.
Everyone has been endearingly friendly without being so blandly nice I get bored, and there's a cute found family vibe. The fact they were all friends of her grandfather's is a bit...something, but Misyr, Il and Canis are such strange inhuman immortals it mostly gets past my age gap squick, and I think Rindo is supposed to feel a bit creepy. Though apparently Misyr met her when she was four.
I like Kotone so far. She's not SUPER interesting, mostly she's just Nice, but is mildly feisty, perceptive, and determined as otome heroines go, and has a little angst about the shitty job she quit to run the cafe. Also she has a very pretty design, normally otome heroines are drawn looking a bit young for my tastes but she looks like an adult.
The graphic design and sound design is great, they use the cafe theme really well with little bell jingles when you select things, menus that look like a food menu etc, but feeling more classy than twee.
The sprites are very competently made and expressive, but I don't like all the design choices. Ignis in particular has weird eyes and overly saturated colours that look jarring against the muted browns and creams of the rest of the game.
The backgrounds are a weird mix of detailed and lazy, some are definitely just photos/3D renders with a filter over the top, but on other cases I think someone went to great pains to create art that looks like a photo with a high contrast filter over the top, implying that they genuinely like that as an aesthetic?? But I, alas, do not.
The music is fine, and the voice acting is good. I've heard complaints about the translation, I don't speak enough Japanese to have noticed anything wrong myself, aside from a few obvious typos, and it's all enjoyable enough so far.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 11:11 pm (UTC)But every now and then he'll cheerfully offer to, like, horrifically murder people or blot out the stars, which makes him more interesting.
...well this is relevant to my interests. :P I think it got bumped up the list for me.
SECRET DOOR TO OTHER WORLDS (behind a "staff only" sign lol): it turns out the cafe was popular with SUPERNATURAL CREATURES, specifically a VARIETY OF HOT DUDES.
I grinned! :D
Reminds me of Aleister from Code Realize (though he actually shares a voice actor with Van Helsing and Victor Nikiforov) and kinda creeps me out, but I'm curious to see where the story is going with him.
I wonder if he's actually supernatural! And also I'm amused that I'm much more comfortable with a 10,000 year age difference than a 26 year old one.
Everyone has been endearingly friendly without being so blandly nice I get bored, and there's a cute found family vibe.
Ohh, this sounds great. I think that's a hard balance to strike sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 12:37 pm (UTC)Yeah. And sometimes there's the inverse: guys who are the perfect age for the heroine but come across as so young it's squicky for me.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 01:27 pm (UTC)Will keep you updated on my attempts to smooch the guy with no head :D
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 01:33 pm (UTC)...well this is relevant to my interests. :P I think it got bumped up the list for me.
Hee. Yeah the little hints of them being genuinely disquieting and strange makes this way more appealing to me than some of the other immortal LIs I've encountered in otome, who mostly felt like regular people.
I hope Rindo isn't supernatural, him being The One Human creates a nice contrast. Though acquired supernaturalness could be interesting, even if the worldbuilding hasn't mentioned such a thing so far this is the company that made Hakuoki.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 03:33 pm (UTC)That sounds plausible! He does need angst for him route, I assume...
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 07:39 pm (UTC)