itch.io

I think this is the first time I have ever reviewed a visual novel type game. I found adjusting the auto-play text speed in order to get through the large blocks of endless text to be an extreme hassle, and it put me off of playing the game itself. longer paragraphs, unless the text speed is at the very far left of the adjustment bar, goes by much, much slower than a singular sentence of dialogue quip. This is unfortunate since the large chunks of text don't seem to typically have important info, and did not aid the world-building or cozy-ness levels at all, so I had no interest in waiting for them to be over so i could get to important dialogue and game instructions. I ended up using the journal to see what was said, but this was also clunky as the scrolling bar was not sensitive enough. The default speed of autoplay was painfully slow to the point that I would click the on and off button in a state of confusion on why the text was not going by at all. Lastly, that brings me to the point of the game "forgetting" that I had autoplay on between the numerous interjection and an interpose of the short cutscenes of the shop views and the MC/other characters. Every time one occurred, I would have to hit autoplay again, so to improve gameplay I'd wish for there to be a way to keep autoplay on. Overall, I have dropped this game despite its aesthetics due to the awkwardness of mixing a set-storyline visual novel with little to no narrative choices or decision making with a store management type gameplay. They do not meld well in this game, opposed to other types of games that mix these elements skillfully. I think this may be due to a lack of balance and a too strong of a focus on solely the text and art in the beginning, making the goals of store management and visual novel storylines conflict. I think games like coffee talk and strange horticulture define the genre with brevity and cozy vibes plus minimal but fun game mechanics. Moonlighter and Dave the Diver have more complex game mechanics and focus more with the shop management and action aspects. I am confused at what this game tries to be, but it is still pretty at least, even if that doesn't make one automatically have a vested interest in it.