Coffee Noir - Business Detective Game

Wciągająca fabuła i wspaniała, nostalgiczna muzyczka

I was really excited for this game and have been eyeing it for years now, but now that I actually got to play it I'm just...disappointed. Firstly: The idea of mixing a detective/mystery visual novel and business management was great. It's a really nice concept and the vibe in general is really great. The team really did a great job here - the art, the music and the setting feel very fitting and generally leave room for an interesting story. The execution, however, feels somewhat lacking. In general. things just don't mix all too well. There's a rather boring introduction which didn't do a great job of drawing you into the story. The VA's aren't that great, ranging from 'I sound incredibly bored' to 'I am AI generated'. After that, you're immediately dropped into a truly horrible tutorial section and this is where ♥♥♥♥ truly goes downhill because somehow, for some reason, the tutorial explains everything and nothing at the same time. It will shove you from left to right and be like 'click this' 'click that' 'do this so that you can do this' and yet by the end of it I still had to take a minute to just click through everything on my own to get a proper feel for the interface and it's functions without a speech-bubble limiting my access to things so that I could understand what exactly was going on. Admittedly, I'm rather critical where tutorials are concearned, so I was willing to overlook this because it could just be a me thing. So on I went, happy to get to the business parts and open to see the story flourish a bit futher. And this is where things got even worse. As I said, the visual novel aspect and the business aspect don't mix all too well in this one and that is mainly because the way the story is shoved along feels both random and aggressive. The minute you're really into the management you'll be ripped out of it again by some story snippets which just keeps you from getting too into it. The story itself feels a bit...flat, at least until the point I reached and that, paired with the subpar voice acting, really makes for irritating interruptions. You do half a thing and suddenly the VA announces that there is more story to look at - many of which feel like a filler chapter - and that there are some nonsense clues to note down on his board. Now, thankfully, most story clips are short which could make them managable if it weren't for the frequency with which a linear "interrogation" or straight up comic-chapter is thrown at you. Being as it is, you can't get into the story because the bits are too short and too random, but you can't get into the managing bits either because you're constantly interrupted. So, in the end, this game is a really nice idea and comes with a really interesting premisse but doesn't really manage to capture my heart. I don't see myself finishing it any time soon.