I hesitated between this title and "Don't phunk with my heart"; but really, the meaning is the same, namely that Café Enchanté roughed me up and tore my heart apart like few otomes before it. That game is savage; and it's all the more savage as it masquerades as something light-hearted when it's actually anything but.
Here's what I,
and probably many other players, expected from CE: a sweet, cheerful,
possibly slighty corny romp about coffee shop regulars. I also expected an
strong fan-servicey factor due to the presence of non-human beaus, as well as
some crossover fanfic vibes. Last but not least, I expected to be given long
lectures about coffee and latte art as eye-candy.
What I got instead was a brooding and meditative saga about Darwinism and the
hardships of binational love, replete with copious amounts of angst, body
horror and fates
worse than death. And forget
about coffee lectures and latte art; instead, I got a taste of other worlds so
utterly foreign and unwelcoming that they made shivers run down my spine.
I sure as heck didn't expect CE to be so utterly brutal, which made its impact all the more violent. But make no mistake, dear fellow gamers: I absolutely adored that game. For all its brutality, the story is undeniably top-tier; and it's backed up by splendid Art Deco-inspired background art, gorgeous character designs and a lush, evocative soundtrack. The interface is stupidly enchanting (indeed), and the french sentences sprinkled through the game are all delightfully right when it comes to grammar and choice of vocabulary — I swear, they are totally things a native could say. Not only that, but the writers went as far as to play upon the double meaning of the word enchanté in French. As a character points out, it means 'delighted to meet you'; but it also means 'enchanted', which nicely ties with the game's overall theme — now that's a linguistic coup de maître if I ever saw one.
Long story short: Café Enchanté is one of Otomate's most outstanding efforts, and it fully deserves to be played. Just know what to expect, brace yourself, and take breaks if need be — heck, I took a two-day pause myself before playing the last route, just to breathe and recover from all the messing up before the final push. I'll see you soon with a run report, dear fellow gamers; in the meantime, keep playing and take care!
Kumiko21 December 2020 at 11:50
What? This is
not what I was expecting at all. I was hoping for something light hearted after
I finished Bad Apple Wars. I mean, doesn't this game have a fallen angel
obsessed with otomes? How can that be anything but comedic? I suppose it isn't
bad, since darker games do tend to stick with me for a lot longer (even if
don't like them), but I must admit, this is not what I was looking for right
now.
Oh well, I just finished Ore ga Omae o Mamoru (a DS castlevania-like that just
got english patched) and I still want to beat Micetopia before I dive into
another VN. I might be in the mood for it by then, though I hear Micetopia is
really short.
The art looks even better than the screens I saw though.
Isleif22 December 2020 at 16:21
"The art
looks even better than the screens I saw though": I know, right? Believe
me, the art is absolutely SPLENDID. Nearly every background warrants a
screenshot, and the characters are all drop-dead gorgeous. And those colours!
Man, that whole game is pure eye-candy from start to finish.
Ore ga Omae o Mamoru kinda rang a bell; and well, turns out that Kina from
Tehvidya wrote about it a couple of years ago. Don't know if you've read her
post already, so I'll paste it here for future reference:
https://www.tehvidya.com/ore-ga-omae-wo-mamoru-metroidvania-for-girls/
Micetopia looks lovely indeed. I don't like platformers as a rule, but I must
admit that this game's retro looks make me feel all mushy and nostalgic —
reminds me a lot of Castle of Illusion and other 16-bit platformers starring
good ole Mickey Mouse. Maybe I'll give it a try when It's on sale and I have a
couple of euros to spare ^^
Kumiko25 December 2020 at 20:19
Let me try to
dissuade you from Micetopia: the game has the major flaw that the weapon range
is extremely short. It's only about two pixels longer than your hit hitbox,
which means every time you try to attack something, there's a very good chance
you get hit instead through no fault of your own. You get a bow eventually, but
you can't fire it in midair, so it's almost useless to try and hit most enemies
from afar.
Because of this crap I had the bad luck of dying at the same time as a boss;
this made the game glitch out, and when I returned to the boss room, the music
was still playing, but the boss was gone. Because of this the game would not
let me rescue the mouse villager the boss was guarding, blocking my progress.
Now this was early on, barely 45 minutes in. I could have just restarted the
game. But I realized how painful every single enemy encounter was due to the
stupidly short range, and given it's a metroidvania, there's little to do but
combat. So I dropped it, and I do not recommend it. A sad waste
So I've been playing the single player modes of Black Clover Quartet Knights
instead. All that I'm missing is an extremely hard crystal defend mission
that's almost impossible. I might give up soon, but it's a fun game. It was
nice to finally be able to try a hero shooter game offline in this manner.
I found out about Ore ga Omae o Mamoru from her blog all those years ago! I had
been hoping for a patch ever since, and I can't believe we actually got on.
Well worth it, I recommenced it despite the ingame slowdown when there's a lot
of enemies on screen.
Well, you won't have to try very hard to dissuade me, since Platformers are not my cup of tea to begin with. :P Guess I won't purchase that game after all; if I want a nostalgic ride with a mouse, I'll rather go back to my beloved Castle of Illusion on a Game Gear emulator. ^^
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