Loved the first iteration of this series and was so excited to immediately jump into episode 2! I love the addition of the new characters and a few of the features that were added onto this one. Still felt familiar and comfortable but didn't feel like I was just playing the exact same game again.

I love the sense of calm this game makes me feel while playing! The soothing ambiance with warm, caring characters and their relationships are really the triumph with this series.

All in all, love this series and am excited to play more visual novel-type games.

That being said.... I definitely was disappointed to realize that they chose to do the same post-game style in the way of unlocking alternate storylines/endings as they did in the first game. This time around, I did better with my gameplay and was able to unlock all of the "good endings", but from looking at guides you need to unlock ALL endings in order to unlock the "secret ending" and that just doesn't sit right with me! To me, this is a slow, narrative based, story that deserves attention and intention. The thought of replaying through my save multiple times just to quickly skip through days of dialogue to change minute details in order to fulfill achievement requirements to unlock a mystery ending feels like it would taint the whole meaning and intention of the gameplay! Idk, I am just not about that grind culture and would have rather seen a post game that simply progressed the story with the opportunity for more days.

Felt a little empty ending this playthrough when I realized what the post game looked like. Just felt a little abrupt! I suppose I am harping on this so much because this is such an influential and important game to me with stories I keep close to heart and gameplay that helped me feel calm in an otherwise overwhelming world. I want to end my review by reiterating how much I love this series, because I really do.

Will probably leave it at this and try to remember the good endings I got :)

Cara, é incrível como esse jogo POR MUITO POUCO se tornou melhor que o 1 (Não estou falando no mal sentido, o Coffe Talk 1 é bom demais), eu sou um fofoqueiro nato, mas gostei que não teve tanto drama quanto teve no 1. Os personagens novos e os antigos entram em uma sincronia muito boa, principalmente os antigos para com o Barista (nós) mostrando como criaram uma amizade forte ao longo dessa ausência de 3 anos que não acompanhamos. Eu odeio platinar pq é demorado e díficil, mas meus amigos... EU FAÇO QUESTÃO DE PLATINAR!!!
P.S: Queria que o 1 tivesse mais conquistas pra eu gastar mais horas nessa obra-prima.
P.S 2: Fiquei o dia todo para zerar, 11H total.
P.S 3: Platinado, e continuo odiando essa merda que chamam de platinar.

More of what Coffee Talk enjoyers would like.
Although if you hated the proposition of doing it all over again to get the true ending or in my case get another ending at all it seems like the most dreaded chore ever. The actual problem is your replaying entire days for the tiniest changes with animations that aren't skipped just the text. If you thought the first game had ambiguous hints then its ever worst here. I personally have no patience when it comes to replaying a game and having no clue what I'm doing wrong and then I have to pull up a guide cause what the fuck do I look like sitting here wasting time on a game thats stressing me the fuck out when I'm trying to relax and get the whole story but I can't make the right fucking right drink for that to happen. It's definitely a personal issue that I will not get over. Plus the stories didn't hit the same but maybe thats because I only saw 40% of the game idek.

While not as good as the first Coffee Talk, I still enjoyed my time with Episode 2. It did drag a bit at the beginning, it feeling like that the conversations didn't really go anywhere and just went over the same things over and over again, but I did really enjoy the latter half of the game. The new characters were quite nice, but I wished some of the old characters would have appeared a bit more (besides Baileys and Lua) throughout the game. Overall, it was a nice, relaxing experience with a great cast of characters, but the reliance on the walkthrough for some requests (some were quite unclear) and achievements and the repetition of the same topics again and again definitely hindered the experience a bit.

Here’s the thing about the original Coffee Talk: much like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, with which it shared a release year, Coffee Talk was the dictionary definition of a ‘right place, right time’ kind of game. 2020 was the year for Coffee Talk. As I spent yet another month entirely within my apartment during lockdown, roleplaying as a coffee-serving pillar of a near-future science-fantasy community provided me a level of comfort that would’ve been less potent in a more…sociable kind of year. And that’s not to say the original Coffee Talk wasn’t good, just that it was slight. It was a colorful game with precious few mechanics and a cast of characters who alternated between bubbly and traumadump-y like many contemporary visual novels. And that was fine. Coffee Talk was not ambitious, but it hit its marks.

Coffee Talk is also a game that ended with a bizarre non-sequitur of a twist that left a bad taste in my mouth. Coffee Talk 2 is more of the same on a surface level, but it’s a little twistier than that game, a little more packed with lore and just a little less tuned-in to the real-world. Example: one of Coffee Talk 2’s big new character is a Youtuber/influencer zoomer who is abrasive until he learns how to be a normal person thanks to the power of socially drinking coffee. Something about enduring this guy’s whole pre-scripted character arc set to Coffee Talk’s ‘Lo-Fi Beats to Chill and Study To’ soundtrack made the game feel somehow ancient to me, like it was the product of a time and place in culture that preceded even the first game’s release window. Haven’t we moved on to new forms of post-adolescent mass media sociopathy upon which to project ourselves? Shouldn’t this guy be the most toxic alpha male fake-podcaster you’ve ever seen? Maybe the next one’s music will graduate from Lo-Fi girl to whichever version of Undergraduate Bedroom Hyperpop (Fast Version) has become viral most recently.

Just started playing! Enjoy it with a cuppa :-) Right now on day 4, took about 1.5h. I love Lua, Silver & Amanda.

9 June 2024:
On day 9. Love this quote from Hyde: "As if you could know what's in someone else's heart. Even when you love someone...No, especially when you love someone...You should never presume to know what they need."

16 June 2024: Took a Sunday to finish Coffee Talk 2 & all it's achievements (well I'm left with about 6, but can't be bothered to finish 100%) It's fun!