Have you ever dreamed of owning a coffee shop where you can serve a variety of customers? How about a romance with one of your regular customers? but not just human customers, oh no, fantasy cafe customers. fire beasts, angels, demons and much more await you at cafe enchante.
story
You play as Kotone Awaki, a young woman who has just inherited her grandfather’s cafe. having left her last job, she hopes this will be a new step in her life, otherwise uneventful. however, she quickly discovers that the store her grandfather left her actually contains a door that connects to many other worlds, where fantasy creatures known as non-humans live. and even stranger, several of these non-humans are regulars at café charme.
Reading: Cafe enchante review
The overall tone of enchanted coffee at first makes you think it will be light-hearted, almost similar to a slice-of-life anime. however, don’t let the pretty visuals and lack of conflict fool you from the start. cafe charme can get pretty heavy, especially once you get deeper into the individual routes. I’d even go so far as to say that as you move up the lane of guys, things get darker and darker.
See also: Cafe Mini Fridges
However, the narrative tends to fluctuate in quality, with some routes (il and canus) feeling more complete than others (ignis and misyr). Along with that, the way the common path is handled is also particularly tricky. the common route, meaning the part of the story you play before you get stuck on a particular route, is obnoxiously long. that becomes a problem because from the start, any choice you make has an effect on the path you end up on. this makes replaying through later routes a bit annoying, because you’ll have to skip the entire first part of the game each time instead of starting at a save point midway through. and the common path doesn’t change outside of minute changes.
gameplay
Enchanted Cafe is an otome visual novel, in which you make choices to have a potential romance with one of five available male characters. each of the options will have an effect on how the story ends, from which character path you end up on to whether you get a good, normal, or bad ending. there is no flowchart available, so you will need to save often if you want to play 100%. as mentioned above, because of how the common path is handled, there’s no good way to save your game at the point where the paths branch, as each choice from the beginning affects the path you end up on.
There are five different types you can fall in love with: Canus Espada, Ignis Carbunculus, Kaoru Rindo, Il Fado de Rie, and Misyr Rex. however, by default, only the first four have their routes unlocked, and misyr’s route is unlocked after you’ve played the others. As with other otome games, there is a general list of “recommended” routes, and for Cafe Enchante, the way the guys are listed above is the agreed upon order. but of course you can loop through the paths in any order you like.
presentation
See also: BitterSweet Coffee – Không gian dành cho những người yêu cà phê thứ thiệt
Enchanted cafe art is done by yuuya who has credits for other otome games like cupid parasite and pub meet. And given the fact that it’s a visual novel tomato, it’s no surprise that the visuals are beautiful. the use of color is spectacular, especially given that most of the cast are supernatural creatures, it’s a good thing they haven’t skimped on making each cg feel as magical as possible.
The music is fine, although it’s very reminiscent of coffee shop music (which fits, since the enchanted coffee takes place in a coffee shop). however, this means that much of the music can easily take a backseat and end up being forgettable. there are plenty of piano pieces, but for heavier moments, the enchanted café brings out the orchestra pieces to set the mood.
conclusion
At first glance, Enchanted Cafe looks like a cute real-life visual novel. and while that’s the case with some moments, there’s a lot more angst than expected, especially in later routes (if you go by the “recommended” route order of canus, ignis, kaoru, il, and misyr). they’re all interesting to read in themselves because of the topics represented, but it’s easy to see which routes are better written than others.
While cafe enchante is definitely one of the weaker otome games available on switch, it’s still an enjoyable experience overall. As one of, if not the only, otome visual novels to deal with supernatural creatures, there’s plenty of action for readers to soak up, as well as a good mix of romance and flirtation.
See also: The Sprudge Guide To Animal Crossing Cafes
