Tokyo Coffee: Grinding in the Pandemic Reviews

As someone who lived in Japan throughout the pandemic, and spent most of their social time in cafes, this game is highly relatable to me. I was worried that the perspective would go a bit off the rails but despite some characters early on who seem to be more of semi-caricatures it was actually very relatable and even characters who had views that I personally don’t hold, I can remember talking to people in Japan who did think like that. So for the most part the characters feel very real and the things they complain about sometimes hit on a level I think anyone who lived in Japan during the pandemic can relate to. Any time either of the Go To campaigns were mentioned, I groaned in agreement because I remember seeing those messes in real time. How this relates to someone with no experience in Japan during that time, I don’t know. The coffee mechanics are also pretty good, the idea of grinding intensity changing the flavor of the coffee (as opposed to grind size here in the real world) was a really novel way to gamify coffee making, and brewing the Chemex was really intuitive and the best representation of coffee brewing I’ve seen in a video game yet. I feel it would’ve been cool to add rotating to the pour intensity but I can see how that would possibly be too much. Overall some of the characters hit hard and the setting is dealt with in a really honest way. There’s a certain string of memories you go through that all end in customers holding their heads in despair. The game mechanics are a pretty great representation of brewing coffee in a video game and don’t get too repetitive in my opinion.