• Price: $14.99 USD (currently on sale for $13.49 until April 17th)
• Developer: GameNobility
• Publisher: eastasiasoft
• Release Date: March 27, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by eastasiasoft on behalf of GameNobility. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Sunny Café is a visual novel that caught my attention with a combination of interesting ingredients elements. The story mainly takes place in a café in Taiwan, where a cast of Taiwanese college students come together for coffee and friendship. As the story goes on, the reader will learn a little bit about coffee brewing and Taiwanese culture, and some of the characters may even find love. According to the Steam page, the game has an estimated 4 hours of playtime, 130,000 words, and multiple endings and sub-endings.

Our story begins with a young man named Bowen running into a girl who needs directions on his way home after class. He can’t get his mind off of her, but doesn’t see her again until she comes into the café where he works on a rainy day. Bowen makes her a hot drink to help warm her up.

Part of the gameplay involves listening to a customer’s requirements for their coffee, then selecting the right coffee beans and playing mini games to brew the coffee. It’s generally not very difficult to figure out which coffee beans to use, as the coffee characteristics are pretty straightforward and the customer comments on each bean as you click on them.

The mini games are also not overly complex; if you mess up a step in the brewing process, they let you redo that individual step (for most parts). I think the controls could have been better for some of the mini games – especially the pouring step. It’s easier if you use the game’s touch controls. You’ll be scored on your final product once you’ve completed the brewing process, and those scores apparently affect the ending you get.

The dialogue after you make a customer’s drink seems to change depending on how you scored. In my opinion, the English localization is decent enough, if not a bit awkward (i.e. “…deciding to bring a clothes after spotting one lying around”). It didn’t sound natural in English when characters kept referring to others with their first and last names all the time.

The language also came off as somewhat flowery; for example: “…pedestrians…festooned in cheap, disposable yellow raincoats.” As a native English speaker, I’ve never heard that word before, and it’s also used incorrectly in that context. I understood what everyone meant – it’s just that the translation could be improved to make it sound more natural.

There’s a cast of close to a dozen characters, some of whom appear more often than others. You get a glimpse into their personal lives – their developing relationships, philosophies, and hopes for the future – as the days go by. While there is some romance, it’s not the only focus of the story. You get to see Bowen interact with his friends and family, too.

Now, there are two other girls who express interest in Bowen, but he’s apparently never thought about them in that way. It may have been interesting to have routes for them too. And I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t show a few of the date scenes; instead, they show Bowen meeting the love interest for the date and that’s it.

I wouldn’t say that the story is overly exciting, as there isn’t really any drama. However, I found that refreshing in a way because we can all use a break from drama in real life and in fiction. The story is certainly relatable, and the coffee facts are really a fascinating part of the game.

In some scenes, if you click on items in the background, you can gain “knowledge awards” and unlock hidden storylines. You really have to pay attention and move the cursor around a lot to make sure you don’t miss any. I would have missed at least one item that was behind a solid character portrait if my cursor hadn’t highlighted the area when it crossed over it.

The game has an adorable little mascot character who appears on the coffee information cards you unlock. I felt like I learned at least something new about coffee. Besides the Easter eggs, some of the characters have a brief yet interesting discussion about the history of coffee in Taiwan, given that coffee is not the usual drink you’d associate with the place. I really appreciate that kind of information, and I was curious enough to research the topic some more.

I’m sure I missed some details here and there, but I appreciated that they added small touches like a coffee poster in Bowen’s room to reinforce the theme. They did a great job with the art for the character designs, backgrounds, and coffee infographics. I especially loved the adorable chibi versions of the characters!

As far as the audio is concerned, that’s another area where the game shines for me. There is Mandarin voice acting, and even your character Bowen is voiced! (It was nice to practice my listening skills in Chinese.) Ignoring the times that the soundtrack drowns out the voice acting a little, I thought the quality of the voice acting, soundtrack, and sound effects was excellent.

They even created a nice opening video with a theme song, which players can view in the “PV” section under Extras on the main menu. After completing the game for the first time, you can also access the mini game section, which allows you to remake people’s coffee requests from the main game. There’s also a CG gallery and a section where you can listen to the soundtrack.

While the writing wasn’t quite as strong as it could have been, and the mini game controls could be better, Sunny Café is still a pleasant enough story about everyday life and young love. I responded well to the artistic elements, and I really liked the coffee facts and historical information a…lot LATTE. ☕️