Game Journal #66.5 - Cafe Enchante Review

Hey all! Today I finished playing that otome game I was playing called Cafe Enchante. I left a review for the last Otome I played, so why not this one, too? I did learn a lot of game dev things from the game, surprisingly. ...I won't lie, most of them were what NOT to do in a video game. Haha. But even negatives can turn into a positive when you look at it differently. As usual, this'll be a spoiler free review if you want to play the game yourself. But given you're probably a guy reading this, that won't be the case. ...Are there even any girls here?

Anyway, I'll give the basic plot. This grill Kotone inherits a cafe from her grandfather, and that cafe has a gate that connects to a bunch of supernatural worlds. From that gate, a bunch of mythological guys come in and visit the cafe. It's a pretty interesting premise. What really made me intrigued about the game was the art style, though. Most otomes have this really bland and generic pretty-boy art style, which I mean, is cool if you like pretty boys. But me, I like manly dudes. There's a real lack of otomes with really masculine guys though, so yeah... but this game surprisingly featured guys that all looked to be in their 20s and 30s. Which I mean, c'mon. Instant play. The only other otome I've found with a cast like that is Pub Encounter (which is also my favorite otome.) And guess what? Amazingly, they also both have the same artist, too! IT BLEW MY MIND!

Anyway, just like before with my Persona review, I'll have you guess who my favorite guy is. C'mon, this time it's reallly, really, easy. Especially if you've seen my previous game journals. Did you guess? Don't scroll down until you do....

Ok, ok. Did you guess Mr. Foxy Grandpa (the guy with brown hair?) Too bad, it's not him. It's the guy with the red hair, Ignis. ...I literally said that in the game journal right before this one, so if you didn't get it, smh.

How can you say no to a man like this?

While I've done an otome review in the past, I'll do a more proper one this time. I'll rate each character and their story, what I liked and disliked, etc. I'll also review the game mechanics and the overall fun I had. Simple, eh. All right, let's go. I'll rate each character in the order that I played them.

Ignis and Kotone

First up is Ignis. He's a Fire Wolf from a world called Bestia. In that world, monsters try to kill each other all the time to become the strongest. Ignis is different in that he doesn't like killing, and only protects others that are weaker than he is. ...Uh, even though I said he's a Fire Wolf, he isn't actually one. As in, he doesn't have a wolf body or anything like that. That'd be really cursed... anyway, he's pretty much your average tsundere athletic guy. He also eats a lot, (like, a day's worth of food at once) which I found really charming. Guys that love food and exercise are epic. He's also close to the age of the MC (he's 25, she's early 20s.) And he can have kids. Big plus!

I'll say one thing about this game. Each character has a dark secret to them. Ignis' is, well... it really came out of left field for me. Of course, I still love him despite that, but it really shocked me because he was the first one I played through, and I wasn't expecting the game to be so dark when all the promotional material has a slice of life sort of feeling. How dark, you ask? Well, there's blood. Lots of blood. Berserk-levels of blood, even. But that's not just on Ignis' route. It's EVERYWHERE! I think it's cool, but I can imagine a lot of girls being freaked out. Lol.

Well then, what's my rating of Ignis? 10/10 on the Waifu-Meter. There's really not much more you can ask for in a guy. Athletic, likes cooking (this is really attractive, if you were wondering,) protective, courageous, and most importantly, slightly awkward when it comes to emotional topics. I'm the same way, so I can relate a lot. Also, those tiny, tiny, pupils. Aren't they just so cool? Ahhhhhh.

Kaoru and Kotone

Next up is Kaoru. Kaoru is different in that he's the only human love interest. So while everyone else is some mythological thing, he's just a 42-year old man. Haha. 'Wait, isn't he double Kotone's age?' you might ask. Yeah, he is. It's why I call him 'foxy grandpa.' Haha. What, you can't say he isn't attractive. C'mon.

Kaoru works at this place called the GPM, which monitors all the mythological beings that appear on Earth. Because of this, he comes to Kotone's cafe to watch over everyone else that comes there. Personality wise, he's really mature and charming, so I decided to do his route after Ignis. And obviously, since he's human he can have kiddos with her.

Kaoru is also the only character that doesn't have a dark secret to his backstory. There's a secret, but it's more about his company than himself. Ultimately, it did surprise me, and I enjoyed it a lot.

So, where does he land on the Waifu-Meter? 8/10. He's handsome sure, but he's also a lot older than you. So he won't be around as long, either. However, he's also really cool in that he's the only character without superpowers. So when he fights, it takes pure skill and wits to win. I really like that about his character, so I can recommend dating him.

Canus and Kotone

My third route was Canus. I actually wanted to do Miysr next, but you can't do his until you complete everyone else's (yeah, really.) So I went with Canus. Canus is a dullahan, a.k.a. the headless horseman. Yeah... he has no head at all. But somehow, he can still eat things (they just disappear where his mouth should be.) Yeah... he's also hundreds of years old. Amazing.

Anyway, Canus is from a plant world called Medio, which has the Yggdrasil. As a mythology buff, I loved to see it! There's a bunch of faries that inhabit it, and yeah. Canus is actually a fairy himself, even though he's this large buff guy. Absolutely bizarre. As for his personality, Canus is super awkward. He's basically a knight, so his dialogue is rather stilted, and he has trouble expressing himself sometimes. But it's really funny, so I really enjoyed his route.

As for his dark secret... eh. It was the weakest out of everyone's. I basically guessed it from the beginning, so I wasn't surprised at all. His route also had the least cutscenes out of everyone's. I have a feeling that the devs didn't really know what to do with him since he doesn't have a head, so they just kinda phoned it in. Well, for what it was, it was decent.

Waifu-Meter? 7/10. He's a fairy and they don't reproduce, so no kids. RIP Kotone's bloodline. Or maybe not, since there's a half-fairy in the game... but they also say that they don't have reproductive organs. ...Did I just discover a plot hole? Well, Canus himself is awesome and gentlemanly, so I can recommend him.

Il and Kotone

Next up is Il. He's a fallen angel from a world called Calem, which is basically Heaven. Originally I wasn't going to do his route at all, but because you have to do everyone before you can get Misyr, I had no choice. I mean, the guy just looks so feminine, and he likes to play otome games. I thought he'd just be another one of those generic bishie dudes you see in shojos, but... I've gotta say, I was really surprised when I played it. Il is, surprisingly, the most manly out of everyone. Not looks-wise, but actions-wise. It's hard to explain, but yeah. I grew a deep appreciation for his character from the story.

I won't spoil too much about his secret, but just like Ignis', it threw me for a loop. I think it was the most well-written out of all the routes, actually. I can't say much more, but if you were like me and was going to dismiss Il because he's really pretty, don't. He's really, really, cool.

Waifu-Meter? 9/10. 1 point off because you can't have kids with angels, but Il is really awesome. He's great with math and technology, and personality-wise he's almost autistic with how he can't understand a lot of social norms. He's also thousands of years old, and is gonna outlive Kotone for sure. Do I recommend? Oh yeah.

Misyr and Kotone

Finally, we have the meat-and-potatoes, demon king Misyr. As expected, he's thousands of years old. You may be thinking that his route must be the best, since you have to do everyone else's first, right? Wrong. His route was the most WTH thing I've ever read in my life. I will say that his dark secret was shocking and unexpected, but the whole endeavor was just me wondering what drugs the writers were on.

Misyr himself is really cool though. Even though he's a demon king, he's very kind and gentle. He's the strongest magic-wise out of everyone, and can pretty much destroy anything. Yeah, he's really OP. The only caveat is that he has no healing skills, which is actually a pretty big plot point in some of the other routes. I think it's a pretty good balance all things considered.

After playing through his route, I can confidently say that there was absolutely no reason to lock it behind everyone else's. They only did that because they include the info you find out in other routes in his, but it wasn't necessary at all. It actually disappointed me a lot, because Il and Ignis' routes were way better than his, and yet his was the one that you had to unlock. Like, c'mon. WTH.

Okay, Waifu-Meter. Eh... 8/10. Of course, he's a demon king that can protect you from anything, but the guy always has a bounty on his head. He does like to brew and drink coffee though, which is interesting. Kotone can probably have kids with him...? It's never brought up, so I assume that demons can reproduce. Do I recommend? Eh... if it were a normal route, I'd say yeah. But because I had to unlock it and it was underwhelming, no. Smh.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I'll give Cafe Enchante a 3/5. Don't worry, I'll thoroughly explain why. The art is gorgeous of course, and the writing is serviceable. My main gripe with the game is the gameplay itself. Let's get right into it...

First of all, an otome is a visual novel. Visual novels give you choices that advance the story. Some choices are bad, others are good. In an otome, choices usually determine if you get with the character you want in the end or not. Getting them would be a good end, not would be a bad end. Okay, now that that explanation is out of the way, I can say that Cafe Enchante has the WORST CHOICE SYSTEM I've ever seen. That's right, even worse than Persona, where one choice can literally lock you out of an ending. In Cafe Enchante, it's that, but you get no indication at all that you chose wrong. Sometimes there will be an ENTIRE CHAPTER'S WORTH of content behind a bad choice. Then all of a sudden, boom, bad ending, and you're confused wondering WTH happened. And you know what adds insult to injury? There isn't even an indication that you got a bad ending. It just brings you back to the title screen.

This was a big problem when I played through Ignis' route. It was my first playthrough, and I got a bad ending. HOWEVER, there was no indication that it was bad, AND Ignis and Kotone still loved each other. So I was sitting there thinking that I got the good ending, but it just ended sadly. It was only when I looked online that I discovered that I actually got the bad one. Not only that, I got it because I made ONE WRONG CHOICE out of like, ten. WTH?! Seriously, this game is just merciless with choices. First of all, there's only like, two per chapter. That's really low. Secondly, there's no indication of a right or wrong choice. So it's easy to be fooled into thinking you're doing well, only to be met with a bad end. It was extremely infuriating. I literally stopped playing the game because it was so frustrating.

Secondly, all the routes are locked behind the prologue, which is EIGHT CHAPTERS LONG. In some otomes, you can directly choose the route you want, others you have to choose the right choices to get on the route you want. This isn't a problem when your intro is one or two chapters, but EIGHT?! WTH. I had so much trouble getting on Canus' route because his choices were way at the beginning of the game, and I made a wrong choice somewhere and kept getting other characters. Seriously, 99% of my playtime was just having the game skipping dialogue I already saw. Who thought this was a good idea???? Ah, man. Definitely not doing the same with my game.

So yeah. Can I recommend Cafe Enchante? I guess. It's not the best otome out there, but it's good. The mechanics are extremely frustrating, but the art and writing make up for it. I'm just glad I finished it. Ugh, I'm gonna have nightmares of skipping that stupid prologue dialogue over and over.

That's all for now. Next is going to be my Persona 5 review. I'll probably merge it with my next game journal, so yeah. Stay tuned.