Image via Gentle Troll Entertainment
After Toge Productions created Coffee Talk andintroduced the visual novel genre that blended working as a barista/bartender while connecting with customers, Gentle Troll Entertainment showed up as one of the developers that rolled with the idea to create its own Tavern Talk series. Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker builds on the concept in the same way as Coffee Talk Tokyo does, only this time with a standalone prequel that still involves serving up drinks and light quest management that influence adventurers’ lives.
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker begins with our owner freshly launching a new bar called Drowsy Dragon on the cost of Phesoa. It’s not quite 100% yet, though the finfolk Una’s helped you get it fixed up so you can start welcoming in adventurers who pass by. People will stop by. You’ll talk to them, and they’ll mention what they have planned in terms of a journey or upcoming events that might lead to them benefitting from a potion that offers a certain boost. You might also hear rumors and insights that can be turned into quests, which could help advance those sort of side stories.
Now, since this is a prequel with a pretty comprehensive tutorial, Gentle Troll does do a good job of getting someone settled and running. It’s over 30 years before the events of the original game. So while there are some familiar faces like Una and Quasar, a person could come into this story and not worry about missing a beat. I have played both games and do feel like it’s sort of critical narratively to have that context, given what happened in the initial game. But mechanically, you’ll be fine and won’t feel left out in any way.
Pacing and gameplay is pretty much unchanged from the original Tavern Talk, and Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker leans into being a little more puzzle-like than Coffee Talk Tokyo. You’re still piecing together the right drink to make for people to push their storylines toward different results. Except here, instead of going for certain drinks based on requests, you make potions that hit certain positive and negative points in the charisma, defense, dexterity, intelligence, and strength stats to complete recipes that could influence things like hope, luck, strength, stress, and speed. Each ingredient could boost one and/or lower another and a glass can only hold up to five amounts, so you need to play around with what you put together to craft the right concoctions. Both providing exactly what someone orders or what you think they need could change their stories.
The thing is, Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker arriving so soon after Coffee Talk Tokyoworks against it. I feel like the Toge Productions title outpaces it in a number of ways, even though Gentle Troll Entertainment does set itself a part in some ways with gameplay decisions. In some situations, it comes down to personal preferences. Someone might find Toge’s spritework and character designs more appealing than Gentle Troll’s art direction. In others, I feel like core elements aren’t as strong even though they are pleasant and executed well. I preferred the storylines in Coffee Talk Tokyo and liked most of the characters there more, especially with the growing friendship elements. I enjoyed the drink-mixing mechanics more as well and appreciated the puzzle elements more there.
At the same time, I could also see this working to someone’s benefit. Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is more interactive than Coffee Talk Tokyo in some ways, as I mentioned earlier. The collecting of rumors to piece together quests is one way. The fact that when we talk to people, we can select different dialogue options is another. The potion crafting also feels that way, since in Toge’s title we’re just picking a few things in the right order and here we need to actually keep stats and balance in mind. So a player who wants to do “more” might appreciate this more.
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is another solid installment in the drink-making visual novel genre, though I admittedly enjoyed Coffee Talk Tokyo a bit more. This does do something different, which works in its favor! The D&D and RPG-related elements still set it apart. So does the quest system and stat-influencing mixes. People who enjoy this sort of storytelling should probably look into playing both titles or at least test out the demo. It is one of the more interactive types of games in this space, so folks looking to get more involved in their customers’ lives to shape their futures and be challenged by mixology may appreciate that.
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker is available on the Switch and PC.