As you’d expect from a visual novel, Tavern Talk has quite a bit of text. Some Steam reviewers have complained that the game is too “verbose“, but I would be against cutting any of the lines of dialogue or shortening them; it would take away too much from the novelty aspect of the game. If you’re looking for a review of a cozy gaming companion, you’ve come to the right place.
History
The story of Tavern Talk extends throughout the game, and each patron’s backstories only come to light as they continue to visit your tavern. At first, you may find certain characters annoying, nervous, or just plain strange, but there isn’t a single character in Tavern Talk that I haven’t enjoyed seeing in front of my bar at the end of the game.
Despite being an anonymous and faceless NPC in the game, you connect with each character through your questions and your ability to prepare a very good drink that can grant the consumer some useful advantages. They tell you their stories, you tell them adventures and they ask you for something to help them. It’s very much a “Don’t go alone, take this” type of situation. The innkeeper clearly has some trauma to work through, which comes to light in due time from him, but the game does well to keep you guessing, feeding you little details as you build your relationship with the colorful cast of characters.
The narrative really makes you feel like you’re the “saving point” of a D&D campaign. The kind innkeeper waiting for your friends to come back and tell you all about their successes… or their failures.
Rating: 5/5
Visual design
Tavern Talk is gorgeous. The detail on each character is wonderful, especially since parts of their costume or design change after completing certain quests. Each design is unique, even if the characters are a bit stereotypical for a D&D game.
One of the main problems I have with the design is the preparation of the drink. After a while, it gets incredibly boring having to re-make the same drinks for every order. I would also have liked to see the potion colors mixed for the drink and for the finished drink to show that mix. As it is, potion colors are completely irrelevant. The finished drink ignores the colors that were added and shows no signs of any infusion that may have been added.
The tavern itself almost never changes. You can receive gifts from your customers, like the constellation-embroidered gift from Fable, and the window reflects the time of day and recent events, but that’s about it. The only moving parts are your bird companion. The characters don’t move much either, as you’d expect from a visual novel, but visual novel backgrounds typically change a lot more than this. I would have liked to see more moving parts and more life in the tavern. If the game is stuck in one location, that location shouldn’t be so static.
I’ll take one point off for the game’s visual static and another for the repetitive drinks and drink design. Yes, the customers’ faces move and their hands change position, but there’s not much to do in terms of interacting with the world. I would have loved to see more of the outside of the tavern, which you only learn about when customers come in for a drink and tell you what’s going on out there. It made me feel like I was trapped in a small corner of a huge world.
Rating: 3/5
Controls and Accessibility
Click, click, click. With the exception of drink making and quest creation, this game could be a contender for best clicker games of 2024. I understand that visual novels, by design, don’t include many controls, but it’s still a factor here.
However, using fewer controls makes the game much more accessible and easier to learn to play. There is a LOT of dialogue, though, so I recommend putting the game on auto-read and changing the reading speed in the settings to suit your preferences.
Rating: 4.5/5
How to play
This game is the perfect type of game to replay. It’s impossible to get all the achievements on your first playthrough because the drinks you serve in response to quests change the outcome of each quest. Serve someone a drink that increases their charisma and you may be able to convince a beast that is terrorizing a nearby town. On the other hand, a drink that increases strength can cause a character to get hurt or fail to address the root cause of the problem.
Unfortunately, one of the last drink requests in the game is bugged and you cannot craft one of the two requests – these are the drinks for the Dead Parade quest, where the best result is likely to come from the Charisma and Defense drink, but there is no drink/infusion combination that works for the request.
Considering it’s an Act III mission that’s near the end of the game, it’s pretty important that players can access both outcomes.
Something that immediately caught my attention was the representation in Tavern Talk. Fable, who you meet first, uses “they” pronouns. They’re not the only example of LGBTQIA+ representation in the game, either! Multiple pronouns are used, some of the customers flirt with each other, and there’s even an adorable case of found family that I really loved the game.
There are plenty of emotional moments; some funny, some romantic, and some that will make you want to stab fictional characters. That a visual novel takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions and has some compelling gameplay mechanics that make you hope you’ve mixed a character with the right drink ensures that Tavern Talk stands out from the crowded bar of drink-based visual novel titles out there right now.
Score: 4/5
Verdict
It seems like a lot of the hype around Tavern Talk came from the Coffee Talk series, which is a well-loved set of visual novels. Tavern Talk definitely shares some traits, but the games are very different: their settings, characters, the art style… That said, if you enjoyed Coffee Talk, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Tavern Talk. They’re not made by the same developer, but the gameplay still has the same level of cozy escapism that hits you right after a long day at work or a lazy Sunday.
In its own right, Tavern Talk is a unique game that gives D&D fans the opportunity to become NPCs, rather than adventurers. Your tavern is where adventurers leave and return, you hand out quests after collecting rumors from their conversations, and you’re always open for those who need a drink.
I would have liked to see more illustrations in the game and less static visuals. Visual novels are characterized by being a visually interactive novel. You can still read the story, but you are also supposed to be able to continue the history. I understand why the developers decided to keep players in the tavern, but even being able to leave the tavern to inspect the damage at different stages of the story would have made me feel like I was actually part of the world, and not just a part there. to drive the story.
More drink options would have been nice too, but I’m more bothered by the lack of consistency between potion colors and the outcome of the drink. If a drink is called “Glowing Nebula,” why isn’t there something we can add to make it glow? Or why don’t attribute potions create a purple color to reflect the finished drink? Seeing some color theory would have greatly improved this part of the game.
Score: 4/5
Want to play Tavern Talk for yourself? Check out our MyFullGames Tavern Talk walkthrough (best results) or read about the 10 best cozy games coming to PC in 2024.