CAFE 0 ~The Sleeping Beast~

I have literally sat here for those entire 5 hours because I was so enrapt in this game. It's beautiful and was definitely worth investing in. It's now 11:42pm though so I guess I should sleep. There's always tomorrow to try another route. ------- Since I wrote my initial review I have added 15 more hours to my gameplay. I STILL am not done and I HAVE to know EVERYTHING!!! Anyway if you didn't feel like getting this game after my first review, I hope you will reconsider with this updated sorta review? =)

Overall, I feel like The Sleeping Beast deserves a positive rating, as it’s interesting enough to hold your attention for the duration, but doesn’t excel at anything in particular. While appearing at first glance like an otome game, it’s more of a story of familial love and friendship, with solving a 15-year mystery as the glue that holds the plot together. The storytelling is divided between the present day, and flashbacks to other character 15 years prior, the latter of which making increasingly more sense as you progress through the story. There aren’t too many characters, you play as the maid Corliss, fated to die in 7 days, and you have the two Ashford heirs, Ethan and Nathan, who each have a route, along with a True Route to wrap up the overall mystery. The flashback scenes and supporting cast are shared across all routes. The pacing is a little slow, and the way they tease you again and again with the mystery of what happened and with the impending death of the main character in 7 days, you’d expect some much more dramatic and surprising revelations than what you actually get. Except for some minor details, it’s fairly easy to figure out what happened before you’re outr…

The character art was pretty amateurish, the music was bland, and the characters/plot felt really 1-dimensional. Overall I thought it was pretty boring and the payoff for the mystery/sitting through the story was lackluster.

Not a bad game, just the story and writing style was not for me. I do like darker stories, and games were multiple play thoughts revile more lore. This game did the kinda repeat play through well, it didn't feel very repetitive, However, there is very few CGs and I was just not into the soundtrack for the game. I won't recommend this to people that are new to VN's as the story starts off kinda dry but picks up me towards the end. It doesn't have much romance in to, didn't really feel like an otome game to me. (more VN story rich) In all very mid VN only get if on sale, as some very dark themes.

Cafe 0 is an interesting story that made me think about certain things in life. Is it incredibly deep and complex? Not really, unless you're quite young or you haven't been exposed to a lot of media. It has its moments. The CG and sprites were not really my taste: the two main characters Ethan and Nathan look and behave like they are 11 years old, Corliss looks disproportionate in the birthday CG. The true route endings felt like they couldn't really find a good way to end it. The great reveal of the plot when the villain explain how they've done it is kinda a joke. Everything is wrapped up a little too conveniently. Overall the game will give you 6-7 hours of gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game but I guess it's a game made with teenagers in mind. In the end, it didn't feel memorable in any way and I'm just eager to play something else.

Personally the game was not for me. I had high hopes when I bought it around 4 years ago as I had enjoyed the previous game. However, this was not how I felt towards this game. I felt like the whole plot had so much potential but it just did not deliver. Even from the get go I wasn't really enjoying the game and that feeling became stronger especially when the whole big reveal ended up being really lackluster. I saw that someone managed to play this game for 43 hours. I am unsure how since I have completed this whole game within a little over 4 hours. My advice would be if you aren't enjoying the writing style etc within the first hour of gameplay I would just refund it. Aunt Sophie 100% deserved sooooooooooooooooooooo much better.