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For me, there are only two kinds of games out there, and this classification matters the most: the games that frustrate you and those that relax you. Sometimes I prefer one; sometimes the others. It's really up to the mood I'm in at the moment.
After a long and a stressful day, it is always ideal to play a game that can relax you and make you forget about, say, the stress you're accumulating at your work or anywhere else. This is where the games like Tailside Cozy Café Sim jump in.
Tailside Cozy Café Sim is not a perfect game; I wouldn't go so far as to call it even a decent game, but one thing that it does perfectly is exactly what it originally aims to do, and that's to make you feel like its title suggests – very cosy.
Story
I wouldn't say the story holds any importance in this small game, and it won't be judged by the presence or absence of it at all. It's simply that kind of game where the story is totally unimportant. However, the story exists, and it follows a little fox, or wolf, or whatever the main protagonist actually is, and his or her (I don't know which one of those it is either) takeover of a cosy café located inside the Tailside town.
Once our little hero arrives at the café, they will get the sole mission, and that is to take over the business and make the customers happy by making the best coffee in town, and that's pretty much it.
Making coffee and decorating the café will be the bread and butter of this game, and the entire story and gameplay will revolve around it, so do not expect not just some sophisticated stories, plots, and twists, but no story at all; it is what it is, and if you plan on playing Tailside Cozy Café, consider yourself informed.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is also extremely simple. Your job will be to produce all sorts of coffee, mixing different exotic recipes, and by doing so, you'll receive XP points and level up. Higher levels will mean the ability to make more sophisticated and also more expensive coffees, which will attract more creatures into your café.
Creatures are your customers, because this game's main characters are cute little animals (how cosy, right?)
Apart from making coffee, you'll decorate your cafe as well, adding all sorts of different furniture, tables and chairs, and all that will be available in the shop. You'll buy those pieces of furniture with the money you earned by selling and serving coffee, and that's that in essence.
All this sounds and looks very cute, cosy, and relaxing on paper; however, this game has one huge problem (at least it was for me) in reality, and that's enormous boredom. Whatever you're doing in the game becomes extremely repetitive just in a couple of minutes, because Tailside Cozy Café will give you everything it owns in such a short period of time.
There are different modes in the game; for example, if you don't want to be limited by the levelling system, you'll be able just to make coffee without worrying about any limitations, which unfortunately I found even more boring and uninteresting.
Visuals and Sounds
Tailside Cozy Café is a cute-looking game with a pixelated art style and a questionable choice of colour palette. The entire game uses a yellowish colour background, which is more suitable for some serious and intense games, but that might be just my sentiment.
The isometric view combined with pixelated graphics leaves the impression of an old video game, which holds some sort of charm, and the pixelated game enthusiasts might like that very much, but as the problem is with the gameplay, the biggest issue with visuals is monotony. For the entire game, you'll be watching the same scene, without any change of scenery, and that can become rather tedious and boring.
Since this is a PC exclusive, one might expect the ability to meddle with graphic options, but sadly, you won't be able to do it in Tailside Cozy Café Sim. All graphical options are predetermined, and you'll be able to change only the resolution and nothing more. Not even the resolution changing works as intended, because when I tried to change it to fit my UW monitor, the formation actually changed, but much of the content simply disappeared from the screen. All the game did was zoom in, so the rest of the game I played using 1080p resolution, which seems to be the default one.
Regarding sounds, I can say the word 'cosy' is crucial here as well, because the soundtrack that plays in the background while, say, making coffee or decorating the space, is just that, very cosy. Although, even with the music, the same problem lurks, and that's the repetition of the same songs that can easily grow into boredom, as all other things you'll meet in this game eventually do.
Conclusion
If you want to play a game with zero stress and immerse yourself in a world where making coffee is all there is, then maybe Tailside Cozy Café Sim is a game for you. However, be warned that everything you'll be able to do in this game will very soon become a tedious chore which few can enjoy.
The same-looking scenes, doing the same stuff all over again, and even listening to the same music all the time can and will become boring, so be informed about this. If you think you can handle those shortcomings, then Tailside Cozy Café Sim can be exactly what it promises to be – a cosy little game for relaxation.
The Good
Very cosy and relaxing atmosphere- Cute pixel-art animal characters
- Simple, stress-free gameplay
The Bad
Extremely repetitive gameplay- Becomes boring very quickly
- Monotonous visuals and scenery
- Limited depth and progression
