Other Mobile Cafe ReMix?

[kiadony]

I played it a little back when it came out and, well, found it pretty hard, to the point that I basically ragequit and never came back. However sometimes I look at it and wonder if I should try again since its art is cute. So I wanted to ask, does anyone here still play it or at least played it a lot? Is it normal to struggle or did I just suck or miss something obvious? I admit I am not the best when it comes to playing on touch screens.

 

[staticmoth]

i tried it for a day or two, i thought the puzzles were kind of fun? but it felt like... overmonitized for what it was? i deleted the app pretty quickly. haha.

but the artstyle is so cute and gave us the most adorable kotatsu slowpoke! i don't mind just hanging back and admiring all the art for the game~

 

[CrinkTheBunny]

It's adorable!!!! I dont play very often, I'll just randomly play for like half an hour every couple months lol. As most Pokémon mobile games go in my experience, it's hard to get all the cool stuff without paying but it's a nice way to pass the time every once in awhile :3

 

[Salmancer]

Aw man Cafe (Re)Mix thread! I played for a while, both before and after the retool. Part of the reason I stopped playing is that I broke my phone's stylus trying to rack up high scores in the events! I like the theming and the art. I'm a big fan of giving every Pokémon a different skill, which makes them all distinct. And the skill animations are all* really fun. Plus, its eternally funny that things like honey and condensed milk are the death of a kitchen, even for superpowered Pokémon. I think one of the things the game could do better is connecting the puzzles to the exact dish being prepared. Its entirely arbitrary, which weakens the theming.

If you're talking difficulty, yeah it could sting in the way most modern matching games do: giving just barely enough moves to meet the objective and calling for luck and/or skill to make up the difference. Things like marshmallow jars and popcorn are very good at getting the player to waste moves. The struggle is absolutely the point, in part because players who want to progress and find themselves stuck may choose to make purchases to get past difficult stages. Which is what the company wants. If I recall correctly, Cafe Mix's difficulty woes could be exacerbated by not having done well enough to unlock certain Pokémon when the game expects the player to, because the given Pokémon's skill happened to be the clean answer to a problematic stage. (And of course, the game was designed to prey on being worried about not unlocking Pokémon fast enough with the happy bonus mechanic.) The Remix retool was in part to ease off on main stage difficulty. With every Pokémon having a gimmick they can clear more easily, and help from the new ability to combine megaphone pieces, the move economy is often pushed in favor of the player. Improving said improved clearing ability by grinding for levels made stages much easier... which is why Cafe Remix also pushed for limited time events that gate players through means other than puzzle difficulty.

Remix did a lot of things. One the one hand, stages could be replayed, the difficulty eased off, we got so many alternate outfits. On the other hand, the cafe's menu items lost their descriptions, skill animations become more generic, and delivery is literally just a gacha ramrodded into a game that isn't designed for it. The lives system was swapped for a stamina system, which tracks because basically the high difficulty meant that lives were functionally stamina for many players, While stages could be replayed, between the events, the grinding, and the finite amount of stamina, there wasn't much of a reason to do so. Making replaying stages unreasonable kind of hurts the point of grading stages with stars to begin with. I liked the idea of one minute cooking, as team building plays on the Pokémon theme, but the grind to complete events was rough. (mostly because of the stamina system)

Hmm, I don't know how to conclude this post. It sounds like indictment, but in practice the idea of a non-falling block matching puzzle game that doesn't ultimately tamper with the experience to get money out of players is a thing of the past. Blame rock bottom mobile game pricing. At least Cafe Remix is very cute as it tries to do so.

 

[kiadony]

Hmm, I didn't know about the retool. Maybe I should give it another try to see how it goes.

 

[kiadony]

I re-downloaded it today and it certainly feels more manageable than what I remember of the old version. And apparently there is some major update coming? Not sure I'll be all that invested, I think I'll see if events that give my faves come back before I lose interest