Necrobarista, the spectacular visual novel from Route 59 and publisher Playism from last year is back! Now available on the Switch, the new Necrobarista: Final Pour is currently a timed release and will be making it to other platforms in the future. We reviewed Necrobarista last year and this review will be changed only insomuch as that details will reflect the Final Pour version with added and altered content. But what IS Necrobarista and why should you stand up and take notice? Come see why if you haven’t played it, you’ve been missing out!
Trendy coffee, hipsters and iPhones mixed with skeletons might be the first thing you might think of when you hear the name Necrobarista. Fortunately, this visual novel from Route 59 and publisher Playism is certainly none of those things. Firstly, it’s based in Australia, not a common locale for games in general. Secondly, it’s a much deeper story surrounding death, the afterlife, interpersonal relations, and some rather forbidden magic. This isn’t a quirky, lighthearted title. Sure there’s comedy in Necrobarista and plenty of it, but the overriding themes are heavy, introspective stuff that really makes you take a minute to stop and process.
A true visual novel, Necrobarista: Final Pour is almost entirely non-interactive. It’s broken down into episodes that tell the story of Maddy, barista extraordinaire and part-time necromancer, while she runs a coffee shop that is so much more than it appears to be in Melbourne, Australia. Maddy is unique, interesting, and well-written, and she sets the tone for the whole game. Partly serious, partly irreverent, and always thinking, she’s the perfect centerpiece for Necrobarista. The assorted cast of characters is also quite good, including Chay, Maddy’s partner, who initially comes off like a low-rent Rintaro Obake at first (Yeah yeah, Stein’s; Gate reference), but who quickly becomes much more interesting, Ashley, the child tech genius who can’t possibly be as young as she looks and will probably have a heart attack from her caffeine consumption, Ned, the um, enforcer for the Council, and Kishan, the recently departed guy who wandered in for a coffee… Yes, recently departed. Maddy’s shop serves both the living and the recently departed, acting as a waystation for those who have passed on to spend their final earthly hours in.
It’s a motley cast that sounds like it should end up as a low-rent comedy group, but ends up coming together in a complex, dynamic story that is so addictive it’s hard to stop (much like the coffee). And before you start complaining that you don’t play video games to read and that visual novels are boring, give Necrobarista a look. Because this is one of the most gorgeous visual novels ever made, with top-notch production values and a sense of artistic style that’s unparalleled in the genre. Every single scene in Necrobarista uses camera angles and lighting to maximum potential. Single sentences take on whole new meanings when paired with the right fade away camera pan or foreground movement. You feel constantly engaged, a particularly impressive feat since the characters are static images and not moving. And let’s not forget the characters themselves, as the design work is stunning on this one! Every character feels alive and seems both unique and realistic, even the ones that aren’t. This is a smorgasbord of creativity and every character jumps out as larger than life, even through the small and mundane actions and conversations that comprise much of the game. Essentially, you’re playing an anime that has a style all its own and absolutely nails it! There really isn’t anything else out there even remotely like Necrobarista and it’s truly a game-changer for visual novels!
But things don’t stop there. As a truly artistic media work, sound plays an important function in Necrobarista too. Sure, you’re going to hear some of the same tracks as you play, especially if you read slow, but the score for the game is just as inventive and dynamic as the camera work. Music is doing some heavy dramatic lifting here, as are the sound effects, which, while subtle, are expertly dovetailed into the game experience to create a fantastic soundscape. It’s easy to find yourself lost for a few minutes just sitting and listening to the rain with a quiet tune drifting through the background and a steaming cup of joe in a character’s hand before you realize you have to actually manually advance the story by clicking the button. Final Pour improves the already excellent compositions of the game, adding more tracks and making you want a physical CD of the excellent soundtrack.
Necrobarista is a definitely a visual and auditory masterpiece, but what about the script? No visual novel is worthwhile if the script is sub-par, and the game doesn’t disappoint here either! The subtle references to quantum physics anomalies, the asides about previous dealings, the slow consideration of philosophical implications, it’s all covered smoothly and expertly. There’s plenty of comedy there too! In The world of Necrobarista is fully realized in a way that you rarely see in modern visual novels, creating a backstory, events, and plot so effortlessly that it simply feels like it’s always been there. This is an intelligent game that demands that you pay attention and rewards your participation with a satisfying story that draws you in and holds you with rapt attention. When you look at a comparison of the original script to Necrobarista: Final Pour, there are an absolute abundance of small refinements and changes that help to shift the narrative and characters slightly and seem to incorporate just a few more of Australian aspects of the game. The tweaking here is excellent as it feels like the same core experience but still fresh at the same time, a rare feat for a game of this style!
Originally, there were intermissions between each segment of Necrobarista, signified by some unique discussions between Ashley’s robots. Then you would choose seven words from a selection of floating words. Each word was related to the part of the story you just finished and was highlighted in yellow during the story and activated a point you could use to unlock additional story sequences. One of the most noticeable changes in Necrobarista: Final Pour is the elimination of that points system. Instead, you can simply read any of the sides stories during the first person intermission, allowing you to experience the entirely of the side stories in a single playthrough. It’s an excellent change, since the original setup was more than a bit frustrating during a deep dive and such fantastic writing from Damon Reece, the head writer for Necrobarista! Naturally, these sections are just as well written as the main game, although they’re presented in more of a standard visual novel format without the camera work. You’ll definitely want to take the time to go through them all and flesh out the world of Necrobarista: Final Pour!
Mechanically, Necrobarista: Final Pour is fairly straightforward. Simply advance the story by clicking the controller button. Just like the original version, you can conveniently back up with the shoulder button if you accidentally double pressed and missed a piece of dialogue, a feature delegated to the scroll wheel on the mouse. You can only back up five screens though, so try to pay attention. Unlike other visual novels, everything is always manual in Necrobarista, so if you get distracted, don’t worry, you won’t miss anything until you get back to the game.
In addition to the changes in the intermissions, the addition of both DLCs, and the literally hours of dialogue refinements and additions strewn throughout the game, there are a couple of other surprises in store for gamers who have played the original version of Necrobarista. First is Doodle mode, which unlocks after the second intermission. In it, you can draw on Ashley’s robots and personalize them if you’d like. There’s no purpose to this other than sheer entertainment value and it’s fairly awkward to draw with the controller, but this isn’t a Wacom tablet, it’s a sketch function so it’s pretty darn fun for a random inclusion! Anthropomorphizing the robots was great because their dialogue took on a bit of the personality of the artwork that you put on them, making some scenes noticeably more humorous.
The final addition to Necrobarista: Final Pour is Studio mode. In Studio mode you can literally make your own visual novel using the tools, backdrops, and characters in Necrobarista: Final Pour! You can adjust lighting, change layouts, characters, backgrounds and more, but since this is mostly about the game and not everyone is into creative tools, not much time was spent with it. It would be interesting to know how much memory you’d need on your Switch to engineer a full VN if you had the patience though! The interface is wildly non-intuitive but there are sure to be a few enterprising individuals that figure it out! It’s not the easiest toolset to use, but it’s there, it’s included and accessible through the Terminal just like Doodle mode and it’s a nice bonus to have!
There are also a couple of negatives about Necrobarista: Final Pour on the Nintendo Switch. First, there are some noticeable load time increases. That’s not a surprise and they aren’t bad, but they’re a tad longer than they maybe should be. The other issue is the visuals. Necrobarista isn’t a special effects powerhouse or anything but after playing it on a gaming PC, there’s a distinct drop in graphics quality on the Nintendo Switch along with the addition of some widescreen bars. It’s subtle but noticeable and especially apparent when looking at brighter environmental backgrounds while trying to read text. The text doesn’t stand out as well in Final Pour on the Switch as it did in Necrobarista, and doing a side-by-side comparison of the two really made it striking. Text in some areas is nearly illegible on Final Pour, an absolute crime for writing this good. It’s hard to say whether this is a color palette issue or a graphics issue, but either way, there’s definitely a lower level of overall detail in the Switch version of the game than there is in the original, even in the backgrounds. It’s not an issue that’s foreign to the Switch though, and honestly, the portability of the game is a pretty good trade-off. It would have been cool to have touch screen compatibility and hopefully that will be patched in, but no real complaints.
There’s no sense in ruining anything about the plot of Necrobarista: Final Pour, as that’s pretty much the entire point of the game, but suffice it to say that things aren’t as rosy as they seem, there’s a lot going on, and all of it is interesting, even the small interludes. It’s a tightly run game that tells a fairly short, concise story that’s entertaining, introspective, and interesting all at once. There’s no epic, far-reaching tale here, just a complex small-scale narrative that sneaks up on you and packs a wallop! Character development is fascinating, the bits of Australian culture mixed into things mesh well, and the whole game is an absolute delight to play. For $22, you’re definitely getting more than your money’s worth here. The only thing missing might be voice acting, which would really raise the bar that last tiny bit, but it’s certainly not necessary. It would be both weird and neat to hear all the characters after having imagined their voices, but it might also interfere with the stellar sound design that accompanies Necrobarista. It is honestly difficult to believe that this isn’t a title from a major AAA studio, rather than a small indie production partly funded by the Australian government. Necrobarista doesn’t just raise the bar for visual novels, it rips the bar out of its mountings, uses it to smash the ceiling and then tosses it away. This is the future of visual novels – elegant, funny, and poignant with incredibly high production values and it could easily be a bridge to mainstream the genre. Everyone should play Necrobarista. It’s literally impossible to stress enough how outstanding the game is! You definitely won’t regret playing it, and you’ll probably want more of Maddy, Kishan, Ned, and the whole crew as soon as you’re done!
This review was based on a digital copy of Necrobarista: Final Pour provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and was excellent in both! Necrobarista is available on Steam and will be getting an update to Final Pour. The game is also forthcoming for Playstation 4. All screenshots are of actual gameplay. After playing Necrobarista, an anime series isn’t entirely unfeasible either (hint, hint Route 59)! Now, let’s go have a coffee and a shot of distilled soul…
Addendum: After playing Necrobarista, it’s easy to start wondering who Ned really is. Turns out he’s based on a famous Australian historical outlaw, Ned Kelly. This might not be news to Australians and historians but for the rest of us, it’s pretty fascinating! Check out his history here!
