I'm impressed. I didn't expect Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy to have such a huge impact on me that I couldn't stop reading and literally finished the true route in one go. To be honest, I'm not even fond of coffee in general, let alone how to brew them. Luckily, it's pretty obvious that whilst being one of the main themes in the visual novel, it's not the only thing it revolves around. On the other hand, I expected that this game would turn out to be another generic dating sim but it turned out to be much more than that. I found myself in a rollercoaster full of emotions I never wanted to end.


Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy opens with Taka Knight looking for his mother who mysteriously disappeared when he was small. Finally deciding to look for his happiness, he happens to find a clue where his mother might be. Thus, he finds himself in an airplane trying to verify the hint, however, everything goes terribly wrong when he meets a stranger who offers him cold coffee. Suddenly, the airplane ends up crashing, and just when Taka considered himself dead, he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed. Oddly enough, he finds himself in the very same café his mother and father used to own. Evidently, he notices that he was in another world where everything revolves around coffee.


As aforementioned, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy does indeed implement romance, however, I found that this genre was rather in the background for most routes. So, what does that mean? Although this visual novel is a dating sim, it focuses on the characters and the plot much more. In the beginning, everything was messy as even Taka had no clue what was going on. I could perfectly understand his confusion, especially as it's simply odd that a world would revolve around coffee that much. Luckily, I could easily accept that aspect of the game and it felt natural after a while.

You see, even though the concept sounds weird at first, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy is so detailed and thus, it was easy for me to dive into this supernatural world. The plot goes way back and has its own history which made everything even more believable for me. Although I have no idea about coffee, this game does explain a lot of different kinds of them and how to brew them. And it's so convincing that I believed every word of the explanations without actually looking them up. By that, I mean that the world Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy created felt so genuine that I had a lot of fun going through the plot.

However, a minor issue I had with this part of the game was that whilst I found the detailed explanations of coffee quite interesting at first, I ended up just wanting to find out more about the mysteries and story, instead of reading through the process of coffee, which wasn't even something I was interested in before. Sure, some aspects and puns were funny once in a while, but sometimes I just wanted to skip these parts, especially in the latter part of the game. This became greatly noticeably for me when I replayed the game to enter another route. Don't get me wrong, I never felt that this visual novel was repetitive in any way, however, the coffee descriptions might feel tedious for someone who is only interested in the romance and plot.


So, there are four girls in total the player can pursue, although only three of them have to be completed for the true end, the knight route. The knight route follows after the story of a specific route, which will abruptly end when not all requirements are met. As all mysteries are getting revealed in this route, it makes sense that it would be locked until the other ends are reached. Something I loved here is that there are hints here and there spread through the other routes about the twists and turns, although I still ended up being surprised as I didn't see it coming. Despite the non-true routes felt rather like a side story in the universe, I still enjoyed every moment of it and each girl has their own struggle they have to face.

Something which was a shame is that I found the romance way too subtle for most routes. However, this varied with each love interest and thus, there were a lot of romantic scenes available for one but for the other one, the characters only get together in the very end. Although I love that this visual novel focuses more on the actual plot, the romance was a little bit rushed in some routes which made it hard for me to believe they were in love with each other. Luckily, this wasn't the case in every route, although that definitely means that I enjoyed some more than others. Without stepping into the spoiler territory, let me say that the knight route is worth playing through and without a doubt the one I enjoyed the most for various reasons.


First of all, the graphics. I immediately noticed that Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy has such lovely art and CGs. However, whilst the sprites all look stunning, I encountered one or another inconsistent art style when it comes to the CGs. Don't get me wrong, most of them are beautiful, but the facial positions were off in some and didn't live up to the rest of the game, as the art is pretty high-quality overall. For some CGs, the characters looked slightly different as well, and sometimes even with bad renders, which sometimes felt to me like they were done by different artists as there is such a huge difference between some of them.

However, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy's overall presentation is splendid if looked past these issues. I loved the animations throughout the game which made the whole game so lively. Lip-sync isn't the only feature here, but the characters are jumping and moving during the dialogue as well which was a delight to look at. Of course, that's not everything as the characters even have different outfits depending on the situation. In short: The characters felt real in Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy.

So, let's move on to the partial English voice-acting. Although it was a little bit weird to listen to English voices at first, instead of Japanese ones, I quickly got used to it. In fact, I ended up loving it so much that I found it was a shame that the whole game wasn't voiced. Luckily, all the important scenes do contain voice-over, so they felt more emotional and greatly improved my immersion. And the same applies to the soundtrack. Each time a touching track was playing, I was already prepared for an emotional scene, although the game still managed to catch me off guard.

As a piece of side information, while there is an option for enabling a larger font, this feature is, unfortunately, not useable as the text doesn't fit in the textbox anymore when the cast has a lot to say, which happened more than once.


It's important to mention that this game builds up a detailed world that revolves around coffee. This means that a lot of the text is just about brewing coffee, which might get tedious for those who are not interested in that aspect at all. However, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy does such a good job with creating its own world I ended up getting lost in. I loved the characters and observing their growth, although I found some routes better executed than others. Sadly, some CGs are inconsistent but if you can look past this, the art style is lovely with impressive animations. That being said, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy is such a charming visual novel that managed to surprise me in many ways and I would greatly recommend playing through the true route to experience the full story.

To begin with, I would like to thank my Steam friend KnightAvenger for helping me contact the developer, answering all my questions, listening to my suggestions and explaining various things connected with the game and its plot. You are amazing! Also, this is the person who helped with game’s text and editing, so this deserves additional kudos. And, of course, huge thanks to the developer for providing me with a key for this lovely visual novel.

Now, pleasantries aside, let me tell you about Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy itself – and boy was it energizing due to the sheer amount of coffee facts!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2042037422


There are three features that are crucial for any visual novel: 1) story and writing; 2) characters; 3) overall presentation. Translation is part of writing, of course, so I will mention it in the same paragraph.

So…what did I like most about Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy? Honestly, the unique story – I just cannot skip a sci-fi and fantasy mix that involves something as unusual as coffee magic! I admire people who can create new worlds or enhance our own to the extent it becomes something completely different yet still familiar. In this particular case, we have a Victorian-style place that is obsessed with coffee instead of tea, has mastered magic skills and steam equipment, and has a completely different outcomes for famous historical events (remember the Boston Tea Party?). What impressed me the most was how much attention the writer paid to the culture of each nation. Be ready for a huge amount of coffee facts and how this precious beverage affects almost every aspect of Victorians’ lives! There are snobbish cuppers with sensitive palettes and four major Houses that rule the world; there is also the working class that prefers its coffee fast and cheap; there is even a king and…a coffee fairy? Nah, I am just joking. No fairies here (sadly…). The author described each and every small detail, from courting and dating to industry, from politics to shadow business, from coffee to tea.

As far as writing is concerned, I was also really pleased to see how colorful and eloquent the text is. There are just so many beautiful comparisons (and, um, lewd ones too…sometimes…) and vivid descriptions! The story flow is mostly consistent, but there are several exceptions – for example, I think Alice’s endings were somewhat rushed, at least the bad ones. She had such a huge personality change over such a short span of time that I can hardly believe it. The beginning of the game takes some time to get to more exciting events – if we do not count the initial plane crash, of course, - but as soon as it does, you will be completely captured. This happened to me, at least. I could not stop reading until 5 a.m. for two days because I really wanted to find out how my character’s romances with Alice and Mel will end.

At the same time, the amount of coffee trivia, as well as almost every kind of equipment connected with it, can be overwhelming at the beginning. Yes, the text is beautifully written and lures you in with its elegant descriptions, and I do believe that the author knows her stuff, but there is also a lot of factual information that might be important for the atmosphere in general (after all, these people are crazy about coffee), but can be boring or tedious for some readers. BUT! This information is presented only during the first and middle chapters; as soon as you get to the girls’ paths, you will dive right into the romance and important decisions. A bit of coffee will always be present, but this is only logical.

The last but not least: translation. This is easy – I think that the editor and writer did a great job and made the text understandable and pleasant to read. There were several mistakes such as extra commas or missing capital letters, as well as several wrong pronouns, but many of them were addressed while I was still playing. Also, these are just such minor mistakes that I doubt they can bother anyone.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2040942022

Phew! Now, the first crucial feature aside, what can I say about characters? On the one hand, you have already seen these personalities before – a seemingly cold girl that has a heart of gold (tsundere, anyone?), a girl-next-door with a charming smile and great cooking skills, a cheeky and bubbly hot lass, and a mysterious high-class lady that is both naïve and pure. But on the other hand, all of them feel alive, real. Each love interest gets a lot of development and shows different sides of her seemingly simple character. Some even undergo drastic changes that I definitely did not expect. The protagonist is also a great guy - he is prone to depression and self-loathing at times, but who the heck is not nowadays? Not to mention that he finds himself in a strange and dangerous place under a constant pressure of the barista test and money issues. The best part is that Taka really wants to become better and help others – he is not your typical harem male who is loved just because it is convenient for the plot. Well, he does have some ‘funny’ ideas from time to time, but he is young and hot-blooded, so, yeah, this part is also quite understandable.

Side characters are interesting and play important roles in the whole plot. Depending on their actions, Taka’s story can have completely different outcomes. And you never know who you can trust. The antagonists are believable, and the intrigue surrounding them from the very first chapters is very interesting to unravel.

And finally, let us talk about the overall presentation. You will definitely enjoy animated features – there are lots of them! Pictures move, characters blink, speak and change poses, and some items can also shift (water and coffee beans, for example). You can also interact with pictures on the café’s wall at certain moments on the story, which adds some point-and-click game vibe.

The artwork is very colorful and boasts many neat details. I really like all backgrounds as each of them felt special. There are also many CGs that will be a nice addition to your screenshot collection. Characters’ sprites are good; though, sometimes their mouths move in a funny way while speaking. And the user interface is just perfect! It works well with the general setting and atmosphere and is quite easy to navigate. Huge thanks for the option to have large font! (There is also a feature for dyslexic people, by the way.) To sum up, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy is easy on the eye and beautiful. Visual parts are here to enhance the story, not to put it in the background and hide some drawbacks. The same goes for music: nice tracks for various situations, not annoying or distracting at all – a perfect addition to each scene.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2043601860


I have a soft spot for small indie projects like this. Many of them have this warm charm about them that calms my heart and almost always improves my mood. And this is definitely something I need right now, during this whole quarantine madness.

Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy is a lovely visual novel that is not as impressive as some major projects (behemoths like Steins;Gate or Amnesia: Memories, for example), but is special in its own way. There are some minor drawbacks (lots of coffee-related talks in the beginning and some rushed endings in particular) that might discourage the reader, but, personally, I do not think that they are so bad to skip the game completely.

If you want some coffee magic in your life right now, then this visual novel is a perfect choice – fragrant and wholesome, nutty and fruity, dreamy and bitter; all at the same time.

First I have to say;
I really don't like coffee. Neither the taste, or the smell. I don't know anything about coffee, and I am not interested in brewing it, or anything related to coffee.
But I really like this game!
This review is for the early access version. I didn't play it all the way trough yet, but since there aren't any other reviews I wanrted to give out an impression. I gonna update it as soon as the full version of it is released.
The story is very interesting, (although it revolves a lot around coffee), it has a pleasant pace. It's nice to have another VN whose corestory is not about romance.
And it is SO well written. SO SO well!
I already played a lot of visual novels and rarely I have read such an almost poetic style. The story got me hooked right from the start.
But bring a lot of time, this VN isn't done in a few hours, even if you are a fast reader.
The characters are very likeable. Not your often seen "aaah, but seenpai, I am uuugly" etc.
The Artstyle is amazing, the characters are moving while talking and they are also voiced.
Not a 100% convinced of the choices. There are a LOT of them, which is great. But sometimes they don't really matter because one choice just leads to another of the ones you could choose from. But I have seen a lot worse from other games.
So far the devs did an amazing job on this game, you can see that they put a lot of work into it, and I am very curious to see what is yet to come.
I can totally recommend Caffeine at it's current early access state, every fan of VN with a creative well written story and loveable characters should check it out :)

Coffee! ( In all seriousness it's a pretty good visual novel and a fantastic story) I feel like this visual novel is on par with Crystalline which is one of my favourite visual novels that I have read. It also reminds me of Spice and Wolf. When I heard the opening song of this Visual Novel I knew I was going to be in for a treat. I loved the soundtrack of this visual novel and the art was fantastic. This Visual Novel also has a lot of good emotional moments and there are not a lot of visual novels that I could say made me feel moved in a emotional way before. The only thing about this visual novel is that it is a shame this visual novel wasn't fully voiced but it doesn't stop it from being a really good visual novel and story.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxwcQ1dapw8

I had to dig myself out of the grave to write this review. I’ll be blunt and say this first: This is by far the worst visual novel I have ever played.

Art: Overall, fairly decent.

• The animations were weird at times, but nothing too uncharacteristic of a VN.
  
• There were some issues where it caused my computer to crash despite having a RTX 3070
  
• It was very obvious that there were SEVERAL different artists who worked on the project. There were numerous artistic inconsistencies such as when we progressed further into the game; there was noticeable art-swapping, as well as an overall drop in quality. I wondered if the artists had lost their will to keep going.
  
• Even in the setting of a fantasy world, basic realism is not taken into account and/or researched properly when depicting certain details. E.g., the sling on Song Eve’s rifle does not line up for the weapon depicted.

Music: Although it was fine in general…

• Title screen music conditioned me to lose brain cells given the impending experience I was about to subject it to.
  
• The theme song, Caffeinated, exudes levels of cringe that are only matched by the protagonist character opening his mouth (more on this in the Writing section).

Writing: This was by far the game’s greatest failure and prolonged my agony as I struggled to care about the plot and its characters.

• The Premise: Braindead. Makes me hate coffee now. It seriously gives me the impression that this was written by a coffee hipster trying to justify their caffeine addiction.
  
• Story is so poorly written that it relies on constant lore dumps, sometimes in the form of a list of “choices” that the player is expected to explore and / or care about. (So much for “every choice matters,” isn’t that right, Kickstarter campaign?)
  
• The writing feels like it was written by a weeb writing his first fanfiction in the way that plot devices are clearly cribbed from material far better than this one.
  
• Poor pacing; numerous tense moments in the story are rendered completely impotent due to the writing’s insistence in injecting random comedic moments (causing me to care even less for the story).
  
• In a stunning display of lazy story structuring, one of the endings literally sends the player into a fourth wall-breaking reverie sequence where the characters explain to the player how/why they made the “wrong” choices in their playthrough.

Protagonist: Deserves his own section and single-handedly made the game unsalvageable.

• One of the most spineless characters I have ever seen.
  
• Taka straight-up will focus on characters’ lips for no reason, making him seem like a creepy virgin bordering on incel at times. He even at one point randomly talked about birds’ mating calls and how they’re supposed to be signals to other birds to have sex (which he specifically points out he never had) despite it having no relevance to the situation.
  
• Has a weird tendency to repeat everything that is said to him in the form of a question despite said concept JUST being explained to him.
  
• Thinks people are like him when they are not at all (i.e., another symptom of his unjustified self-importance) and makes him cringy, hateable, and not relatable. There is a reason why reviews of this VN tend to point out their dislike for Taka.
  
• Liked to make coffee-puns that were an attempt to add “randumb” humor into the story. They only made me hate the story (and Taka) that much more.

Conclusion:
By the end of this abomination, I had lost brain mass equivalent to a Venti at Starbucks. The level of reverence this game gives to hot bean water caused me a magnitude of psychological trauma that has condemned me to relive it over and over in my no-doubt numerous therapy sessions I am forced to seek. I fear the day Japan’s borders open because a visit there will threaten to expose me to other such individuals named “Taka” and I do not believe my heart would be able to withstand the horror.

As such, with how terribly the story is written, no amount of beautiful art, soothing music, or “partial voice acting” can possibly salvage this utter trainwreck. If the creator’s intent was to cultivate a love for coffee, it has had the opposite effect and permanently turned me off from anything caffeine-related. After finishing this review, my restless spirit will finally be able to move on.

-99/10 would not recommend

I was one of this game's Kickstarter backers; I pledged and then paid AU$15, which is approximately US$11.

I've never actually written a Steam review of a game before; this will be my first Steam review. Please keep in mind that I am not a professional critic or reviewer; I'm just a player, so I won't have quite the technical eye you might see in other reviews.

And I absolutely love this game! If you're an aficionado of visual novels, or an aficionado of coffee, I strongly recommend this game.

For one thing, the developers have really put a lot of work into lore and world-building; the fantasy city of Victoria has a LOT of detail put into its politics, its caffeine-based religion and magical powers, etc.

For another thing, the romance options for the protagonist are attractive and interesting, and the voice actresses have clearly put a lot of work into making them feel alive. Eliza sounds appropriately charming, Alice sounds appropriately cute, Mel sounds appropriately go-getter and charming, and Oceane sounds appropriately serious and no-nonsense. (My favorite characters are Eliza and Alice, but Mel and Oceane will surely appeal to other players.)

Plus, each lady's route also contains certain twists and reveals you don't get on the other routes, so there's more motivation to play each route at least once. (At the time of this writing, the game is in Early Access, so only Eliza's, Mel's, and Oceane's routes have been completed; Alice's route will be released later.)

The only technical issue is that the "animated sprites" are not always well-implemented; the characters' mouths sometimes stop moving before the line is finished. But the sprites are great other than that!

The music is also very fitting, there's fantasy-esque music for the more pastoral segments of the story, there's rock music for coffee duels like the one you see in the prologue, etc.

Overall, I think this game is very charming, and I say this as someone who has played a lot of visual novels. I heavily recommend this game!

I came to know of this VN's existence solely because I'm an avid coffee consumer and enjoyer and I was expecting this to take the concept of "coffee is everything" to the next level in creative ways.
While the premise is fun and the abundance of coffee related trivia is relevant, I'm sad to say that there is nothing unique about it.

Simply put, I've read a gazillion visual novels like this in the past. This is the primary reason why I dont recommend it at the current pricetag. Secondly, I dont think its worth it for the story because it has been told a million times before but better.
In short, the protagonist gets isekai'd into "another world"(TM) which is all about coffee-making and coffee beans give people powers. There is a mystery involving the protagonist's mother missing, which is resolved in a pretty decent way.
However, that's all there is to it. The story arcs are ridden with frivolous anime tropes that the industry regurgitates on a regular basis, to the point that I knew what would have happened way before the game told me. As a matter of fact, I have been skipping entire dialogue boxes with fluff and nothings just to get to the point which was inevitably what I had foreseen. With this I dont want to say that I am some kind of genius, on the contrary, I am simply stating that this novel is very predictable and formulaic. Which is also why I dont really care for finishing more routes.
The writing is passable. Sometimes it seems as though it has been written by a non-English speaker, other times it feels like its been writte by someone very young. Either way, its serviceable and gets all points across but it is not entirely enjoyable. I would say its amateurish, although I'm not familiar with them that's just how it seems to me. Some descriptions felt like they've been "heavily inspired", shall we say, by other works.
The disclamer at the start of the game made me chuckle. I assume its been made for laughs.
Now, the coffee. If you're expecting it to be anything more than "magic", then I'm afraid to say that you are in the wrong. Coffee ...is just magic. That's it.
Characters are valking stereotypical anime tropes, some have Japanese names with some Japanese themed clothing and descriptions. There's the princess with a heart of gold, the tsundere, the childhood friend type, you name it. They're all there. Sometimes I have a feeling that they know they've been written like that, because the novel doesnt shy away from breaking the 4th wall a lot with jokes that dont make you luagh.
The artstyle and general presentation at the very least is pretty good. The CGs have their fair share of detail, the lighting is well used and facial expressions convey exactly what's needed, with few exceptions where noses and hands look a bit weird but never too much. The artist clearly prefers to draw females rather than males and they dont have much experience with victorian clothing.
The English VA is appreciated but... no, sorry. The voices were all either too old for the role or not very much into it. On this note, I would like to address the fact that Oceane's VA slider doesnt work.

If you're really young and there is a chance that this might be your first victorian-themed VN, Caffeine could be a good starting point provided that you'd search for more in the future and that the pricetag doesnt exceed 8-10$.

What happens if you drink too much coffee? Oh, you'll learn about it from this visual story. And I keep leaning on beer, but it's useless. We have to switch to coffee.
It's sarcasm.

A story for coffee lovers from coffee lovers. Coffee is the most common word in this text. I won’t do spoilers anymore.

Beautifully painted. History on the fan. Not so bad. Just for the fan. But an interesting world was invented. I liked this idea.
I do not regret the purchase. I recommend.

However, here is what I want to say. My Norton Antivirus categorically refused to allow me to run this game and immediately deleted all executable files. In this case, I started the demo version without any problems before deciding to purchase the game. I had to turn off the antivirus and run the game in the sandbox in order to play it. It seems to me that this is not right. The developer must do something about it.

Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy is a bishojo, fantasy, steampunk visual novel developed and published by Kikai Digital. You take on the role of Taka Knight, a young man around university age who is on a plane to find clues about his mom, who disappeared when he was around six years old. On that plane, he meets a mysterious female figure who offers him a canister of cold brew coffee. Taka drinks the coffee and then shortly after, he's flown off the airplane (which is in mid-air). Before he knows it, upon waking up, he finds himself in the city of Victoria, but it happens to be in an alternate universe where industrialization has made slower progress and where coffee has caffeine powers that when used on the right person with the right temperament, can unleash powers, like fire, teleportation, etc. Taka finds himself in Taka Coffee House, which is - weirdly enough - named after him and is under the ownership of Alice, a young lady who dreams of baking the best pastries ever. Despite all these crazy events, Taka seems to remember this coffee house from his childhood, and that's where I'll end my story synopsis to avoid going into spoiler territory. ^^

As for the gameplay, Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy has multiple choices presented. There's a common route, of course, and then depending on the choices made, you'll get on one of four ladies' routes: Alice, Mel (the bubbly, energetic barista who works at Sparkwood), Oceane (the tsundere barista who works at Moriya), or Eliza (the beautiful, friendly noble who spends her time studying at the Coffee Academia). The number of endings for each option varies, but there's always a true ending for each option as well as (mostly) one alternate ending. In addition, after completing Eliza's, Oceane's, and Mel's true endings, then you'll get access to the Knights' route, which is the true route and leads to the true ending (as well as one alternate ending and a dead ending). There are lots of CGs presented throughout the story as well as a varied soundtrack. In addition, lots of Steam achievements are present although they won't count towards a user's global total until the game is out of "profile features limited".

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. It's been a long while since I last touched on this story (having been a part of the team that helped with its development - thought I should put that disclaimer out there XD), but I remember how much I fondly enjoyed this story, especially the true route. However, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. First, with regards to the story itself, I like how it starts off. It is a bit slow when Taka first talks to the mysterious figure on the plane, but after he's quickly flown away, things pick up. Taka is aware that he's in a world that's vastly different from the world he grew up in. However, he's pretty slow in that he assumes that things in this alternate universe should work the same way as back home. I admit that this annoyed me a bit since if I were the MC, I would have quickly realized not to make such assumptions and to keep my mouth shut. lol Taka can be clueless about things like this at times and he's kind of clumsy and such, but he has a good heart, overall. In regards to the other characters, there are a lot of them besides Taka and the four romance interests, but it would take me way too long to go over my thoughts on them. Needless to say, though, that there's such a variety of personalities that they add to the story and that they have depths to their respective characters. Touching on the four romance options, I enjoyed all of their stories and how each lady would open up to Taka. There's Alice, who just wants to make people smile with her pastries but is bad with finances. Then, there's Mel, who dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur like her idol, Nakamoto, the founder of Sparkwood. Oceane is the standout barista of Moriya and is known as the best barista in the city. She dreams of becoming a barista champion for her own reasons. Finally, Eliza is the friendly but shy cupper (basically, a noble who can use caffeine powers) who spends her days at the Coffee Academia but dreams of making friends and seeing more of the outside. I enjoyed playing through all these routes. Especially upon unlocking and then playing through the true route, I couldn't help but enjoy this story that ultimately focuses on love. Yes, I know it's cheesy, but the way it's revealed is truly beautiful.

As for the writing, I'd say that the pacing is fine. There are definitely areas where it reads more roughly than others. Alice's route is on the short side compared to the other routes. My favorite route would have to be Oceane's because of the revealer of Oceane and Taka having been childhood friends. Eliza's route is intended to be a segway to the true route, so if I had to give a recommended route order, I'd say Alice - Mel - Oceane - Eliza. If I had to point out any negatives, I'd say that at times, there's a bit too much focus on coffee lore and the process of brewing coffee. Personally, it didn't bother me since I'm a huge coffee fan (I can't go through a day without two mugs of coffee, at least. lol), but this might annoy those who don't want to get bogged down by such info. Also, for those who don't have the patience to unlock various endings to get to the true route, that might be annoying, but again, this didn't bother me. I felt like it was worth getting to those other endings to get to the true ending.

In regards to the art, it is absolutely gorgeous. I love how the sprites are animated. The animations fit well, especially considering that there is English voice acting (albeit, partial voice acting). The backgrounds are beautiful, and the CGs especially are lovely to gaze at (and there are plenty to view). With the music, there's such a variety of tracks and even a couple of tracks have lovely vocals. They convey that beautiful emotion that this story is trying to convey to its readers. As I mentioned, there's partial English voice acting. It appears in important scenes/events. Although I enjoyed listening to the voices (no complaints in that department), I wish that more of the scenes had voices in them. However, since there's a lot of text overall, I can see why that isn't possible.

Overall, would I recommend Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy? If you enjoy bishojo romance with a story that takes place in an alternate steampunk universe and don't mind the occasional fourth wall breaking, then I think you should give this visual novel a try. It's certainly not perfect, and as I mentioned, it could use some polishing. However, for the developer's first visual novel, I think this is well done, and it's a shame that it hasn't been getting as much attention as it deserves. Sure, it can take time and patience to get through the necessary routes to get to the true route, and if you're not into getting all of the Steam achievements, then this visual novel can feel a bit tiring to get through. However, the journey is well worth it, and I love how the story teaches the reader about the power and beauty of love, no matter how corny that sounds. For the asking price, I'd say it's worth getting, as it took me around 34.5 hours to complete all of the routes and get all of the achievements. However, you can choose to wait for a sale. Nevertheless, I think it's truly worth getting and a journey to experience and enjoy. ^^

Flying free and writing reviews solely for The Introverted Gamer.

This VN greatly exceeded my expectations. I thought I was in for standard dating sim memes with a steampunk theme. What I got instead was an actual story with many interesting and intertwining threads, with a few dating sim memes mixed in.

The soundtrack was alright, it wasn't very memorable but it set the mood for each scene.
I had some technical issues which could only be resolved by turning off video sprites although the dev seems to be pretty quick with respect to patching these up.

Overall, this game feels like a hidden gem I would highly recommend.