Yasuhiro Wada's new game - Little Dragons Cafe

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
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Ronin19
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Definitely, thanks Lila. My main gripe would have been the frame rate in any mode on the Switch, but glad it's not game breaking. I do want your opinion on this: If you've played Hometown Story and Birthday: Beginnings, do you think Little Dragon's Cafe is better, worse, or somewhere in the middle when compared to Wada's other titles apart from the Bokujou Monogatari series?
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Lila Jane
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Ronin19 wrote:I do want your opinion on this: If you've played Hometown Story and Birthday: Beginnings, do you think Little Dragon's Cafe is better, worse, or somewhere in the middle when compared to Wada's other titles apart from the Bokujou Monogatari series?
I have played Hometown Story but not Birthday: Beginnings so I can only comment on HS, and I would say that Little Dragon's Cafe is leagues better than that lol. Hometown Story's gameplay seemed rather "unfinished" game-development wise, it being ridden with glitches and bugs, but what it does better than LDC is the fact that running the shop felt more like "your own" if that makes sense. In LDC, the cafe feels really limited in the way that you can't customize anything. You can only really control what's on your menu and the only actions you can perform is what any other worker you hire can do, except for Chef (but you can cook dishes for characters only in Story chapters/cutscenes), which is really disappointing imo.

However, what LDC does a lot better than HS is its story implementation (this is what really makes the game for me), map/foraging-for-items system, and your dragon companion is rather endearing :lala:

My dragon has grown up to the next stage in its development since my last post, and with that came a ton of new forage areas so I've found myself having a lot more to explore/do now which I'm really enjoying!

On a side note, the story can't progress unless you get a "Satisfied" rating from your customers and this fills up the story progress bar until the next "!" indicator which is when a major story event takes place. I've been having an easy time getting that rating until now. I've been getting "Okay" ratings for the past 3 in-game days and I'm hoping there will be more info released/videos that explain the system because I've only been helping out the cafe and restocking ingredients and this seems to do nothing to improve customers' satisfaction :(

EDIT: Found out it was because I was supposed to hunt a particular animal and cook a certain dish for a character lol oops!
Last edited by Lila Jane on Aug 18, 2018 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ryume
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Thank you SO MUCH for your impressions, Lila! Your feedback has been ex steely helpful. Even since your first two posts where you sounded like you were getting bored after 5-6 hours, it seems like now you're enjoying yourself again after some progression. I hope you will have time to keep us posted if you end up finishing before the game is officially released :) Thanks again, so much!
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I recall in the interviews with Wada, he made a point of the characters all being 'losers' who can't do anything on their own, that they can only make the cafe a success by gathering up and relying on the strength of others, because none of them are great, talented, or overly capable people (like the mother must be); he's been making a big point of them all needing to band together to make a go of it and that the children are 'useless' (his words, not mine, lol.) They can't really cook...all they can make at first are eggs. They can't forage on their own, at least, not for the best stuff...they have to have their dragon for that. That kind of thing.

It's disappointing that you can't customize, since that's fun, but I guess it makes sense at least, since it's not your cafe....it's your mom's cafe. Though I wouldn't have minded overlooking common sense in this case cuz I love customization...maybe mom would have been happy to wake up to a striped and polka-dotted cafe with plaid tablecloths!

It seems to be a hallmark of any game designed by Wada that it will start out painfully dull because what you can do is so limited...and then they absolutely explode outward to the point where there will be times when you wonder how you can possibly get done all the things you have or want to do in a day. But then you get used to it and find that you can do it, after all. That's been how HM/SoS games have largely been for me, anyway. It's like he's taking a toddler for a walk, tiny shaky step by tiiiiiny shaky step, until you reach the top of the hill...and then Wada cheerfully shouts, "Okay, GO!" and gives the toddler a shove down the hill, lol.

Not sure if that's a good hallmark to have or not, lol, but I am at least used to it. :) In any case, Lila, thanks for the first-hand info. A whole week in advance is great...people still have time to cancel their orders at this point if any of the info you have is the opposite of what they were hoping for, or something.

EDIT: Have you noticed which foods change the dragon's colour to what? And do his/her colours change quickly, with just a few feedings, or...?
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Lila Jane
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Kikki wrote:Have you noticed which foods change the dragon's colour to what? And do his/her colours change quickly, with just a few feedings, or...?
When you open up your Dish inventory and scroll through it, each dish that can change the color of your dragon will have an indicator of what color your dragon will change to if you keep feeding it that dish! Some dishes don't affect your dragon's color at all. I've only unlocked the 5th character so far, so I'm not that far into the game yet, but I don't think the dragon's color changes after just a few dishes. My dragon hatched blue (not sure if they also hatch as different colors too? I recall seeing a green baby dragon in videos..) and it's still blue in its 2nd growth stage even though I'm pretty sure I've been feeding it multiple red color dishes a day since day 1 lol.

Another thing that I found a bit annoying is that you can only see what "dragon color" a dish is only after its in your inventory. I wish the devs made it so you can also see the dragon color of each dish in the cooking menu so you can know before cooking :(

But in response to others' replies, yes yes I shall keep you all updated! If you have any questions, feel free to ask as well :lala:
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The dragon can hatch in three colors, as far as I know...red if you say you want meat for breakfast, blue if you say you want fish, and green if you say you want vegetables. A bit of an odd deciding factor for what your dragon will hatch as, but no weirder than changing your face and hair according to the answers you give at the start of Animal Crossing, I guess :) I'm gonna say fish cuz I want blue for the starter colour. :) (Though the idea of eating fish for breakfast is a bit 'eurgh!' Maybe if I were Japanese, or lived on the coast of anywhere, but as an in-land Canadian with no access to fresh fish, that's a very weird concept, lol.)

That's awesome that they don't leave your dragon's colour solely to guesswork...being able to see what dish will contribute to which colour is helpful...I'd hate to waste a bunch of food and ingredients, especially with the dragon having TWENTY possible colours...trial and error would probably result in a lot of waste.

Well, you're an LDC pioneer...people who come after you will probably have an easier time, as I bet a dragon-colour guide will be up sooner or later to tell people what and how much to feed to achieve the desired colour. :)
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I've gotta say that I'm super excited LDC. When it was first announced I was iffy about it, but I still kept my eye on it just in case. But the information and gameplay that's been released since then has slowly made me more and more excited for this game! I finally caved and preordered LDC a couple of weeks ago and I'm counting down the days until I finally get it (amazon says it's arriving this Friday!)

Wada says that if this game does well then there's a possibility for a sequel where they can listen to requests from fans. This game may not let you customize your cafe, but if there's a sequel there's definitely a possibility for that! Here's to hoping LDC is fun and gets amazing sales!
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Kikki
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I saw that article where he said there's always a chance LDC could become a series if it is well received, and I'm very interested in that possibility. Actually, that's another great reason for me to have gone ahead with my purchase even though I may have to end up turning it into a gift for my friend, lol...but I had forgotten about it until you mentioned it. I want it to do really well to increase that chance!

I feel like Wada's work gets stronger when it's a series. I think it could become a favourite, in that case, though it's leaping pretty far ahead :)

Being able to own your own cafe and therefore build/customize it any way you want would be an awesome option. Lol...maybe in some incarnation you could own a unicorn or a gryphon...or an Asian-styled dragon instead of a Western-style dragon. (I was a little disappointed by the dragon being Western-style...I find Asian ones so much more attractive.)

Yep, definitely jumping the gun, lol. But I can't help it...I tend to get more excited about ideas and possibilties than realities. :)

EDIT: Ooh, yay. Part Two of the 'Making of Little Dragons Cafe' is now up!
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Jay RPG put up a pretty big Q&A video about the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDay0sxuO5w

He said he beat the storyline in 31 hours (while rushing one story segment) so he was saying he estimates the game is 30-40 hours depending on your playstyle. There's also some content/recipes you can't do until after you've beaten the game so that'll extend the playtime as well.
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ryume
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RopeMaidenKirie wrote:Jay RPG put up a pretty big Q&A video about the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDay0sxuO5w

He said he beat the storyline in 31 hours (while rushing one story segment) so he was saying he estimates the game is 30-40 hours depending on your playstyle.
THANK YOU, Rope! A mega concern of mine was length for sure! And unlike 99% of the world, I hardly ever watch YouTube videos of anything, so I'm always appreciative when others that do watch them regularly share good information :)

Edit: I listened to the entire Q & A. It answers EVERYTHING I was wondering about, and then some. This game sounds so great! I'm like, beyond excited about it now :eek:
Last edited by ryume on Aug 21, 2018 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I wanna buy this game on Friday, but I hope it doesn't require an automatic update or anything. I don't feel like putting my Switch online anytime soon and was disappointed to find out I couldn't play Sonic Mania Plus out the box.

31 hours? It seems as long as a standard Pokemon game, then.
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Kikki
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It does look very good on the PS4. Nice to know it works that way on the regular PS4 as well as the PS4 Pro. I personally am hoping for a day-one patch on the Switch since it has those camera motion weirdnesses (though not in JayRPG's video since that was gameplay on the PS4 Pro, afaik), but maybe even if they have that, they won't *require* you to update to be able to play. But my Switch is always online anyway, so an update would be very welcome, for me.

The game is a bit expensive, imo, considering quality issues and a medium expected play time, but when I really want a game, I don't pay attention to the price anyway. I only buy one, sometimes two games per month so it's not a big deal, in my case. It'd be a much bigger concern if I bought half a dozen games a month and needed to prioritize what I buy.

As for part two of 'the making of' video, it didn't say much at all about the game, imo, just a bit of talk from Wada about working with Matsuyama. The first part was more interesting...the concept art in that was really neat.

EDIT: Say, has anyone noticed the music in any of these videos we've seen so far? I can't recall any.
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Decided to take the time to make the main thread for the game since people are starting to get their copies early!

Please head here to the release thread: https://fogu.com/hmforum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=174703
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