CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~

I like how you have to figure out how you died and see how the people around you were involved in it. The story was good but I feel like it could have been longer. There wasn't enough character development for me to get attached to the characters. Overall I enjoyed it.

Cafe 0 is an amazing short visual novel which explores the differing story-lines of its patrons. It's similar to Coffee Talk in the sense that you get to explore the reactions of the character at first in the sense of a waiter/ patron reaction, but then you get to go back and groundhog day your way into figuring out how to figure out what the best course of action is to really understand what brought you where you are and how to change your fate. It is definitely a visual novel I would recommend and I still want the rest.

I bought this game because I wanted it ever since 2011, I was just 11 years old at the time. I played the demo and was dumbfounded when the trial just ended after I had one conversation at school. I thought it would be different when I purchased the full game and that I could have more conversations before the day ended. I then realized that this is a short and repetitive visual novel (thank god for the skip button haha). The writing and art is mediocre and although I like the concept of the plot where the main character goes 7 days back in time before she died, everything else was weird but it amused me. I got the game for really cheap so... I don't have any regrets, I did always want to play this when I was much younger and now I've itched my curiosity. The game is almost a decade old anyway so maybe it was really good for its time back in the past, I don't know...

Not my cup of tea.

The game started off with a pretty cool idea, but then ended very quickly. Reading one route takes like 20-30 minutes tops, so it is a very short game overall. A lot of the dialogue keeps repeating itself and it is pretty obvious which answers you have to give to get a specific ending.
Though the stories themselves were very short, we did learn quite a bit about the characters and they are all equally crappy, personality-wise. The only two things I liked were the waiter and the "revenge" ending, which was somewhat satisfying at least.

I bought the game on discount and I would not recommend buying it at full price. So unless you're into very short, very straight-forward otome games, I would suggest looking for a different VN to play.

3/10, can't recommend.

I've played a lot of indie visual novels and otome games. To me this was storywise one of the more interesting ones I've played. It differs from a lot of the usual high school romance plots, it has a bit more depth, depicts certain topics that are sometimes stigmatized and has a bit of a creepy vibe.

I wish they could've added a bit more dialog, especially since you have to replay it multiple times to get the true ending.The fact that you have to replay the game multiple times for the the true ending might cause some people to lose interest in the game. To me it was was worth it though, as the true ending was deeper and a bit more variety in dialog.

When I first started this game, I thought the art style could've been a bit better. Now I personally think the art style adds to the somewhat creepy vibe of the game.

Overall it's a short game that's worth playing, especially if you try to get all the endings.

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Type of Game: Visual Novel – Reading & Choices
Length: about 10h
Story: 4/10
Art: 4/10

This game isn't quite, what I imagined, but it was still a decent read. Could have been worse.

The main character is a high school student, who has recently drowned, but she doesn’t know why. A mysterious waiter in a Cafe allows her to re-live the last week of her life in order for her (and you) to understand, what had gone wrong. As she repeatedly revisits the week and makes different choices each time, you get to know the three people, the main heroine had known the best: her best friend Ami, her ex-boyfriend Tooru and the school's doctor Shun and, how they ultimately influenced her passing away.

Marin Umino is the heroine’s original name and she has a rather bad personality and is constantly fighting with the waiter, who is in charge of her. In my opinion, she is more like a brat.

Her best friend Ami Kawase is a person, who invests a lot of time in fashion and seems like a popular girl in school.

And the ex-boyfriend Tooru Mizutani seems to know about her past and although they stopped dating, he gets interested in her after her personality had changed so much.

Then there is also the school’s doctor, who knows Marin since childhood and seems to have a rather difficult relationship with her.

About the game itself, I can say that the language is quite nice and it's an easy read. The text is short and straightforward. There are a few repetitive events, such as e.g. every night when you go to bed, but the other scenes aren't as repetitive, plus you can use the skip-button to skip the texts you've already read. The gameplay is also straightforward (I was able to understand, which routes I had to play first without much thinking, also the right answers are easy to guess). The art is okay-ish, although it's not really my style.

Honestly, I didn't like the true story. For me it was far too much drama, also I don't like that you can't choose, whether you want to take revenge on them in the end, when you learn the truth. The whole setting and story seemed a little too depressing, also I don't really support this kind of view on the world. There were not enough choices and somehow I found myself quite disagreeing with the good-evil personality - the good one is too naive and the evil one isn't really evil, I think, besides that she is cursing them. In fact, all the characters including the main have a rather shallow personality too. They are just pure evil and their motives to kill her seem quite ridiculous.

I don't want to criticize this VN too much because it's short and regardless of its shortness it has quite succeeded in telling a story, which made sense, although is a little too dramatic. It's nice that you can feel yourself being like a detective solving a murder case, but at the same time you're trying to understand, what happened to you and are struggling with your own emotions regarding your closest friends and your lover.

So I give this novel like 4/10. If you have free time and it's on sale - maybe you should buy it?

CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ is a short mystery visual novel about reliving the last 7 days before your death.

This was a different and interesting read. You take on a role of a girl who died under unknown circumstances. After the passing she finds herself at the Cafe 0, left without memories and then sent back to relive her last 7 days in an attempt to accept her death and possibly regain memories of her past and details of her death. Whilst visuals are weak, the story doesn't fail to leave it as an enjoyable experience.

- Very short, can be completed for about 30 minutes, ~2 hours for 100% completion.
- Writing isn't that great, but still enjoyable, with an interesting story.
- Voiced addon dlc is worth it if you don't enjoy reading mute VNs.
- Multiple endings.
- Has a silly bonus chapter in extras, in which you can speak to a waiter.

Overall, it's a decent little VN, recommend it if you enjoy short reads and mystery.

CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ appeared to have an interesting story from the description given by roseVeRte; however, the execution of said plot was rather poor, leaving me confused about what was going on. The characters were rather flat, leaving me sorely dissapointed that such an interesting plot was wasted. The artwork had an curious style that I haven't seen in a while, but time appears to have been spent on making it look professional. The soundtrack is merely okay with the music being rather plain and forgetable. After completing the game, I had a total of 3 hours, which is rather small for such an expensive visual novel.

Overall: D+

The art style could use more work, but other than that the voice acting and story were nice. I loved the tragic and bittersweet endings and the real evil personalities of the 3 characters you get to engage with. After collecting all the routes, you get to play the true route and learn about what those 3 really think and get revenge :3 ❤
I'd recommend this game cuz I'm all about that revenge life and secretly sh-tty people

You should definitely get the Cafe 0 game that comes after this one, it's definitely an upgrade from this game

I'm a sucker for mystery Visual Novels, so this one caught my interest by default. And while the game has its less appealing sides (like the art; or some awkward grammar here and there), I actually found myself enjoying it quite a lot.

At first, I was surprised about the pacing of the game. A single playthrough consists of 7 days, but each day goes by pretty quickly with basically just a single scene revolving around a character of your choice. Things almost feel rushed at times, but it makes consecutive playthroughs smooth and you don't get the feeling that things are starting to drag on. I suppose that can be both a good or a bad thing, depending on your approach. Personally, I didn't mind it.

The game has 6 endings, and 4 of those reward you with items that you get to keep permanently across your save files. You need all 4 of those to unlock the True Ending - which is the most fun to experience with some twist and turns and definitely worth the effort to unlock it. Once you get the True Ending, you also get a little bonus in the extras gallery which I found to be a nice touch from the creators. :)

I also liked the music in this title a lot; it works nicely to give that kind of eerie/mysterious atmosphere that I love to experience in games such as these.

So, kudos to the creators for bringing out quite a unique mystery Visual Novel! Playing this one convinced me to check out their 2nd ~Cafe 0~ title and I'm excited to see what it has in store on the mystery side, too.

This is a pretty good game, over all. The art might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I thought it was cute. The story is predictable at times, but I went "oh snap!" once or twice. There are twists and turns I didn't see coming. :) I got the game in a bundle, and I'm not sure if it would be worth the full price--considering it only took me about an hour and a half to complete the entire thing. Then again, I'm a fast reader.

Over all, it's short and bittersweet. Pick it up if you're into not-so-happy, yet not-so-tragic endings.

This was an interesting game and it was worth playing. Much like 9 doors 9 persons 9 hours, you needed to play through all the routes in order to actually beat the game and get the true end. I have always liked that mechanic because it requires you to build on what you learn from previous runs to get the whole picture.

Unlike 999, which left me feeling like "Wow! That was so cool how they pulled that all together!" I finished the game and went "Oh, that was neat. They really understood the original Anderson story... I feel dead inside now."

The artwork was not the worst I have seen, and the character bodies were actually pretty decent. The issue I had was the with faces. Looking at Sui made my eyes hurt because it felt like his face was constantly out of focused. If that is what the artist was going for, I respect that... I just don't like it. The faces felt rather like someone who was just starting to draw in the anime style, but hadn't quite figured out how to make it their own yet. It didn't take away from the story, but it didn't add either.

Overall, this is a short game and worth beating... once.

Tried to give this game a fair try but struggled. The concept had so much potential but it really just flopped, in my opinion.

For starters, the art was extremely distracting. Trying to put this as nicely as possibly, but it was just very poorly done. The proportions, the style, everything left so much to be desired. It reminded me of manga sketches from a middle-schooler.

The music was OK, not bad, not good, I'll leave it at that.

The story, as I said, had potential - but was so short. As far as the writing itself goes, each day could have included much more content and character development. The main character was obnoxiously reactionary to everything, and you learned so little about the other characters in the story that it was hard to care about them at all.

For the price, the game was way too short.

In summary:

Pros:
+ Concept

Cons:
- Art
- Writing
- Length
- Value

Even at a hefty discount I wouldn't recommend it - there was no real draw to the game. I wish the devs better luck in their future projects, though.

(...)The sun rose up from the waters. Its beams fell, warm and kindly, upon the chill sea foam, and the little mermaid did not feel the hand of death. - Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ is RoseVeRte's second visual novel and the first game in the CAFE 0 series so far. It is most certainly no masterpiece, yet it is a satisfactory supernatural mystery with an eerie feeling, accomplishing more than many others of its competitors for the genre in a limited game time.

In this eerie little adventure, our protagonist is Umino Marin. As the game starts, the young high school student finds herself in an odd little cafe in the middle of nowhere. Once within, she is attended by a weird waiter with the worst kind of manners: Sui. Sui presents Marin a glass of water and obscurely wishes her a good journey. Only then Marin wakes up, apparently just saved from drowning in her school's swimming pool. The most alienating of all these uncanny events, is that we remember nothing from our previous life and we bear no reflection before a mirror anymore. It's as if we do not exist in a physical manner. As the game progresses, Sui appears again to inform that this is the last week before we died. We are solemnly living through the last week of our lives, in order to come into acceptance of our dying. We will have a week to learn about our past, come to meet with the people that we deemed important for us and find a way to deal with what actually happened to us.

The narrative within the game is not extraordinary, yet it's chosen topic and the specific way that its mystery ends up revealing itself is more than charming. Marin's character and her way of dealing with the impending doom waiting for her at the end of week, the constant suspicion she endures for everyone and the sense of loss she goes through, change in every playthrough according to your choices to establish a unique, supernatural sense. Marin's nickname at the school - The Mermaid Princess - is a direct reference to Andersen's elegant, yet grim fairytale. The titular oxymoron - The Drowned Mermaid - is a most fitting metaphor for the storyline too. Characters themselves tend to end up on the superficial side due to limited game time, yet you still get a solid sense what type of people they essentially are.

The CGs and the artwork are most certainly not the strong suits of the game, yet I ended up liking them a lot anyhow. The amateurishly drawn manga depictions of all characters felt like a solid art choice for me. They are eerie, anatomically wrong and far from being appealing, but their eeriness, especially the glassy, cold look in everyone's eyes - very like dead fish eyes - felt like fitting allegories, as if every one of them are dead on the inside, including Marin herself. Sad, but beautiful.

Most people in discussion forums got sincerely annoyed that the Japanese voice acting is presented as a bonus DLC rather than being a part of the original game, but the developer explained that the original version lacked any voice acting at all. So, them being a later add-on, you gotta pay for it. I played the game with the voice acting, and I'd vote that it is worthy of your 5 dollars. Voice acting is really well-done, enhancing the mood of the game wonderfully and adding character to all personas.

At the end of the day, this was one of the visual novels that grasped me as I went for the bed. I found myself thinking about the tragedy poor Marin ended up with. I do recommend the experience for the ones who enjoy the genre, and maybe all others that would appreciate a good but short supernatural mystery.

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Do I recommend this? I guess, when it is super, super cheap. It's very short and not very satisfying if you are looking for an otome. I am not sure if I'd call it an otome and I felt kinda disappointed by it, but artisticly and as a story idea, not bad I guess.

I wanted to like this game. There were some plot twists I didn't expect so the script wasn't horrible. But I cannot get over the art style, I couldn't find myself attracted to any of the characters. The chibi artstyle on the choice screen was much cuter. I would not have been happy at the length of the game if I had paid full price either. Sound effects were cringy. But music is good. Is Cafe 0 the worst game I've ever played? No. It's not 100 percent horrible. But its not good enough to get a recommendation from me. I do encourage the makers of the game to keep trying though.

There are alot of different reviews on this game, and I do understand each perspective, but if this game goes on sale, I do recommend grabbing it and giving it a go. It's a nice unique Visual Mystery novel and it took me just under 3 horus to finish completely with achievements. It's alot more depressing of a story than I expected. It also has quite a few dark corners, but that's what makes this game stand out and something I believe you should try.

Side note, I don't think you need the voice acting DLC to enjoy the game.

[Neutral Review]

CAFE 0 ~The Drowned Mermaid~ is an average Visual Novel that tells us the story of Marin, a girl who died a miserable death, going seven days back into the past with the help of a mysterious waiter from a weird cafe. She tries to uncover the reasons behind her death, since she has no memories of who is she or what happened.

The player must complete four endings in order to be able to get the true ending, that explains what really happened with Marin. The Novel mechanic is kind of strange. I don't want to spoil your playthrough, so I will not give anymore detail. The graphics are really above average, the BGM is repetitive and the plot in general is a bit poor.

Even though the game is really short and a bit repetitive (I took like 3 hours to get all endings and achievements), it's true ending can be a little unexpected and make us think twice before trust into someone else. As we see in the game, people can be selfish and blinded by their own desires, being true monsters sometimes.

I didn't like this game at first. It's a little frustrating because it's supposed to be a "choices" game, but they give you very little room to make any dynamic choices. Once you pick a path, you cannot diverge from the path in any way, shape, or form or you get the bad ending. lol If you go to see Guy A, you must go to see him every single day. If you don't? Bad ending.

Despite that, the overall concept is very interesting. No matter what, you play through the exact same story. What changes is your perception of the story. I appreciated that. Instead of changing events, you just change how you feel about said events.

If you do get the game, I highly recommend getting all of the endings and seeing the final "true ending". It is epic and worth your time to see it, I think.

At first, I wasn’t going to recommend this game. But then I decided to get all the achievements and see if anything would change through the story.

And boy, things got f*cking WILD.

I wasn’t expecting AT ALL the true ending. Or the other bad endings. I thought it was going to be a cliché romantic VN, but I was wrong… and I’m glad because of it. Yes, the character art isn’t the best, especially the lack of facial expressions… But to be really honest, I think that the originality of the story shines through all of this. It’s a short VN, there are a few “ok what’s going on” moments… But it was a really interesting concept. I love mystery/horror visual novels, so this one just made my day. The Japanese voice acting was okay, nothing special. I guess that the only VA I liked the most was Sui’s. And speaking of him, I think it would be awesome to see this character again, in another story. The whole Cafe 0 concept is quite nice, even if there’s a few plot holes.

7/10. I recommend getting this game on sale, since it’s quite short. I wish I could give more points but unfortunately the inexistent emotions of the characters almost ruined the experience for me on my first playthrough. You have to be persistent, and stay alert for the details.

Cafe 0 ~ The Drowned Mermaid,

Is not a Visual Novel for just anybody. The subject that's being brought up in this VN is a bit different. It's about dying and finding peace in the fact itself.

The story itself is quiet interesting from time to time, but if falls short on depth in my opinion. The conversations with the "important" characters are too shallow compared to other VN's of the same price. So, I would have expected more on that part.
The graphics are a bit different also. I can't say they're good, but they arent bad either.

Gameplay, hmm, without trying to spoil anything, it's basically a good ending / bad ending thing. You make some choices and get some progression "stat" throughout the game so you're able to see how you're doing. That's the part I liked a lot, because it's done in a different way than just displaying some numbers or bars.

The one thing I didn't like at all is that at the beginning you've got to enter a name. But, you're not told that you're supposed to enter a female name. So, if you enter a male name it feels like you're some kind of shemale. A bit weird..

Another negative thing about this VN is the fact that it falls short on length. It doesn't take that long to complete a path and the fact that there're several endings doesn't make it any better. It feels like a cheap way by the developer to stretch the game time.

So to put it all in a list:

Pros:
-Interesting/different subject.
-Interesting story.
-Nice music.

Cons:
-Too short.
-Repeating dialogs.
-Lack of information when entering a name.
-The different endings feel forced.
-Towards the end of the story it feels like a rushed product.

As you can see there're more negative things than positive aspects about Cafe 0. The thing is that I don't regret buying this Visual Novel, but I don't recommend it to people who're looking for a more fleshed out product. (e.g. Katawa Shoujo, Narcissu, Yandere, etc.)