Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

Simply wonderful! Recettear is one of the most fantastic and original RPGs I've played in the past few years. Classic graphics and game-play with a different spin of the main character being an new item shop owner trying to pay off a debt, instead of an adventurer. The game is split off into two sections, store management where you sell items at the right times for the price that will get you the most profit. It wonderfully works in the concept of supply and demand as you get actual news on market updates sometimes more than once a day on what item prices are up and what ones are down. Along with the store management is going to the market or merchant's guild to buy items to sell in your store, or to help with dungeon crawling. The second part is the dungeon crawling. On the days you need a large boost to your store inventory or ingredients for crafting, you can hire an adventurer from the adventurer's guild to go to a dungeon with you. This is where you will control the adventurer as your main character follows behind. Using the adventurer you will fight off enemies, picking up items that some drop and opening chests to usually get items/treasures. The good part about dungeon crawling is that you get items that you can sell for 100% profit, minus the fee to hire the adventurer. Lastly on the dungeon stuff, the adventurer you hire will level up through the process of killing enemies, like any RPG, which is a good thing because they will be stronger and you can later move on to bigger and better dungeons, but it is also a slight hindrance as well, because the stronger and more experienced an adventurer becomes, the more it will cost to hire him or her. As the game progresses through the story, you will be able to hire different kinds of adventurers. I'm giving this game a 10 because it is a solid RPG, with a fun and whimsical story, that has familiar game-play while still feeling quite original. I've played many RPGs in my day and I can say I've never before played a game like Recettear. The people that rate it real low because of a lot of dialogue have clearly never played a classic RPG, or they have been spoiled by playing too many fully voiced RPGs. One of the other reviews says says that the store management isn't complex enough to be compelling for more than 4-5 hours, the problem with saying that is that it shows that they didn't play very long, because I've played 16 hours and I'm still getting new facets and challenges to running the store. The game doesn't give you all the ways to run your store right off, it treats those like any abilities learned in an RPG. As you get more experienced at running your shop and level up as a merchant, you gain more things that you can do, like decorating your store and new ways to sell things to your customers. Finally, I would add that just because it doesn't have the latest newfangled sparkling graphics and gimmicky interface, doesn't mean that it isn't an original title. The story and store management along side the classic game play is what makes the game original. The art and graphics(classic around PS2 era JRPG type) are solid, fitting the style of the game and the story. It isn't hard for this game to shine with with all the samey RPG drivel that tends to be heralded as special and wonderful(usually only because of the graphics). I highly recommend this game to any gamer that is properly familiar with and loves RPGs.

A fun little game that feels a tad dated. The game mechanics are more or less solid, the take on the RPG genre is fresh, and the game is deceptively challenging. The graphics are sort of charming, sort of awful. The storyline and characters are godawful, but it seems to be a sideshow anyway; easily ignored. I'd say the game belongs in the $10-15 range, $20 is pushing it, but ultimately worth sinking a few days into.

Super addictive! It is a bit outdated and old fashioned, but you really cannot stop playing regardless. Art style is cute and chirpy and slightly humorous. Combat and the dungeons need to be worked on and I admit I only played through the game once to completion with no temptation to return to it at the moment. Some may find it only fun for a few hours as it does get very repetitive, but I managed to be amused the whole time as I played it through to the end. Fantastic game to continuously rave about? No. Enough to earn a decent score and respect for what it is? Yes.

Recettear is a game that should be fun. You run an item shop, you quest for new items, and sell those items to people. Along the way you make friends and a pile of money. Simple enough to grasp, or so I thought. This game is so needlessly filled with dialog that is takes away from the fun. I'm all for a tutorial or a few helpful hints, but after 40 minutes of playing I hadn't even opened my shop for the first day yet. All I was doing was reading dialog AND not good dialog. It's not like there is a story line that will keep you on the edge of you seat. You are a young and very ditzy girl who is partnered up with a loanshark fairy. The fairy tells you everything you need to know to run a shop. She tells you, then you repeat it back to her and make a ditzy joke to go along with it, then she reiterates, and you make another ditzy joke. This goes on for what I am certain forever. Steam has me clocked in at 94 minutes of play time and I don't think I can take anymore cyclical dialog. I really hoped they would just shut up and let me play this game, but I have a feeling it will never end. Did I mention I can't find a way to save my game? I had to quit after 40 minutes of play and when I returned it made me start a new game. I had to go through all the dialog again. Yes it lets you skip, but you're pressing Esc 10 times just to play for 5 minutes. Who are these people that are giving this game all these good reviews? Wall of crits hits for 1463!

Fun for only about 2 hours. After you've finished the needlessly long introduction, you now realise you have basically had everything this game has to offer. Pretty much all you do is: wake up, go to the adventurer's guild, do some stuff around town, sell items, repeat. The dungeons themselves aren't any less monotonous. They're randomly generated ever ytime, so they're basically repeating halls and rooms with monsters, treasures and next-floor teleporters in between. The interface and low-res graphgics makes the game feel a lot more like a console port from the PS1 console generation, than an original title.