Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale Review (CAPITALISM, HO!!!!)

Platform: PC
Company: Carpe Fulgar
Distributor: Steam

Hey guys!  Taking a break from making a review for the manhwa series, President Dad, I'll review Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.  This will be the second video game review I'll be doing with Resonance of Fate being the first.  Made by Carpe Fulgur, an indie company that's trying to take off, Recettear was the first anime-styled game to be distributed by Steam.  Of course, given with it's kid-friendly graphics many gamers mocked the game.  Recettear, however, successfully manages to rope most of them into being addicted into it's business simulation and simple hack-and-slash RPG elements.  You take control as Recette, a young girl (god knows how young) whose mother is not in the picture and father who is out traveling.  A fairy loan shark, Tear, shows up and says," You better give me mah dough, otherwise Im a take your house and make you HOMELESS".  Being a girl who has never worked in her life (LOL silly girl, people who don't work don't live very long), Recette reluctantly follows Tear's advice to open up an item shop to sell stuff to NPCs and adventurers.  From this point on is a road of light-hearted humor and frustration as players learn the shit shop owners have to put up with customers XD.

Oh Recette, your innocence knows no bounds.

 Story: There isn't much of an in-depth story other than the clichéd bad-guy-takes-over-the-world-unless-the-hero-stops-it plot device.  The worst it could get is that during the main 30+ days of playing the game, the player might not be able to finish the main story due to focusing on paying off increasing debts week-after-week.  The upside is that once the player makes it to the end of the main game, what is called "Endless mode" begins and the player is able to finish the main story at his/ her leisurely pace.  But seriously, there's no mind-blowing I'm-your-father plot or OMG-ANGSTING-REVELATION plot.  Just some greedy bastard using the power of fairies to take over the world (minor spoilers: he's the president of the company Tear works for).  Before this guy came around, there was a demon who claimed to unlock the gate to the demon world so demons can take over the world of humans.  Before the boss fight with this demon, however, Recette criticizes him for his world domination plan as "old" and "silly" (LOLOLOL, you go girl  XD).  I can't elaborate much on the story because it is up to the player to visit all the locations that have flashing titles indicating an event.  Overall, the story isn't boring but it isn't an epic either.  The story is just for casual reading with light-hearted humor.

Gameplay: The gameplay is essentially split into two components.  The first component is shop simulation and the second is hack-and-slash dungeon crawling.  For the shop aspect, the routine is simple.  You can open shop immediately or go out and purchase goods.  After that, you can open shop and wait for customers to come in and buy your stuff.  When a customer approaches to buy or sell something, you have to make the price not too high or low.  The shop component is actually more complex than it seems because the number and type of customers that come in are based on what you display, your "reputation", and your interior decór.  In other words, the game can be addicting because you as the player have full control over what you sell, buy, and display and the profits can be a reward in itself.  You can also create items at the blacksmith for selling or equipment for your adventurers.The only frustrating things other players have encountered are the initial stinginess of the NPC customers and unforeseen effects that affect plans to pay off debts.  At first, NPCs are really stingy and you are forced to sell at 100% value or even less.  On the other hand, once you have built your "reputation" based on the number of successful transactions the customers are more willing to spend more money, but each budget is different for each NPCs.  The little girl NPC is the most annoying customer many players experienced.  What is interesting is that the more you level up, the more features of shopkeeping are unlocked, keeping the playing experience entertaining and not dull for a while.

This is as large as your store can get and this kind of store can be yours... someday.. (Actually, this is what my store looks like)

Now, the second part of the game is much more simple which is dungeon-crawling.  This part of the game can be dull and tedious for some players because the players have to go through floors and floors killing monsters and picking up items to sell for pure profit.  The controls are simple as there is button mashing and the occasional special attack which you can choose from 3.  There isn't anything innovating in this dungeon-crawler, but dungeon-crawling in Recettear proves to be an incentive promising pure profit by picking up items for free instead of buying them in the shop.  Another downside is that going to the dungeon requires you to pay whichever adventurer you hired and takes up two time slots in the game.  To put more pressure in not dying, the player needs to avoid dying by reaching red door checkpoints every 5 floors or risk losing all but 1 or two items from dying.  As far as controls work, Recettear is compatible with both the keyboard and gamepad and players can customize game settings in the configurations.  Many players, however, whine and complain about how controls are shaky in the game.  Personally, I had no problem because I used a gamepad and I highly recommend using a gamepad to move better and fight better against the monsters.  Some have complained of dropping frame rates, but again I don't have a problem with it.  Recettear is not a taxing game and will not demand much from a laptop up-to-date in the past 3 years for safe guessing. 

Music: The tracks are okay at best.  Nothing Nobuo Uematsu/Shoji Meguro/Yoko Shimomura-esque.  The music is repetitive at best, but whatever I didn't care.  The music isn't horrible, but just not memorable.

Graphics: The visuals are clean at best.  Yes, the 2D sprite images are average at best, but they're not horrible so it's not a glaring problem.  The 3D environment is bland and not visual eye candy like Square Enix- Final Fantasy level, but again I don't really care nor should anyone since this game is an indie game and was made on a limited budget in the graphics department.  I'd say the visuals are "cute" at most.

Final Impressions: I'd say Recettear is a game worth the $10 or less on Steam.  If you're the type of player who loves to get a reward out of anything such as making lots of moolah, then this game is for you.  If you like to unlock stuff such as characters, collect every item, make profit, and beat all the dungeons then this game is for you.  If you don't get bored easily and are dedicated to play the heck out of the game, then once again this game is for you.  Along with the main 30+ days and Endless mode, there's Survival mode where players have to pay off debt week after week until the player cannot keep up.  For me, I clocked in 49.5 hours into Recettear so those $10 are money well spent playing the main game, Endless mode, and Survival mode.  The game is easily addicting solely on the shop simulation more than dungeon-crawling.  The visuals are cute to the eye, but the music track is mediocre.  Overall, Recettear will keep you entertained.