I read the RPS review on this game and am thinking of checking this game out. I had initially looked at it but dismissed it when I saw the screenshots. I figured there wasn't much depth and the idea of playing a simulation of running a store wouldn't be that much fun. From the gist of the review, sounds like the game is much different than what I had originally thought it would be.
Now my one regret is that if this was game was on sale last week that I didn't buy it then -- I don't recall if it was or not.
Anyways, check out the review. You might find yourself interested in this game as well. Now to hunt down that demo that's mentioned.
Wot I Think – Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale | Rock, Paper, Shotgunhttp://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/11/wot-i-think-recettear-an-item-shops-tale/
Working on the patch for Impulse now.
Excellent news!
Now let's talk about when it will go on sale.
Actually Tear does bring this up fairly early on since I've only played the Demo so far. It's like a fair amount of JRPGs though, sort of spoon feeds you info instead of throwing it all up there at front. I think she told me that maybe the 2nd time through the dungeon or something like that.
One of the 'hidden' features of the game is that if you fail to make a payment, you don't lose. If you fail to make a payment, you start back at Day 2 but you keep all your current items, your merchant level, your adventurer levels (I think) and one or two other things. The payments reset, you start off with 1000 pix again, and I believe the storylines and dungeons reset, but other than that...
For those adverse to Steam, there is a demo available from Carpe Fulgar's webpage.
Also, minor spoiler, once you beat the game, it opens up a few other modes for you to play. There's New Game Plus which lets you load up a completed save and start over from Day 2 (plus some other stuff I think), Endless which lets you continue a game without any debts, and Survival Mode in which you play with ever increasing debt amounts with the objective being to see how long you can hold off debt while making as much money as possible. Then there's just finding all items, dungeons, and storylines.
Minecraft is better.
It's actually kind of annoying if you lose due to debt and loop back to day 2. You lose your money but you keep your shop inventory which can easily be worth a small fortune by day 2 standards. Given that your money tends to grow exponentially and it's only the debt payments that keep it under control, suddenly starting from day 2 with a small fortune makes the rest of the game pretty trivial. I ended up just restarting from scratch.
Yeah, that's what I did. Still, it's a nice way to help out people that don't want to worry too much about the debt stuff and just goof around.
Having finished the main game, it seems like there are a lot of elements which seemed cool but I never had a chance to do anything with. I never went past the first dungeon after the hall of trials, never used a hero besides the first one, never got any light or dark items, and never really remotely resolved anything storywise other then paying my bill. I guess I could go back and do more dungeons and heroes in sand box mode, but it just doesn't seem so exciting with no story behind it or reason to keep caring about my shop. I had fun with the game for awhile, but it really seems like they needed to work on weaving all the different elements into the main game a little better.
The other elements took a backseat for me also, mostly because I simply had to make money to pay the weekly bills and I fretted that if I spent too much time on dungeon crawling and goofing around, I might not make it before pay day.
Bear in mind that the story is independent of the debt paying. If you continue a game in Endless mode, though the debt story line is finished, you can still encounter and complete all the other story events in the game. While true, money is no longer an issue, if you're interested in the story or exploration, it's at least not completely plot free.
That said, I agree that, at the very least, they could have offered a little more leeway or time in order to see more things during a normal play through.
I tend to agree on the problems with dungeons on your first playthrough. Even in Amber Garden you rarely find anything worth more than a couple thousand pix, by which point you can probably buy 10000+ pix items from the guild. The number of events you need to trigger to access the third dungeon make it nearly impossible to get to during the main game (especially considering you need at least one of pricey heretic customizations to attract Griff to the store), and that's where dungeons finally start to be worthwhile in terms of profits. It seems that part of the game is more or less meant for one of the post-game modes. Which I suppose makes some sense when you consider the focus is supposed to be Recette's shop, not the adventurers.
For those that think playing without the debt in Endless Mode trivializes the game though, that's what Survival Mode is for. It's literally Endless Mode but with a debt that's never paid off. I may try a standard new game using only dungeon runs just for fun to see if it's actually viable though.
My other mild complaint about the game is that you don't really the feel like your running a fantasy equipment store, more of a grocery store that for some reason carries weapons and armor. Very few adventurers actually come into your shop and when they do they are just as likely to buy something that doesn't help them adventure or something they can't actually equip. Meanwhile random townsfolk are your biggest buyers of weapons and armor. At the same time I really like the idea of buying items from people who come in, at the usual fantasy merchant ripoff rate, but it would be nice to have more a feel of buying old weapons and armor and treasures from adventurers and not ham sandwhiches from towns people. I've never quite figured out how a ham sandwhich could be a family heirloom.....
Well the food items are the game's healing potions (you can use them in the dungeon for those who didn't know, the game never really mentions this to you), so it makes more sense when you think of them as such. I guess they just didn't want to be boring and make 15 variants like 'Healing Potion I', ' Healing Potion II', etc. and instead made them various foods. The housewives being your primary customer is an unfortunate side-effect of the action RPG portion being pointless during the main game. Once you've unlocked all eight adventurers, they will all come to your store looking for stuff and it makes it feel much more like you're running a RPG equipment shop. It is worth noting that you make far more money off equippable items though. The best market-buyable food sells for a little over 12000 base while the best buyable armour goes for ~55000 base. A late game weapon or armour price hike can net you enough to pay the final bill in one day.
But yeah, I don't know why they made food items the primary item people try to sell to you. Ironically I don't think I've EVER seen someone try to sell any equippable item. I've only ever seen food, books, and treasures. Sometimes the scam artist comes in with rare dungeon-only items at 500% markup, but those don't count.
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