Recettear

[furball]

http://cdn-www.mania.com/content_pics/000006/37/60/6f561010c4a4eab3_large.jpg
Recettear, a comiket doujin game now being sold overseas, is the story of how one girl is saved by the power of capitalism! Recette Lemongrass, a young girl is left by herself when her dad abandons her to go on a long journey. Worse, Recette's father leaves her with a huge debt. Tear, a fairy sent to collect the debt, suggests Recette to turn her house into an item store to raise the money to pay off the debt.

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/112/1122506/recettear-an-item-shops-tale-20100921005319297-000.jpg
Gameplay takes place in "days". Recette has a week to pay off a part of her huge debt. During those seven days, Recette must find ways to raise up the money for paying off the debt lest her house be foreclosed. If you do happen to get foreclosed upon and get a game over, all that happens is that you are brought back to day 2 to start over again, but you retain your items, skills, and levels. During the day, you can use the 4 time chunks to best organize your day. For example, leaving to town costs a quarter of your day, and so does opening your store. Exploring a dungeon costs half of your day. Dungeon crawling is the other half of the game. By sponsoring an adventurer with money and items, they will be willing to explore dungeons for you. There, you can find enemies, bosses, and items worth much more than you can buy from the market. With the ingredients you find, you can even combine them into other items to sell for even more profit.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/recettear/recettear-12.jpg
What's so great about this game? Just...the sheer concept and fun of it. Remember how in all those RPGs that the shopkeepers charged outrageous prices to you? Well now you're the shopkeeper! You can adjust the prices to balance out profit and reputation. Buying really low and selling extremely high may net your money in the short run, but your customer's reputations and wallets won't be as good if you settle for a smaller gain. The randomly generated dungeons are also quite fun to play around with as there are countless dungeon combinations to explore and play. The realism is also quite detailed and nice. As you play, prices for certain things will either increase, or decrease depending on the circumstances. Cold weather will make scarves worth more, and lots of sunshine will raise the prices of hats. Selling too much of one type of item will cause a complete market crash in that aspect. Another point that stands out (besides the cute artstyle) is the humor and charm this game presents. Countless references to other media are made (eragon, TTGL, gundam, Legend of Zelda), and the dialogue between the characters are just adorable and hilarious. If you have the time, I highly recommend you check this game out.

[Konata Suzumiya]

My review should be up in a few days. Just need a bit more time.

[Supernova141]

I played the free demo of this, it was really good. I'll definitely buy it when I'm looking for a new game to play.

I made a little girl cry cause I charged her too much for an apple, and it made me IRL sad. The apple was supposed to be a present for someone. If I could go back in time, I'd give it to her for free T-T

[Konata Suzumiya]

I played the free demo of this, it was really good. I'll definitely buy it when I'm looking for a new game to play.

Wait for it to get a Steam sale.


I made a little girl cry cause I charged her too much for an apple, and it made me IRL sad. The apple was supposed to be a present for someone. If I could go back in time, I'd give it to her for free T-T

No, don't. That girl is an evil satanic money hoarder.

[brupielink]

I played the free demo of this, it was really good. I'll definitely buy it when I'm looking for a new game to play.
Wait for it to get a Steam sale.
Recettear is now on sale for €3,74

UNIMPORTAND EDIT- Hooray! Yumano-kun has gifted it to me!

[furball]

I played the free demo of this, it was really good. I'll definitely buy it when I'm looking for a new game to play.

I made a little girl cry cause I charged her too much for an apple, and it made me IRL sad. The apple was supposed to be a present for someone. If I could go back in time, I'd give it to her for free T-T

http://mkv25.net/anime/Recettear/Recette_hates_you_so_much.pnghttp://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/299/a/0/can__t_pay_for_jack_by_selecthumor-d31lewq.jpg

That little girl is annoying. She ruins your combos so much because she wants to pay so little. The only thing I find annoying about the game is that perhaps shopkeeping is more profitable than dungeon crawling. Shopkeeping takes up a quarter of the day, and you can usually sell six or seven items, which would probably give you over a thousand pix, while dungeon crawling costs around 1000, takes up half your day, and then you have to spend another quarter of the day selling the items you got. The complex fusion and rare item drops are also quite irky. My final annoyance with this great game is that it should more be called Reset-tear. The game is quite hard. It's very hard to beat the game on loop 1, because the debt grows faster than exponentially. Having to unlock adventurers, dungeons, and cutscenes for the third time is quite annoying. You'll find yourself using Louie for all the dungeons just because how overleveled he is and how weak the other adventurers are when you get them.

[Konata Suzumiya]

Alright all I can say is get this game while it's on sale today.
I was hoping to have my review done before it got a sale, but clearly that isn't possible. Hopefully my review will be done be the end of today if anyone still isn't sure.

[Supernova141]

I played through the first seven days. On the last day, this Lady wanted to sell me this statue thing, only I thought she wanted to buy my statue(which was stupid since I didn't put it on display), so I offered her 117% for it. Lost, rage quit, went to bed.

[Konata Suzumiya]

I played through the first seven days. On the last day, this Lady wanted to sell me this statue thing, only I thought she wanted to buy my statue(which was stupid since I didn't put it on display), so I offered her 117% for it. Lost, rage quit, went to bed.

Always remember: white means sell and gold means buy.

[furball]

Always remember: white means sell and gold means buy.

Yup. Very important. Yellow text means to buy while white means to sell.

Anyways, I've practically beaten the game, getting the money I needed to pay off the debt on the first day of the last week. I was afraid I wouldn't make it, so I saved on another save file (There's a whole lot of them), but that's not needed, because I don't even know how I made so much money in a few days. Now I'll just spend the rest of the time using my extremely underleveled adventurers to crawl through the dungeons and explore the things I didn't have time to while buying/selling.

That's a problem with the game, buying/selling is way more profitable than dungeon crawling, so dungeon crawling isn't a big priority, despite being nearly half the game. Some adventurers can really be stupid sometimes as well. Really Charme? You're going to buy a worse dagger and equip it? I really wish you can just directly give weapons/equipment to your adventurers instead of waiting for them to buy it.

[DeathByConservatism]

The Merchant's guild controls the prices of all the shops in the town.

I want to see some anti-trust legislation going on.

I played the free demo of this, it was really good. I'll definitely buy it when I'm looking for a new game to play.
It's always free if you're willing.

[furball]

The Merchant's guild controls the prices of all the shops in the town.

I want to see some anti-trust legislation going on.

What about all the ruckus about you selling booze to little girls? And selling clubs and spears to old men? Or that time when everyone bursts into your store buying sailor suits? Then again, the lack of anti-trust is probably what lets you sell food at 250% base value when there is a bad harvest.


It's always free if you're willing.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/10/july/recettear3.jpg

[Metaler]

If Recette said "Communism, ho!", would the game disappear as if divided by zero?

[Droote]

I started to play this game tonight. It's really addictive as I played four hours in one sitting. I'm on day 22 now, and business is looking good!

[furball]

Ah, I've stopped playing it because I've "beaten" it. The bonus dungeon is way too hard for me, so I'm not going to do it.

maybe because it's the fact I have an older version

[Droote]

Ah, I've stopped playing it because I've "beaten" it. The bonus dungeon is way too hard for me, so I'm not going to do it.

maybe because it's the fact I have an older version

Did you lose many times before beating the game?

[furball]

Did you lose many times before beating the game?

Depends on really how you define lose. If you mean, miss payments, then yeah, 3 times. I initially wanted to fail once at each payment just so I could build up more money, but yeah. If I die in a dungeon (which is quite often due to overpowered red ropers), I just reset.

[Droote]

And I just cleared the game with 10 hours of gameplay. I missed payments twice, but on the third time, I managed to pay the whole debt and still have 600,000 pix left. There is basically no point in going into the dungeon. All you really need is to buy loads of items when their value has decreased, and then sell them when their value has increased.

[furball]

And I just cleared the game with 10 hours of gameplay. I missed payments twice, but on the third time, I managed to pay the whole debt and still have 600,000 pix left. There is basically no point in going into the dungeon. All you really need is to buy loads of items when their value has decreased, and then sell them when their value has increased.

Ayup. It's really easy once you figure out a strategy. Start by selling stuff at around 104% to boost reputation, and then sell items when they boom or price increases. My main gripe of the game was how dungeons were unprofitable, but I suppose you could always dungeon dive after you've paid off everything. It's quite sad how over half the story and characters are only encountered through the dungeons.

[Droote]

Ayup. It's really easy once you figure out a strategy. Start by selling stuff at around 104% to boost reputation, and then sell items when they boom or price increases. My main gripe of the game was how dungeons were unprofitable, but I suppose you could always dungeon dive after you've paid off everything. It's quite sad how over half the story and characters are only encountered through the dungeons.

Yeah, during the credits, there were so many people shown which I have never encountered. There are clearly still things to do, even though you've paid off your debt.

[kirant]

Quick question: What is the dungeon crawling part like? Most of the game looks pretty good, but from images, the RPG part looks like a hack n' slash game.

[furball]

Quick question: What is the dungeon crawling part like? Most of the game looks pretty good, but from images, the RPG part looks like a hack n' slash game.

Yeah, like a hack n' slash. Dungeons are randomly generated, filled with enemies, treasure chests, and a portal to the next level. You kill enemies, gain exp, level up, open chests, and try to find the portal. Each 5 levels is a checkpoint that lets you leave a dungeon.

[Droote]

^Plus bosses at every five level.

[furball]

^Plus bosses at every five level.

Bosses, cutscenes, or gauntlets of many, many monsters. The bonus dungeon has checkpoints each 10 levels. Very grueling and painful to have your progress lost when you're killed by a roper.

[Metaler]

Dungeon crawling plays a lot like the older Zelda games with a bit of Persona's, well, dungeon crawling.