Now Playing: Recettear
For instance, being the item shopkeeper.
Welcome to Recettear - An Item Shop's Tale.
The concept is simple, really. You are a girl, Recette, who owns an item shop. You must stock it with items to sell, haggle with the customers that come in, and make a profit. Why? Because your dad took out a loan for adventuring needs and, now that he's gone, you must pay it back. Each week you must meet a certain quota to pay back the loan company. Or they'll take everything you own as payment, leaving you homeless. So off to work.
Gameplay in Recettear focuses on three main areas.
The first is the shop, where you spend most of your time. Think of any shop you've seen in Zelda games or the like where you walk around and pick up single items off the tables. That's your shop, Recettear. You do actually place single items out of your inventory on these tables to sell. You can change your wallpaper, your flooring, your carpets, your tables. Move things around if you like. Even set up vending machines. But this is a very small part of the shop. The main shop gameplay starts when you 'open the shop'. Here, people stream in your front door. They'll ask to buy something, which is where you haggle them to a price you can both accept. They'll ask for an item falling in a category ('weapons' and 'something warm'). They'll try to sell you something. Or perhaps they'll simply make an order for a few days from now. After a few interactions, based on time of day, popularity, and other various things, you will close your store for that time period to reset the store. Then you can decide what you want to do next.
You could go explore the town. There are vignettes to look at at various times, triggered by the story progress and time of day. A good many of these are funny and entertaining in some way. You can go to the Guild to buy low-priced weapons to sell at higher prices, or the market to do the same with more generic goods. Or you can go the Adventurer's guild to go on an adventure.
Apart from the shop-keeping, the adventures are the majority of the gameplay in Recettear. They're your generic dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons. You'll control an adventurer, one of six or seven that you can unlock in the game, that you contracted to kill things for you. You pay him, and you get to keep all the item drops. There's no menu-based system here. Simply your 'attack' button for your basic attack and your 'special' button for one of several adventurer-specific special attacks. All done in the dungeon screen to wandering monsters. Find the portal to advance to the next floor, all while killing monsters and getting treasures. Your adventurers will level up as you go. Every five floors you fight a boss and, upon winning, get the option to leave the dungeon. Your progress in that dungeon is, of course, saved. These 5-level dives are important, as you can only hold so many items. Given that these were drops, you get 100% profit off of them, making adventuring a great way to make some money. But remember, adventuring takes time.
Did I not mention time? The game is a timed thing. In-game, that is. Every action, from opening the shop to going out on the town, takes some amount of time out of your day. 1/4 to 1/2 your day, depending on the action, will vanish once you're done. When you finish your final action, the day moves on. Remember, you only get 7 days to make enough money to pay your bill. If you fail, you lose. So time yourself appropriately.
Story-wise, Recettear doesn't have too much to offer. Tear, a fairy, comes to get the loan repaid. When Recette makes it clear there's no money, Tear suggests turning Recette's house into an item shop to pay back the debt. Or, y'know, repossess. Recette agrees. Tear teaches her how to run the shop. And then every few days, there'll be another small vignette about your progress. These are usually short and to the point. Now, what Recettear doesn't provide in a cohesive story, it provides in amusing scenes. You'll see many of them with various characters. Sure, there's your generic NPCs running around. Old men and young girls and men and housewives. The best scenes, however, are with the named NPCs, most of which are your adventurers. And these scenes are notable because of the humor. Recettear is a Japanese game, as noted in the art style, but the localization is superb. And the game has a great sense of humor all around. Not only in item descriptions but in the talk between the NPCs. Recette, for instance, has a catchphrase. "Capitalism, ho!" I need to use that at my job. In addition to the humor, many of the scenes will also lead to something, including the unlocking of new heroes.
The controls in Recettear are simple, optimized for control pad but easy on the computer as well. D-Pad or arrows for control, and A+B, or Z+X on the keyboard, for menu control and dungeon crawling. Button 3/C for a few things, including special attack switching, and Button 4/V for camera shift. Controls feel solid and natural.
The graphics are good, for what they are. 3-D with 2-D sprites (think Disgaea) on top. Well drawn, honestly, and they look good. The visuals definitely fit with the gameplay.
Sound-wise, the sound effects are fairly okay. Nothing to write home about. The music is catchy, if unmemorable. The voices are all in Japanese, what there is, leaving them not amazingly helpful for American players. Still, they're in the right places.
As for length and replayability, there is a fair amount. Recettear has not only the main game, which can take you between 5-10 hours, depending on how much you spend dungeon crawling versus shopkeeping with bought items, it also has new game + mode. You keep all your merchant levels (which unlock new inventory, bigger stores, etc.), you also keep all your stock while your heroes keep their progress. While normally you'll have to start again unlocking your heroes, every time you play, you'll get the 'true card' of one hero, letting you use him from the start. There is also 'survival' mode, which never lets you pay off the debt and requires you to pay ever increasing debt payments. Simply go as far as you can. There's also the 'survival hell', which is even more unforgiving. And then 'endless' modes, which lets you keep playing your game after you beat it to go to dungeons you've never seen in regular playthrough and get items you don't normally see. And then an item catalogue to finish for completionists.
How much is it priced at? $20. How much is it actually worth? $30+. The game was definitely worth the money spent, and I highly recommend it.
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