Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

introduction

Wanna cheat people's money? You could cheat people's money here!
Wanna sell dangerous weapons to a young girl who wants to give it as a present for mommy? You could do even that!
You dont want to sell anything? You could go on an adventure into a dungeon!
In order to pay a huge debt your dad left you, you were forced to open a store by a loan shark fairy and now you have to work your @*$ off and pay a certain amount every week.
If you dont, you house and shop will be given to the loan shark company and you will live in a box where it is game over.
Capitalism Ho!

-Anonymous player who played this game

Gameplay

The main point of this game, is to get a specific sum of money which you need to pay at the end of every 8 days.
Thus i shall start with the shop part as it is more important.

Shop

Setting up the store

The first thing you gotta do is to obviously fill up your shop with things to sell.
Who would enter a shop that is completely empty? There are many different type of items in the game, thus, it is better if you stock up the store with a variety of items as there may be customers who have a smaller budget or may have a different preference.

For example, a little girl would obviously have a smaller budget than a adult man and thus would not be able to afford the things that are too expansive on your shelves.
Or another example is, treasures, they might sell for very high but not many people would want to buy them or could afford it. So if you put it up for sale you are just wasting a slot.

I forgot to mention, the currency used in this game is called pix which you will be able to see at the top left corner with the clock in the pictures.

Selling mechanics

-Basics

The most important thing is to look at the target item, and see the base price of the item.
The base price means its the original price of the item, it is the price of the item if you did buy the item from the market or guild.
So to sell the item at a higher price we are to go to the unit and press the up button, as we change the price the percentage change will be calcuated and shown.

In the tutorial. you are taught that 130% of base price is what stores usually aim for which is usually true however, there are customers that cant afford the item if it is at 130% of the price.
Thus you must learn what price is the best to aim for to get the most profit and at the same time gain reputation from the customer.
If you only ever aim for high price, the customer will one day end up not having enough budget for the more expansive item you will be selling in the future reasons will be explained in Reputaiton.
To know that you have chosen the perfect price, all you need to see is whether the customer is haggling. If they are it could mean that the price you set is too high.

-Buying

As your merchant level increases, This option is added.
As an item shop, if you are selling stuff there will be people who would want to sell things to you too.
Following the rules of buy cheap sell high, you obviously can't follow the selling basics of choosing 130% of base price. You wouldnt want to get ripped off by your customers which you are suppose to be doing the ripping off from.
Thus you are taught by the tutorial again that you should buy things at around 70% of base price. Which is also not too accurate once again like the 130% base price as you will need to aim for the most profit and gain reputation.

-pre-order

Again as your merchant level increases, This option is added.
This option allows the customer to request a certain type of item like swords for example and the quantity and they will say they want it in a few days. You are allowed to prepare ANY swords. The customer that does preorder usually will bring extra money.

Usually customers bring a fixed sum but with this, they will bring the fixed sum times quantity and slightly more.
This will allow you to sell more expansive things to them that they usually could not afford and would decline your offer of.
If you fail to get the items after accepting the preorder request the customer's reputation will not fall so there is no worries there. BUT, it will break a just combo which is important for merchant level.

-Announcement

Once again, as your merchant level increases, This system will be unlocked.
The Announcement could happen during every new time period it will annouce whether a category of item has a boom, price increase, price decrease or price crash.
Category could be like metals, food, Sweets.

A price increase would cause items in the specific category to be highlighted red. This means that the item price would be doubled which could be helpful or harmful to you.
It is harmful as things bought from outside market guild and other people, would also cost more.
It is helpful as, get this, you could sell the item for more than two times of the base price! Eventhough things sold from outside cost more, it is not double of the base price so this is a good time to stock up on those items and sell it from your store.
However, if you buy too much and after the price increase has fallen back down and you didnt manage to sell finish all your products, you will be losing alot of money as you can only sell for the price you normally sell for which is cheaper than the price you bought it for.

A price decrease would be the obvious opposite of a price increase. The items will be highlighted blue, this will be helpful or harmful as well.
Obviously you would not want to sell things that has a price decrease as you can only see it for around half of the base price, about the price you buy things from other people.
But if you buy things that are blue you can buy it for cheaper and after the period of time has passed, you could sell them for higher price and thus more profit.
A price crash is just a price decrease but much more worse, around a quarter of the base price would the things be sold.

A boom is when a certain item has become really sought after. For example, all of a sudden all of the women in the towns want to buy sweets.
Then during that time period, alot of women would appear and only buy all the sweets and nothing else.
So after the announcement it will be wise to replace everything in the store to the item that is currently in a boom.

Reputation mechanics

This mechanics is not really explained in the game however it is one of the most important thing to note if you want to succeed in buisness in this game.
Your customers include, an old man, a woman, a man, a girl, the guild master, the adventurers and the daughter of a big company.

Each characther has 10 level of reputation, every reputation level is 10 reputation points.
To gain reputation, You have to get Just Bonus, which gives 5 reputation, near pin, gives 2 reputation and a successful transaction gives 1 reputation.
A Just Bonus is gotten when the price you offered within 0.5% of the pin price which is 100%-110% of the market price and a near pin is within 5% of it

Of course it is possible to lose reputation too. You lose rep when you sell things for extreme price, sell things over the customer's budget and haggle 3 times on a single item.

So what is the point of Reputation?
Every reputation gain would increase the maximun budget of the customer by 10%, higher rep would also allow you to haggle more times! Also,adventureres who would come to your store and buy stuff, once they reach around level 5 reputation, they would give them their adventurer card.

Merchant level

Merchant level is what is gained when you successfully sell an item or more specifically merchant experiance.
You get bonus MXP when you gets a just bonus or near pin you also get them from just combo, which is a combo you accumulate as you continuously sell things with only one price given. The MXP you get from it is doubled for every combo gain. Justbonus and near pin only gives a flat extra.
The highest level you could get is 99 however, you are only awarded with things up to level 50.

As you gain merchant level, more things are unlocked, like the different ways of selling items.
Other than that, you can unlock decorations which changes the atmosphere of the shop.
You also unlock more crafting recipes in the guild, you also unlock bigger stores which can be bought from the guild too.
Other stuff includes more backpack slots for adventure, vending machines and more items you can bring back when you fail Adventure.

Atmosphere mechanics

Well, as you can see from the picture, there are 4 different types of atmosphere, light, gaudy, dark, plain.
Different customers like different kind of atmosphere, for example louie, the first adventurer you met, his preferences are plain.
So if your shop is leaning towards plain, he is more likely to show up at your store.

This mechanic is not that important unless you are trying to raise reputation of a certain customer.
I usually just decorate my store the way i want it to be without a care of what atmosphere it is giving.

The things you are allowed to change are tables, carpet and flooring. You are also allowed to move the positions of all of them to your liking.

Time

The last shop mechanics is time, as seen from the picture of the clock, the clock is split into 4 parts.
Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night.

Everytime you open store, it takes uses up 1 part of the clock meaning you could open store up to 4 times a day
Everytime you go on an adventure, it takes up 2 part of the clock, which means if you go adventure first thing in the morning, you could go twice.
But everytime you go a location that is not the adventure's guild, it will take up 1 period of your time when you return back to the shop.
Also, if you go to a location that is not the adventure's guild and then go on an adventure, it will take 3 period of time and thus would lead to you only being able to open for one period of time.

Gameover

Like i said at the start, the main point is to pay the debt that is collected every 8 days. To pay for the sum of money, all you need is to just have the right amount of money on hand.
If you fail to pay the sum of money you will need to start from day 1 all over again however you get to keep all the reputation, items you already have and merchant level.
So if you know you cannot pay the debt, it will be smart to use all your current money to buy items and accept your fate.
However, if you are in hardmode you will lose everything and restart from day 1.

Adventure

There are some people who could not stand just sitting there and pressing buttons to sell things. But this is the surprising part, even though this is a capitalism game, unlike other capitalism game this is half rpg!
People who got bored of just pressing buttons and selling stuff could go on an adventure to fight monsters in dungeon and at the same time grind for things to sell at your store!
This is a really smart way of combining the aespect of RPGs and capitalism games.

Preparations

Before going out for an adventure obviously we will need to do some preperations. It is advisable to bring any kind of food as it will heal you or give you mana points.
Even though the adventurer, has their own items, you could bring better equipment along to equip them with thus it is also a good idea to bring equipments.
Also, it is a good idea to see what time it is and see if on that day you have any request you need to submit before you go on the adventure.

Adventurers

In order to go on an adventure, you will need an adventurer's accompanyment. When you enter the dungeon, you will see the adventurer you have chose and you can see reccete and tear behind them. You are controlling the adventurer now.
Base on tear's explanation, recette and tear is behind a barrier and they cant be seen, hit or damaged by the monsters and if the adventurer 'faints' they will be transported back with him. However they can only bring back one item not including the items you first bought along. With higher merchange level you are able to bring back more items.

There are 8 adventurers in the game that you can play as, each of them is a different class and has a unique play style.
In order to play as them, you must first gain 5 levels of reputation with them first. Then they will pass you an adventurer card.
Without the card you are not able to play as that adventurer, with the exception of louie the swordsman who is your first adventurer.
After you finished the game though, you will be given a true card meaning that no matter what new mode as long as it is that safe file, you can use that adventurer
To get a true card, during that play through you must use that adventurer the highest number of time.

Combat and loot

Combat in this game is pretty simple but diverse, Louie is a swordsman so he swings his sword in an arc to hit enemies.
Other characther such as tielle, is an archer and will require you to hold down the button to draw the bow and charge it, the more it was charge the further it will go.

Each characther has their stats and traits, for example louie has high defense and magical defense and high health. His special trait is that if he stands still, range attack coming at him will be blocked.
While tielle has low health and moderate defenses. Her special trait is the charge up of her bow, allowing the attack to do more damage and fly further.

Some tips for battling,
If you hit enemies from the back or side, it does more damage to them or if you attack them while they are attacking you it counts as an counter attack.
When you get hit you take damage obviously but the bonuses from hitting from side and back applies to you as well.

To advance in a dungeon, you dont actually need to kill all the monsters, they are only for loot and exp.
And as you explore, you will be able to see the map at the bottom left corner to see where you have went and where you have not.
Your main objective would be to find a square spinning on the floor, when you step on the center of the square you will be brought to the next floor.

Bosses

Every 5 floors, there will be a boss. Each bosses has their own fighting pattern and you will need to know the right strategies if not you are not able to beat them.
When the boss dies they drop better loot than most monsters and will drop a door.
From there you can choose to leave the dungeon through the door, or to continue the dungeon through the square.

Skills

There are also skills in the game which costs mana but does more damage that your attacks, once again different characther will have different skillsets and different mana amounts.
As your adventurer's level increase, they will gain mroe skills.
For example, louie has low mana however he only has two skills one does a 360 degree arc which he starts with and another skill he unlocks which throws a slash towards the enemy.

Recovery

When you go into a fight with no experiance, you will ofcourse get injured.
In order to gain health either restart the run or you could consume food which you should have brought with you into the dungeon.
Mana can also be regained by consuming sweets.
When you healthbar reaches zero in a dungeon, your characther faints and you will be sent back with the time period consumed, also, you can only take back one item with you.
When you enter the dungeon again you will be full health.

Loot

Honestly, if you forgot to bring food or sweets into the early dungeons, it is no big deal.
Monsters that you kill will regularly drop food products that you can use to recover with.
Monsters will also drop random object that you can sell in your store or will drop materials used for crafting.

While exploring the dungeon, you will occasionally find chest in the center of the room, when you see the chest you should hit it as there is a high likelyhood that there will be an item in the chest.
However, there are chances that the chest is empty or it will trigger a trap.
But do not worry, most of the traps are pretty harmless as long as you are alert and dodge them in time.

Adventurer's level

When you kill monsters, you will see gems flying towards you. These gems are experience points.
When you kill the same species of monsters without any other species, you will create a chain this chain would give you more experiance the more same species you kill.

As the adventurer level increase, they will cost more to hire compared to before.
However, their stats increase by alot and they will unlock more skills so it is worth it to grind for levels on them.

Music audio and visuals

Music and audio

What to say, im a huge fan of bit music, so i hope my opinions wont be too biased. Click here for most of the background music
The music of the game fits their situations really well. There is seperate music for the different dungeons and for different time of the shop.
The music for the town and the shop is cheerful and upbeat, while the musics for the boss fights are epic and make you feel immerse with the battle.
Overall it is really well done to me, there is no music that i hate at all.

The audio however feels really lazy, they characthers will just repeatedly say the same thing(It is all in japanese) and it doesnt not read out whatever was in the text box.
However the audio does convey their feelings properly so atleast that part is ok.
The quality of the singing in the final song is not that good either, however it is done with the main characther voice show how she has grown over the game atleast.

(Spoiler warning) Storyplot

Compared to the first game which is story heavy, this game is more mechanics heavy and thus there is not much storyplot.
However, there are still some side stories with the different adventurers and a main story but they are not that long.

During the first cutscene, you were woken up by a fairy name tear.
You were told that your father has own the company a huge debt and your father has went on a adventure to follow his dream of being a hero.
The company could not tell whether he is alive or not and thus the debt has fallen upon you.

Tear realized that you are only a child and would not have alot of money.
Thus you were given a choice of setting up an item shop and paying the debt weekly. She also refuses to tell you the whole debt saying that you would faint.
Also if you rejected this offer all of your assets will be seized by them and you will be living on the streets in a cardboard box.

And that was pretty much the whole back story of the game.
The rest are just small side stories of the adventurers, like how you meet louie while he trying to get some job to buy food in the adventurer's guild.
Or how you see tielle trying to chase after her sister in the park. Then meeting her as a boss in one of the dungeons.
Speaking of which alot of the adventurers are bosses in dungeons and after you beat them they will start appearing in your shop.

Game length,replayability and conclusion

If talking about the main game and untill the story's final debt, it is not really a long game it can be done in a day.
However if you include unlocking the characthers, continuing with the story and endless mode, the game will be endless.
Currently i only have around 20 hours on the game im only completed the main story once and have never tried the other modes currently on my first run in new game plus.

This game is extremely replayable, as you can approach the game with many different strategies and playstyle.
During my first run i spent too much time adventuring and ended up having not enough money to pay the debt and had to restart all over.
My second run i decided to not adventure untill i could pay my second debt(The one i failed on in my first run) then go adventure which worked.
Well with new game plus endless mode and hard mode it will be hard to get bored of the game.

In conclusion, it is a really fun game with a nice mix of different genres.
With the large variety of things to do, it will be really hard to get bored of the game. The game just keeps you hooked.