[PC] Recettear Review

[Lekon]

Recettear

Title: Recettear
Platform: PC
Developer: Carpe Fulgur
ESRB: None
MSRP: $20 US (Available on Steam, Impulse and Gamers Gate)
Editor: James 'Lekon' Barry

What's Hot: Charming characters, Lots of loot, Great depth of gameplay

What's Not: Some annoying vocal work, small bugs needing fixes, and a few of the deep late game mechanics are never explained

Finally, Recettear has been released on these strange western shores of ours. A charming, quirky little game, quite unlike everything else out there. A game of high humor, moderate fantasy, cheap shots, and capitalism. Mostly the capitalism. Recettear is equal parts parody of the RPG genre, and refinement of a good ol loot-a-thon Action-RPG. So, Read on for the full review!


For those who haven't read the original demo review I wrote up here, Recettear is the story of a young girl who is cute enough to cause insulin shock, being saddled with her fathers debts, and instead of going out to start killing and maiming demons for money, opens up an item shop. This way... she can make money and send other adventurers to do the killing and dying for her.

Better to let the woman with the army of clones and knives to do the killing anyways, she's good at it!

The game starts out simple enough, you have a modest debt payment the first week, each week the debt payment gets higher, with the goal being to pay off the entire debt within 5 weeks. Throughout the way, you'll be treated to charming characters, for example, the ever loved, and utterly dumb Louie.

He really is that dense.

As you sell, buy and worm your way closer to your goal of a debt free lifestyle, the game's depth starts to really shine. A slight fault here is that a few of the more useful, deeper game mechanics aren't clearly explained. Chief among these is the combo system/Just Pin system. When someone comes in to buy or sell, if you get really close to the price they wanted, you'll receive a Just/Near pin bonus, and gain extra experience. Likewise, if you don't even have to haggle with them, you'll start earning a combo. Getting 10 experience on a sale is one thing, but if you can build up 4 or 5 combos in a single sale period? You'll start getting a good 80-120 experience per sale. This becomes much more important in the post game, so it's understandable that it wasn't fully included in a tutorial.

Recettear is around 50/50 split between the capitalism and the combat. On the capitalism side, you'll have several random events, such as prices fluctuating, or housewives demanding more sweets. Using these to your advantage can really make your life easier and let you shine as a beacon of adorable mercantilism. Moreover, once you've gained a few merchant levels, your shop becomes upgradeable and customizable. Changing around the atmosphere of the shop will either help bring in adventurers or help keep out the riff raff, depending on what you're going for. The items themselves range from food, candy, to armor, weapons, valuables and treasures. Much of the loot from dungeons is complete junk by itself, but an entire fusion system is in the game, letting you mix and match different recipes to get some incredibly good... and expensive items to sell, or loan out to your minions.
Special care seems to have been given to the translation process here, localizing many of the items to have a bit of western humor.

The translators are twisted people. This is a good thing.

The adventurers will come in at times to buy, sell, or chat of course, and this bridges the gap to the combat section of our review. Adventurers start with near worthless items. While you can loan them items each time you go out, if you sell them the items in the shop during working hours, they keep them forever, letting you have more inventory space on dungeon runs for loot! The downside is, as above, the adventurers sometimes will... forget what weapons they are using. In my own play through for this review Charme, a dagger using thief, purchased 10 different bows, and never even thought to buy a dagger. The dungeons themselves play out in the style of the old Zelda games. Each adventurer handles quite differently, my personal favorite of late being the mage. He's fragile, weak, slow, but he's got a machine gun and a nuke for weapons, making him rather handy as long as you don't get hit.

(Dangit Louie, go towards the sword for sale!)

Throughout the game, charm and polish shine through in hundreds of little details. Though the "main" game is fairly short (Average playtime seems around 8-10 hours). The endless mode and New game +/Survival modes add a metric ton of replay value, and as far as I've seen, the story lines continue in Endless Mode, allowing you to find out why the Demon is so scared, or what is going on in the orphanage! Tear and Recette have some great banter, and each of the characters helps fit an RPG stereotype nicely, playing off of the usual expectations. The skills of each character are especially cute, once you notice each icon is actually Recette Cos-playing someone.

(Raging Cuteness Demon!)

All voices in Recettear are in Japanese, but as far as I've heard, they are only done as flavor quotes, so no actual Japanese Knowledge is needed, and if the voices become annoying, it's as easy as a menu option to turn them off completely. Controls are handled either through keyboard, or game pad, and I highly, highly recommend grabbing a game pad, be it a 360 pad, or any joystick you feel comfortable with. The keyboard controls are nowhere near as responsive in a dungeon as a good controller.

In closing, here's what your $20 will get you: Tons of shopkeeping, decorating, carnage, cuteness, and strange little story lines with western pop culture references. (The bit about LOST caught me by surprise!) A fully localized, easy to pickup, and surprisingly deep RPG, Item Shop Sim, with a great cast, and an endless mode to keep playing and exploring as long as you like. A survival mode to show off your awesome score to others. And best of all, Capitalism, Ho! The game starts out much harder than many others, with the dungeons being brutal to under leveled or under equipped adventurers, but as you gain in power, and get the hang of the controls, you'll be doing boss rushes, loot runs, and raking in both the cash, and the fun.

Score: 4.5 out of 5 CoGs


James says, "There are minor quibbles (a few text bugs that are being patched according to the development team.), but for a $20 game, the amount of care, polish, style, and the sheer depth of systems and advancement possible to players is staggering. Stop reading already. Go to Steam, Impulse, or Gamer's Gate and get your capitalism on!"

[Hawkzombie]

Yep...Love this game far more than I should. It's just plain awesome.

[Widgetcraft]

I give this game my full endorsement. If you like rogue-likes, and lite-sims like Harvest Moon, you have to get this game.

[Spigot]

I'm so glad you guys pointed this out a week or so ago. It's utterly delightful. I am also starting to wonder how much of a markup the shopkeepers in DQIX are getting off of my plucky party after having seen the other side of the counter. Why can't I haggle in every JRPG!?

I agree about some of the mechanics not being well explained but most of the fundamentals are laid out in pretty exhaustive detail and it's just the finer points (like getting out of dungeons) that aren't incredibly clear.

Seriously, how do I get Louie out of the dungeon without dying?

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Spigot

Seriously, how do I get Louie out of the dungeon without dying?

Every five levels there will be a doorway out. Just gotta power through it. Bringing food items (Not candy though!) will let you heal up a bit, that can make the difference between dead Louie and Rich Recette. Also, it really helps with Louie to come at angles and not straight on to enemies. His swing has a really wide arc, which makes him great for staying out of the way.

[frederec]

My wife has played the demo at least six times today. She's planning on getting the full game just as soon as payday rolls around.

[RandoM51]

Definitely want a controller for this one, as Lekon mentions. You can't even navigate the main menu with standard keyboard input.

[Lekon]

Another great example of this game's charm.


Yup, totally.

[jpublic]

I feel somewhat uneasy about doing the October JPWPI about this game. Everyone is playing it, and it's not due for weeks.

Y'all think I should just post it now, and give myself extra time for the November edition?

[boratika]

Originally Posted by Lekon

Another great example of this game's charm.


Yup, totally.

Heh, you could have just posted that instead of the review and I'd know I need this game.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by jpublic

I feel somewhat uneasy about doing the October JPWPI about this game. Everyone is playing it, and it's not due for weeks.

Y'all think I should just post it now, and give myself extra time for the November edition?

Maybe play endless mode a day so you have more goodies to work with? The storyline is getting... odder!

[jpublic]

Naw, this isn't going to work. I think I'm going to have to trash it. Everyone's playing it, and by the time October rolls around...bah, I'll just post it now.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by jpublic

Naw, this isn't going to work. I think I'm going to have to trash it. Everyone's playing it, and by the time October rolls around...bah.

Awww, don't trash it! Put it up anyways as a "Bonus play it!"

[jpublic]

I'll give it a couple days I think. It's not like it's urgent, anyway.

[Hawkzombie]

I hate the magician. Hate.

[MagGnome]

This game is a ton of fun. One of the best new releases I've played on the PC this year. I can't wait to get the full version.

[Chris_D]

I'm working out how to get my hands on this because it's region locked on Steam and Gamersgate.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Chris_D

I'm working out how to get my hands on this because it's region locked on Steam and Gamersgate.

As far as I know, there is no actual locking of the game itself. There program doesn't' even have an installer, it just reads where it's supposed to be and plays from there. Impulse might work for you, but once you have the game you can put it anywhere you want.

[Chris_D]

Yeah, I'd prefer to get it on Steam if possible. I saw somewhere that having it gifted to you from someone outside your region might work. I want to look into that.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Chris_D

Yeah, I'd prefer to get it on Steam if possible. I saw somewhere that having it gifted to you from someone outside your region might work. I want to look into that.

Just heard from the nice folk at Carpe Fulgur. They are working on getting it available in Japan as soon as possible.