Forgotten Game Greats: "Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale"

- by Ninja Ross, 3 April 2013

Forgotten Game Greats isn’t just about bringing you reviews of old games. Sometimes a newer game is forgotten, thanks to lack of interest from a mainstream audience. I am here to be the saviour to all forgotten games.

Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is a cute 2010 Japanese RPG about a young girl opening an item shop with a fairy. No, not that kind of fairy, I mean the one with wings and stuff. No, I’m not joking. Yes, I do like it. I’m not all about the blood and guts!

Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is a long name so I’ll be referring to it as Shoppy Shop from now; to it make it easier on the ol’ typing digits.

Shoppy Shop

Shoppy Shop’s main feature is running a shop in a typical Japanese RPG setting. When you’re out buying swords and what have you in Final Fantasy XIIVIVIVXIV (or whatever the newest one is), this is who you might be buying from. This is the story of the person behind the counter.

The story concerns a young girl named Recette whose father has taken out a huge loan and goes off adventuring, in typical terrible RPG father fashion.

Before she can contact the police or other relatives, she’s visited by Tear, a fairy who works for the loan company her dad owes money to. Fairies are naturally good at business and stuff, that’s why she works there. It’s explained in the game...

Tear takes pity on the girl and they open up a shop, calling it Recettear (that’s their names!!!). And our adventure begins!

The majority of the game is about haggling, selling and buying stock while occasionally taking orders for special items (such as treasure or food) and trying to make each weeks payment.

Ninja Ross, selling graceful rings.

I know, it sounds like the most boring thing in the world ever... But it’s surprisingly fun and addictive. You need to get to know each customer (there’s only a few) and what sort of negotiator they are. Some will be gullible and will buy at high prices while some are very unreasonable and will only buy at slightly above base price, if you’re lucky. The latter customer can be pretty infuriating, actually. I’ve shouted “GET OUT OF MY SHOP!!! I WONT TRADE WITH YOU!!!” at my screen several times.

Another fun feature is keeping an eye on the news. Yeah! There’s a newsflash every so often that informs you if a price of a type of object has increased or decreased. If a price goes up, you should put anything of that type on the shelves and sell it for over double its original value. Obviously, do the opposite if it decreases.

But Shoppy Shop isn’t just shoppiness! No no, there are dungeons! Early on in the game, you’re given the chance to visit the Adventurer’s Guild, where you meet a down on his luck adventurer. Buy this guy a sword and follow him into a dungeon because he’s gonna help you get free stuff!

While buying stock is all well and good, it won’t get you the quick cash you need to keep on top of the debt. But not having to pay for the stock gives you 100% profit! Providing you don’t get killed in the dungeon...

Some action in the dungeon.

In the dungeons, you control your adventurer who guides Recette and Tear while they pick up the items that the dead monsters drop. Occasionally, you’ll find a chest with nicer items, too, which can really make a difference the day before you have to pay the fairy.

Dungeon crawling is surprisingly well done here, considering it’s only a secondary feature. There’s not a whole lot of variation in combat and there’s nothing really interesting in the dungeons, besides a couple of random encounters with other characters, but it’s fun enough that you’ll want to keep doing it.

As you can see this is a sickeningly cute game. Even Recette’s dialogue is disgusting, peppered with adorable words like “yayifications.” But it’s not cramming it down your throat. Besides, it’s not the story or the characters that make this game great, it’s the mechanics and the attempt to create something new and interesting.

So, get yourself a Steam account, if you don’t already have one, and buy this sucker. It’s cheap, will keep you busy for hours and it’s more fun than anyone would expect.

Do as the man says! Have you ever played Recettet... Shopy Shop? Enjoyed it? Do you have a suggestion for a future Forgotten Game Great? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: video games, Forgotten Game Greats.

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