Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

All things being equal, being an adventurer is rather easy, in the end. Although you have to deal with evil warlords, the undead, dragons and bandits, the rest of the time you are pretty free to go wherever you like and do anything you desire, especially after you get a bit recognized and your powers become somewhat impressive. As an example, you only need to loot enough gold from undead carcasses in order to run to a merchant's shop and buy a powerful enchanted sword, which should be powerful enough to make you even stronger.

But have you ever thought about the merchant and how he or she goes about procuring such artifacts? Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is a curious video game that aims to answer this question, by providing you with the opportunity to play as a little girl who finds herself in charge of her father's item shop and a huge debt to repay. Hence, beside the fact that she has to attract the costumers and convince them to buy her wares, she also needs to constantly restock on supplies, which is easier said than done in this field.

Due to the fact that this title is deeply rooted in the oriental culture, it should come as no surprise that a complicated story is also part of the mix, which manages to include almost everything you might imagine. Thus, you play the role of a little girl that must repay the debt of her father to a magical fairy, which is also the one teaching you how to get started in the business and make a proper profit. You can also join powers with an adventurer and go dungeon crawling, in order to restock your shelves with fresh items.

One thing that might become fairly obvious from the first few couple of minutes is the sheer abundance of cutscenes and dialogues, which do not even give you the chance to choose the answers. Although this is largely due to the fact that a big portion of the beginning is actually the tutorial that aims to teach you how to interact with the environment, things are not that much different later on either, especially when it comes to the clients and basically every non-combat sequence.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the anime atmosphere is omnipresent and those who are familiar with the genre should be more than comfortable with the animation style and the characters themselves. However, the isometric point of view does not allow for incredibly 3D graphics, which is fine, as long as you are not picky when it comes to visuals and you can still stomach the lack of HDR and anti-alias.

In the end, Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale contains a staggering amount of items and dungeons you can explore, which is definitely good news. Hence, if you do not have a problem with the story itself, the simplistic gameplay and the infinite scripted dialogue, the game should provide you with a hefty amount of fun.