I just found out about that stuff yesterday. At first I thought it was yet another generic JRPG with the usual cutesy anime graphics but I was wrong. Recettear is still somewhat related to JRPG because, aside from the anime look, it lets you manage a store buying and selling equipment to adventurers. Yes, it tackles the joke of the weird economy of RPG stores, and in a not-so-subtle way. Like many trading games the aim is to buy low and sell high, but there are other features like arranging the items on display, decorating the store (more than mere cosmetics, this is done to attract more clients or a certain type of clientele), or you can hire an adventurer and go to a dungeon yourself to get some items you can sell in the store afterwards. It starts rather simple but becomes complex as you progress, like when you expand the store and gain new mercantile abilities (you gain experience with each profitable sale; the bigger the profit, the larger the experience bonus). Oh and you got a rather large debt to repay each week which can prove rather challenging.
The game is rather heavy on story and dialogs. This initialy conjured a feeling of dread due to my previous experiences with a fair deal of blandly verbose Japanese games (JRPG but also some less reputable games) but I quickly fell in love with Recettear. There is a lot of text but it doesn't drag and avoids that terrible wooden feel that plague so many others. Sure the whole thing isn't too deep and rather silly, but it's delightfully silly. I'm not sure what the original, released in Japan in 2007, was supposed to be, but the translation by Carpe Fulgur is simply fun. Sure, most of the cast fit their archetypes without much surprises but then you suddenly get playful and self-aware dialogs that poke fun at the various oddities of RPG worlds and their characters. And then you got lines like one of the main characters stating that she loves to download games from the net or the main character's signature "Capitalism, ho!".
The game actually comes out tomorrow, but the demo has been around for a couple of months. Quite long demo too, especially in an age where a demo for a big game may take one hour to download and less than that to complete. It covers the first out of five weeks, which is the tutorial section of the game, and should give a good idea of what to expect.
Of course it's probably easier to get into it if you like JRPG and anime in general. I know some of you here will be scared by the cutesy anime graphics (despite the growing faggotry of the Codex) but if you can get past that it looks like a pretty decent game with a more than decent amount of content. There also appear to be some features you can unlock after you complete the game, such as a survival mode where the game keeps going indefinitely and gives you a larger debt to pay every week.
So far I really like it and will probably pick up the full game tomorrow. I completely ignored that it even existed until yesterday, which isn't terribly surprising considering it's the translation of an indie Japanese game by a small indie company — talk about nice market — but it came as a good surprise when I learned about it. Oh and the savegames from the demo can be imported in the full game, for what it's worth.
The game is rather heavy on story and dialogs. This initialy conjured a feeling of dread due to my previous experiences with a fair deal of blandly verbose Japanese games (JRPG but also some less reputable games) but I quickly fell in love with Recettear. There is a lot of text but it doesn't drag and avoids that terrible wooden feel that plague so many others. Sure the whole thing isn't too deep and rather silly, but it's delightfully silly. I'm not sure what the original, released in Japan in 2007, was supposed to be, but the translation by Carpe Fulgur is simply fun. Sure, most of the cast fit their archetypes without much surprises but then you suddenly get playful and self-aware dialogs that poke fun at the various oddities of RPG worlds and their characters. And then you got lines like one of the main characters stating that she loves to download games from the net or the main character's signature "Capitalism, ho!".
The game actually comes out tomorrow, but the demo has been around for a couple of months. Quite long demo too, especially in an age where a demo for a big game may take one hour to download and less than that to complete. It covers the first out of five weeks, which is the tutorial section of the game, and should give a good idea of what to expect.
Of course it's probably easier to get into it if you like JRPG and anime in general. I know some of you here will be scared by the cutesy anime graphics (despite the growing faggotry of the Codex) but if you can get past that it looks like a pretty decent game with a more than decent amount of content. There also appear to be some features you can unlock after you complete the game, such as a survival mode where the game keeps going indefinitely and gives you a larger debt to pay every week.
So far I really like it and will probably pick up the full game tomorrow. I completely ignored that it even existed until yesterday, which isn't terribly surprising considering it's the translation of an indie Japanese game by a small indie company — talk about nice market — but it came as a good surprise when I learned about it. Oh and the savegames from the demo can be imported in the full game, for what it's worth.
