Recettear - An Item Shop Tale

Capitalism, ho!

Recettear is a doujinware fantasy JRPG shopkeeper sim by EasyGameStation. It has been on my maybe-maybe-maybe list for years because I wasn’t convinced I’d actually enjoy the buying/selling aspect.

Buying/selling/trading mechanics are functionally spreadsheet stuff, so games with these mechanisms rely heavily on the surrounding mechanics and story to make the game fun (e.g., not feel like filling out a spreadsheet). There’s a reason Recettear is considered a classic in this very niche genre; it just works. It has a good balance of story, dungeon crawling, and merchanise acquisition, the characters are cute, the devs do a great job of introducing new characters and plots in short intervals, and the translation is fun. Within a few days of helping a new adventurer get on his feet I met the rival shopkeeper’s daughter, followed by a charming lady thief.

You can obtain new stock buy buying at the Market or Guild or by looting dungeons for rare items to sell or ingredients to fuse to make items more valuable. Dungeon crawling entails hiring an adventurer to support in the dungeon. The player controls the adventurer, and if they survive, your party returns with all loot. Otherwise, the party returns with 1 piece of loot, which is a stiff penalty for failure. The player can lend armor to the adventurer and use their stock to heal or buff. The dungeons themselves consist of randomized levels, with a boss or waypoint at every 5 levels. It isn’t turn-based but it feels a little like Shiren the Wanderer to me.

The shop mechanics are interesting. You can try to attract certain types of customers by putting certain items in the front windows. The adventurers you hire will shop at your store, and if you sell them equipment, you won’t have to bring extra stuff along. Since adventurer shopping is never guaranteed, it’s useful to take a loss and give pennliess adventurers a steep discount to ensure they buy upgrades. I’ve found ingredients tend not to sell to the general public (but wizards will put in orders for such things), and if I don’t want my store overrun by little girls who only carry pocket money I need to avoid putting candy on display.

Over time you get a feel for how to haggle with different types of customers. The rival shopkeeper fairy will only buy items barely over the base price. The aforementioned little girls tend to not have much money, but old men will usually accept prices around 130%. Married men and women are hit or miss, but more recently they’ve accepted prices around 120%. As my shop’s reputation increased, customers began selling items to me as well. I usually purchase these at 50% of the base price without having to haggle. You can rennovate your shop as you gain merchant levels, and soon gain the ability to add wallpaper and flooring, move counters, rennovate the shop, and buy vending machines.

One issue that may impact my future enjoyment is the debt deadline. Recette must pay off her debt on time, and each time you make a payment, the payment increases. If you miss a payment, it’s game over, and you apparently restart in a Plus Game mode. My debt plan is manageable for now, but I can foresee a future where I’m grinding out profits to stay ahead. So far, however, Recettear has been an enjoyable way to decompress.