Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

Recettear is the story of an item shop, the girl who lives in it, and the fairy who turned her life upside down. Recette Lemongrass finds herself in charge of an item shop built into her house, in order to pay back a loan her father took and then skipped out on - and Tear, her newfound fairy "companion", won't take no for an answer! As Recette, you have to decide how you'll get your stock - either through playing the markets in town or going out into the wild with an adventuring friend and thrashing beasts until they give up the goodies - how much to sell things for, what the shop should look like, and how to best go about getting the money Tear needs to pay off the loan. If you can't come up with the money... well, hope you like living in a cardboard box.

Key features:

• Manage all aspects of an item shop – from stock to interior design!
• Explore randomized dungeons – never quite the same twice!
• Multiple adventurers to choose from when dungeon-diving – no two play the same!
• Plenty to do after beating the game – challenge yourself with Survival Mode or play to your heart's delight in Endless Mode!
• Engaging story, localized by Carpe Fulgur – get to know the people of Pensee!

Previous Play Time

 8 hours

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

Like most of my games, I bought this when it was on sale, but I was looking forward to it for awhile. I saw a Let's Play on rpg.net's video game board, and thought it looked adorable. The idea of running an RPG item shop is so fresh and original that I just had to give it a try.

Prior Experience

I played through the entire game, and paid off my debt on the first try. From what I understand, that's pretty tough, but as a long-time player of The Sims, I'd already had a head start on developing the time management skills necessary to succeed. That said, I'm also certain that, in focusing so strongly on the game's stated primary goal, I also missed out on a lot of side content. I do recall passing up a lot of potential rpg-style interaction and adventure in order to spend more time on shop business.

Expectations

I don't remember any specifics of how the game is played,  but I expect it will all come back to me. I'm a little worried that the second time through might seem repetitive, but I will try to be more adventurous this time through, and hopefully see some things I missed the first time. I'll also try and be less afraid of failure. I've already beaten the game, so I have nothing left to prove.

I anticipate, that after, at most, an hour or so, I will be sucked back into the world of Recettear and have plenty of incentive to explore it to its utmost.