Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

Recettear is certainly an odd case when you step back and look at it.  It was released at a time when western RPGs were becoming highly popular and JRPGs were in decline (for comparison, the biggest-name in the genre that came out the same year was Final Fantasy XIII... blech), and was the first game of its type to appear on Steam, with little promotion and a localization by a two-man team who met on the Something Awful forums.  Yet somehow this tiny indie RPG was a surprise success, paving the way for other Japanese RPGs and indies to get Steam releases, and ensuring the genre would become a pretty large presence on the platform and not just get relegated to increasingly-niche releases on handhelds.

As the title implies, rather than playing as another RPG hero, you play as that hero's daughter, saddled with his debt and trying to keep up on escalating payments by running an item shop.  While you can simply buy items at wholesale and sell them at a markup, or take advantage of fluctuating market prices to turn a profit, this is a rather slow and not particularly exciting process (and probably won't be enough to meet your quota on its own).   Dungeon crawling thus becomes a key component of the game; gathering items and then selling them in your shop becoming your primary way to rack up cash.  You're not combat-capable yourself, though, so you have to hire an adventurer and outfit them to fight for you.  The action's pretty basic - just move around and attack with special powers that run off an SP meter, avoid traps, collecting treasure chests and fight the occasional boss battle.  Selling items at a profit increases your "Merchant level", which gradually unlocks benefits like being able to expand your store, take custom orders that have big payoffs, and even unlock the ability to fuse items together to create new goods that sell for high prices.  Hirable adventurers also show up at your shop occasionally and will use equipment you sell them from then on, letting you dive deeper into dungeons and score bigger hauls.

Recettear isn't a particularly deep game by any measuring stick, but it's well designed and surprisingly fun.  The gameplay loop from turning profits, upgrading your shop, outfitting adventurers, acquiring new stock and making your way through the game's dungeons is satisfying and addictive enough to keep you invested, and the runtime (roughly 15 hours for a playthrough) ensures it doesn't wear out its welcome.  The game's dialog is also surprisingly  strong, with a lot of sly references and jabs at RPG clichés (including a very prominent Dragon Quest 3 shout-out) and plenty of absurd but funny dialog as Recette and Tear play off one another in their day-to-day interactions.  For those seeking a relatively novel twist on the dungeon crawler format, Recettear is one you should give a try.

There's also a remaster of the game slated to release in 2025 if you want to wait for that!

Developer: EasyGameStation
Publisher: Carpe Fulgur
Released: 2007, 2010
Platforms: PC

Into the Breach

 A clever blend of a roguelike and a turn-based strategic board game.  The object on each map is to have your squad survive for a set number of turns, using your units' unique attack ranges and abilities to defeat enemies while protecting civilian buildings and completing other random objectives such as defending particular structures or guest units.  Buildings serve as a secondary life meter in the form of the "power grid" that persists between each set of missions, so avoiding collateral damage as much as possible is a major priority.  Should all three of your mechs be disabled in a single mission or the grid lose all power across a set, you fail and travel back in time to try again.  While enemy moves are telegraphed, you have too few resources to completely stop them from doing damage, so you'll have to carefully weigh your options and make calculated sacrifices to successfully complete levels and complete long-term goals.  However, you'll gradually unlock new units and upgrades by completing various objectives (called "achievements") and can optionally carry over one surviving pilot's earned experience from a failed attempt, allowing you to refine your team and unlock new equipment and pilot abilities.  Basically, the more you play the better-equipped you become for later challenges, giving it that good old addictive quality.

 The game is a perfect fit for mobile platforms for its short play sessions and pick-up-and-play design, but frustratingly you can't just get it as a one-time purchase on iOS or Android; you need an active Netflix subscription to play it there.  At least the Switch version has no such restrictions, and the PC version also works perfectly on the Steam Deck and similar devices.  You can also stream the PC version on a mobile device via Steam Link, though you'll need a pretty solid internet connection for that.

Developer: Subset Games
Publisher: Subset Games, Netflix (iOS/Android versions)
Released: 2018, 2020, 2022
Platforms: PC, macOS, Switch, Linux, Stadia, iOS, Android

Jeanne D'Arc

Loosely based on the story of the real Joan of Arc (though with many fantastical liberties), Jeanne D'Arc is Level 5's attempt at making a tactical RPG as well as getting a hit of their own on the PSP.  But does it effectively showcase their talents and provide a worthwhile experience for tactical RPG fans, or is it simply outclassed by its contemporaries?

As a big fan of tactical RPGs and Final Fantasy Tactics in particular, I... oddly missed this one when it launched on the PSP in 2007.  Even more odd considering it was developed by Level-5, a company that ranks among my favorite contemporary RPG developers; I quite enjoyed the Ni no Kuni games and a couple of the Professor Laytons, and Dragon Quest VIII and Dark Cloud 2 still rank among my favorite games of all time.  Odd, I know.

Having played it now, though, I found quite a fun experience.  The game has quite a bit of production value behind it for a PSP game with animated and fully voice-acted cutscenes (pretty well, at that), and Level-5's usual high-quality music and polished design are out in full force.  It makes good use of the PSP's limited control scheme too, utilizing the thumbstick for camera control and the d-pad for menuing and selection, though this does take a little getting used to if you're playing the emulated PS4 port like I am.

In terms of gameplay Jeanne D'Arc most closely resembles Fire Emblem than Final Fantasy Tactics, though Fire Emblem than FFT, though thankfully with FE's more annoying elements filed off - there are no permadeaths or breakable weapons or "Weapon triangle", though elemental affinities follow a similar pattern - Sol (Sun) is strong against Stella (Star), Stella is strong against Luna (Moon), and Luna is strong against Sol.  Some new gameplay elements are added though, like "Burning Aura" - striking an enemy creates one in the space behind them, and another character can then stand in it and attack for greater accuracy and damage.  They can also stack up to three times, allowing you to take down some particularly stubborn enemies with chained attacks.  If allies stay in close proximity (within 2 squares) they also get "Unified Guard" whenever an enemy attacks or counter-attacks, reducing their chance to be hit and taking less damage when they do - a good thing as enemies can generally take down characters in two or three blows.  Jeanne (and a couple other characters) also steadily build up points as turns pass, and once they have enough they can Transform into a substantially powered up form once per battle, gaining some quite powerful abilities - Jeanne herself gets Godspeed, which grants her another turn if she defeats an enemy (and can be chained multiple times in a single round as long as you keep getting kills).  It also surprisingly doesn't feel overpowered, particularly as each battle has a turn limit and some stages also end immediately if particular characters (or even any character) should be defeated, so utilizing any advantage you can quickly becomes key to victory.  As expected for a portable game, fights are fairly brisk - maps are generally fairly small and you can finish them in about 15-20 minutes on average, though they do get a bit more involved as the game progresses.

Equipment upgrades are found in shops (naturally), but you also find plenty in the course of completing story battles, and should your levels ever be lagging, you can take part in "free battle" maps to power up, so you shouldn't ever get stuck.  In addition to the usual complement of weapons, armor and shields, you also find plenty of "Skill Stones" that grant abilities for different types of weapons or simply change a character's elemental affinity, making them stronger against certain enemy types and weaker against others.  Skills are generally linked to using certain types of weapons (can't use a sword skill with a spear or a dagger, for example), but there is a surprising variety therein - one sword skills gives all nearby allies an attack boost, another spear skill grants a 7-space linear attack, while a particular dagger skill allows one to steal items from enemies mid-battle.  There are also generic spells that recover HP or equip elemental damage, and can be used with any type of weapon equipped.

All in all, Jeanne D'Arc is well made, quite enjoyable tactical RPG experience.  Maybe not one of the genre's defining classics, but it manages to hold its own on the PSP - a platform that gave it some stiff competition with games like Tactics Ogre, Valkyria Chronicles and Final Fantasy Tactics.  A worthwhile alternative from a company with a lot of passion and talent, particularly as you can get it for dirt cheap nowadays on the PlayStation 4.

 

Developer: Level-5, Japan Studio

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Released: 2007

Platforms: Playstation Portable, Playstation 4

Recommended Version:  As of July 2024 the game is available on the PlayStation 4/5 as a downloadable title, though it's simply an emulated port of the PSP version (with rewind and savestate functionality added).