Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

A young girl named Recette Lemongrass is left to live by herself after her father goes on a long journey. Unfortunately, her dad also left her with a massive debt which is sure to bankrupt them and put them on the streets if it is not paid off. Tear, a fairy sent to collect the payment, suggests that Recette convert her house into an item shop to raise the money to pay it off. For a little while Recette laments the prospect of being put on the streets, but soon comes to like the idea of being [[Shop Keeper|a merchant]] and christens her newly founded shop "Recettear" (a [[Portmanteau]] of Recette's and Tear's names).

Officially localized by [http://www.carpefulgur.com/ Carpe Fulgur], the game has been picked up for online distribution by Impulse, [[Steam]] and GamersGate. The international version of the soundtrack is up on iTunes and includes, among other songs, both the vocal version of the theme and its instrumental version. To date, the localized version of Recettear has sold over one hundred and seventy thousand copies, and by Carpe Fulgur's claim has made EGS well over US$500,000.

 

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=== Tropes used by this game: ===

* [[DRM]]: Carpe Fulgur specifically refused to use any, instead politely requesting the people not pirate it. They're even uncomfortable about Steam's wrapper which is generally considered the lightest-handed form of DRM out there.

* [[Dual-Wielding]]: Charme looks like she dual wields daggers, as her sprite has a blade in each hand. But she only equips one weapon and only attacks once. Well, until [[Doppelganger Attack|you make clones of her]].

* [[Dungeon Master]]: Not just the trope, but the literal version: {{spoiler|Arma}}.

* [[Electric Jellyfish]]: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Electrojelly]], the Wandering Jellyfish.

** Fairies are considered a lower class. At least they are accepted somewhat by the human society. Other races don't have that luck.

** According to Griff and Tear every race separates itself from every other race - fairies and humans are just about the only races that interact with each other as often as they do. Tielle doesn't seem to have any problems living in Pensee though, despite being an elf.

* [[Flat What]]:

** Tear utters this when Charme elaborates on her thievery in the Pub.

** Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor {{spoiler|being "quarantined" in the Lapis Ruins}} keeps {{spoiler|Arma}} from coming in to pick up her item order.

** Part of the Lapis Ruins storyline involves Alouette wanting to speak to Recette, but if she or Prime comes into the store in the meantime they have nothing special to say.

* [[Genre Savvy]]: Recette proves to be something in this line during her {{spoiler|argument with Griff at the top of the Obsidian Tower}}. Roughly paraphrased:

{{quote| "A darkly handsome evil overlord? In ''this'' day and age? Are you kidding?"}}

* [[Loveable Rogue]]: Charme.

* [[Low Fantasy]]: A particularly interesting example since, from the outset, it doesn't appear to be so. But considering the main focus of the game is on the simple everyday trials of an item shop owner, most of what mixes up the setting is only implied or heard of as background information, some of which could be base enough for a game plot in and of themselves. Outside of just what Recette deals with personally, we got a refugee princess, [[The Fair Folk]] reinventing themselves in order to avoid extinction, which ties into the inherent human dominance of the setting which leads to the prejudice against Elves and Demons, and while magic is a simple and everyday occurrence the local churches are trying to snuff out any and all magic items, something Recette helps prevent only through a head-ache inducing loop hole. And lets not forget the most prevalent threats to the world are dispatched by a simple item shop owner and her hired help. The closest thing to a [[Heroic Fantasy]] stock hero is Recette's dad, who is... underwhelming to say the least.

** Of course, that's even more luck based since somebody ''else'' could snatch up your rare and valuable fusion item first...

** And filling the item encyclopedia obviously requires a lot of items which [[Randomly Drops]] from treasure chests.

** It's only about the fifth time meeting Elan buying sweets for orphans, discussing his ([[Training From Hell|insane]]) training regimen, or how he's a priest in training that Tear finally realizes that Elan's not so bad in spite of coming across him running up a bar tab he couldn't pay the first time she met him.

** Takes her a while to warm up to Charme as well, but then again she did try to rob them before.

** More accurate for survival mode, as there is nothing stopping the game [[Blessed With Suck|from 'gifting' you]] with the walnut bread craze random event...which forces you to have a couple of the cheapest item in the game for sale unless you are specifically trying to avoid the housewives.

* [[Noble Demon]]: Griff, both literally and figuratively. {{spoiler|He is disdainful to humans and, by extension, fairies due to their submission to humans}}. Still, he doesn't do much evil even before he gets defeated, and clearly comes off more as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] than truly evil {{spoiler|in Obsidian Tower}}.

* [[Save Scumming]]: Averted when playing in the dungeons, which only saves the data prior to entering the dungeon should you try it. Played straight during the item shop sales, since you can save prior to opening your shop, and should you get a string of bad customers, you can simply exit the game, then reload the last save and hope that the [[Random Number Generator|random number generator]] gods are on your side.

* [[Sequence Breaking]]: Possible to happen, and in a rather amusing way, as Charme starts coming to your shop acting familiarly with Recette in the fourth week even if you only cleared the Hall of Trials, and never saw her before in the 2nd dungeon.

* [[Shockingly Expensive Bill]]: Recette's father's debts are so huge, Tear refuses to tell Recette the exact amount for fear of making her faint on the spot.<br /><br />If you're curious, and to ensure ''you'' don't faint on the spot, this is spoiler-tagged. Over the course of normal gameplay, the debt adds up to {{spoiler|820,000 pix}}. Have fun in the game's final week, where your goal is to pay back {{spoiler|500,000pix - over half the loan in one shot}}.

** This can be made hilarious in a new Game+. Since your items carry over, you can easily have millions worth of top-end equipment sitting in your inventory ready to go right from the beginning. Despite this, Tear insists the quantity of money would make Recette faint.