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

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: ===

* [[An Economy Is You]]: Played with but apparently subverted. Not all the items you sell are appropriate for adventurers, but an awful large percentage is. Item categories all have about the same number of items, but there's eight weapon types, three categories for varying body armor, and categories for helmets, shields, armored armbands, and three kinds of magic jewelry. Even items in the more mundane categories can be equipped by adventurers and higher-end ones tend to be combat-oriented. However, it turns out that people besides the adventurers buy all this stuff, and quite frequently too--middle-aged men frequently buy weapons and armor, healing items are all food anyways and magical jewelry appears to be quite fashionable. There's also several categories of item which are notably ''un''popular with non-adventurers, like helmets and capes, and almost never sell unless the customer requests a general category.

** That said, claws and arm parts mysteriously don't appear in the merchant guild until you find the adventurer who uses them.

* [[The Archer]]: Tielle, who also has the obligatory [[Multishot]], [[Trick Arrow|trick arrows]], and ability to single handedly bring down a [[Rain of Arrows]].

* [[Arm Cannon]]: Some of Arma's weapons are type 1's.

* [[Big Eater]]: Tielle, especially when it comes to sweets.

* [[Bird Run]]: Recette does this when running through dungeons.

* [[Boring but Practical]]: Louie is the first character you get, and is a pretty standard tank character. While he has no outstanding features, as well as a reliable ranged attack, he has no major weaknesses either, and can dish and take a good deal of punishment.

* [[Boss Rush]]: Unlocked for a given dungeon by completing every floor.

* [[Cool Big Sis]]: Charme is one to Recette during the [[Bottle Fairy|rare times she isn't drunk]].

* [[Cowardly Boss]]: The fight with Tielle has the adventurer chasing her down through three different rooms while clearing a path through various crates to reach her, after which Tielle runs off to the next room. The last room is where the adventurer gets to fight her proper. Justified as Tielle is lost in the dungeon at the time and understandably scared.

* [[Day Old Legend]]: The descriptions of many fusion items describe their origins or rumors surrounding them. These range from "Found within the ruins" to "Found within a great desert, which was said to be created by the item itself" (for a middling fire-themed bracelet no less!). Possibly these are what [[Honest John's Dealership|Recette]] is supposed to be telling her customers about the item, more likely they're just nonsense.

** Several of these are [[Mythology Gag|Mythology Gags]]/[[Continuity Nod|Continuity Nods]] to ''[[Chantelise]]'', where the descriptions were accurate.

* [[Dungeon Bypass]]: Though you have to unlock the dungeons themselves again, each [[New Game+|new loop]] remembers which floors you completed and can warp to. By bum rushing the bottom strata of each and triggering events at the earliest opportunity, it's possible to recover weeks of dungeon-diving and recruitment by day 10.

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

* [[Emotionless Girl]]: Arma, though why she is like that should be obvious just from her appearance. {{spoiler|She sounds more normal in the final scene of the [[Brutal Bonus Level]], since she's severing ties with the system that requires her to be emotionless and impartial.}}

** For that matter, the cutscene on unlocking that level makes it sound like it could just be an act.

* [[Fairy Sexy]]: Prime is dressed quite revealingly for being so pint-sized. Possibly Tear as well if you're into the midriff-baring secretary look.

* [[Fallen Princess]]: {{spoiler|Charme}}.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]:

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

* [[Gentle Giant]]: Elan seems to be this. His dialog portrait<ref>All of which appear to be scaled correctly against each other, save fairies, who seem to get sized up</ref> towers over everyone else, yet he's a priest in training who spends what little money he has on presents for orphans and wants to run an orphanage himself.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]:

** Louie [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|asking Recette to take his first adventurer's card]]. Tear tells him he should think carefully about who he wants to give it to, but he insists that Recette should have it.

** One of Alouette's cutting remarks if you overcharge her (which is hard to do!): "Capitalism ho, indeed."

* [[Improbable Age]]: Recette is at the most 13 years old and opens up her own business. Justified though due to her [[Disappeared Dad]] leaving her no real choice and having Tear to guide her.

* [[Improbable Weapon User]]: The giant rat boss enemy first starts off using [[Crowbar Combatant|a crowbar]], then a [[Paper Fan of Doom|humongous paper fan]], and finally [[Shamu Fu|a large frozen fish]].

* [[Inexplicable Treasure Chests]]: Par for the course, about three or four per floor. There is a good chance for each chest to be a trap though, resulting in various effects when opened - slimes surrounding you, a bomb appearing or even random teleportation.

** Justified, since the Dungeons are alive and change based on who is in them. {{spoiler|Specifically, Arma is a golem whose job is to rearrange the dungeons. It is outright stated that she is the one placing the chests and putting items in them. WHERE she gets the items from is another question entirely}}

* [[Mythology Gag]]: While {{spoiler|Griff}} holds disdain for fairies, he states that fairies who used to be human are exempt. This is likely a nod to EasyGameStation's previous game ''[[Chantelise]]'' in which one of the main characters is a human-turned-fairy.

** A similar one in an early scene when Recette muses whether she and Tear look like sisters. Tear dismisses the idea on the grounds that she is a fairy, when the human and fairy pair in ''Chantelise'' really were sisters.

** 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.

* [[New Game+]]

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: It's not likely that you'll be able to pay off all of your debts on the first try. Fortunately, if you fail to make a payment, you get to [[New Game+|keep all your experience and items]] [[Groundhog Day Loop|and start over from Day 2]].

* [[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}}.

* [[Noblewoman's Laugh]]: Alouette does her best twelve year old imitation of this at every opportunity.

{{quote| '''Griff''': This is what humans do when they seek to work with another, yes? It's what the woman in that pub suggested, at least.}}

** Caillou will never believe Recette's claims that she is the owner of the store.

* [[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.

** [[New Game+]] is an exercise in sequence breaking. With True Cards you get access to adventurers from the start of the game, allowing you to do every [[Defeat Equals Friendship]] boss battle as a mirror match if you possess the right True Cards. This also leads to weird dialogue such as Louie being grateful for Recette helping him through the Hall of Trials... Despite him not entering the dungeon at all.

* [[Shoryuken]]: A favored move of Elan's.

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: In one event in the night, {{spoiler|Griff}} reveals the truth behind {{spoiler|the fairies in the city and why the [[Humans Are Bastards]]}}. Meanwhile, the joyful music continues to play in the background.

* [[Squishy Wizard]]: Calliou, to [[Glass Cannon]] extents.

** Normally, you'd have to be intentionally dawdling on any but the largest stages to see these. However, a random dungeon event can halve the time before they appear, double the spawn rate when they do, and increase their movement speed. [[Oh Crap|Fun]].

* [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]]: When the guildmaster asks Tear for a favor:

* [[Sweat Drop|Sweat Drops]]: Aplenty.

* [[Sweet Tooth]]: Recette, but she pales in comparison to Tielle who apparently subsists on nothing ''but'' sweets in huge quantities.

* [[We Sell Everything]]: You can sell almost anything you find in the dungeons either in the shop or at the Guild Master/Market. You'll have to; specializing will bankrupt you fast, as people will march right past your counters full of groceries and demand to purchase a book.

** Or walk past counters full of chocolate and ask for food. [[Fridge Logic|They will happily accept chocolate if you offer them some.]]

** Likewise {{spoiler|We don't know what happened to Avall after the battle with The Geddon Device.}}

* [[Wise Beyond Their Years]]: Recette.