Addictive shop and haggling loop
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“i love the addicting nature of buying and selling to customers and adventuring in the dungeons to find more items to sell”
Steam review · 70.2 h played ↗
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Overwhelmingly PositiveOverwhelmingly Positive · 96%EasyGameStation2010Dungeon Crawler · JRPG · RPG
$19.99
Open on Steam ↗US Steam price, checked 1 h ago
The verdict
A charming shopkeeping sim with a simple dungeon crawler attached, loved for haggling and the debt-loop. Skip it if you dislike repetitive loops, hidden mechanics, or dated controls.
Great for
Players who enjoy cozy shopkeeping, haggling, number optimizing and anime-style humor
Main risk
The buy-sell and dungeon loop turns repetitive, with hidden mechanics and a harsh debt reset
What players love
Charming characters, humor and writing
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“The writing is great, it's pretty cozy, and probably still the benchmark for shopkeeping games.”
Steam review · 33.1 h played ↗
Forgiving retry loop and replayability
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews
“the forgiving New Game Plus system makes repeated runs feel rewarding rather than frustrating since you keep your levels, upgrades, and inventory after failure”
Steam review · 35.7 h played ↗
Best of its kind, a genre classic
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews
“Game has been out for 16 years and remains the best shop sim on the market.”
Steam review · 4.1 h played ↗
Cozy and relaxing
Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews
“This game is one of my first and the definition of wholesome.”
Steam review · 34.9 h played ↗
Dungeons and bosses add variety
Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews
“The dungeon combat is simple but feels fun and rewarding and some of the bosses are pretty challenging and fun to figure out.”
Steam review · 97.1 h played ↗
What players complain about
Repetitive and boring gameplay loop
Mentioned in ~2 in 5 negative reviews
“the tedium does not get better over time so once you're not having much fun you should probably just drop it”
Steam review · 23.8 h played ↗
Dull, clunky dungeon crawling
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“The dungeon part of the game is extremely boring.”
Steam review · 7.5 h played ↗
Harsh debt deadlines and full reset
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“The mounting thresholds of your weekly debt payments like to slam into you like a brick wall”
Steam review · 7 h played ↗
Dated controls, no mouse, bad resolution
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“Be prepared to play the game with arrow keys, and z x. No enter, no wasd, no mouse.”
Steam review · 0.1 h played ↗
RNG-heavy loot, customers and prices
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 negative reviews
“Way more RNG than even MMOPRG games”
Steam review · 62.1 h played ↗
Hidden mechanics and misleading tutorial
Mentioned in ~1 in 12 negative reviews
“Tutorial portrays the precise opposite of how the player is supposed to sell”
Steam review · 5.8 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Unsupported700 MB
Minimum
OSWindows XP/Vista/7
ProcessorPentium 4 1.7ghz or Athlon XP 1700+ (or equivalent processor)
Memory256MB of system RAM (512 reccomended for Windows Vista and 7)
GraphicsDirectX 8.1-compatible video card of any type with at least 64 megabytes of video RAM; Nvidia and ATI tested (Intel Intregrated Graphics below X4000 series not recommended)
Storage700MB free HD space
OSWindows XP/Vista/7
ProcessorPentium 4 1.7ghz or Athlon XP 1700+ (or equivalent processor)
Memory256MB of system RAM (512 reccomended for Windows Vista and 7)
GraphicsDirectX 8.1-compatible video card of any type with at least 64 megabytes of video RAM; Nvidia and ATI tested (Intel Intregrated Graphics below X4000 series not recommended)
Storage700MB free HD space
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