Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Innovative"

In most role playing games, selling items is an afterthought. The player hoards tons of awesome loot, sifts through the bag to pick out the epics, and then unloads the trash for pennies on the dollar to the next random shop keep they come upon. The curious player wonders, "What happens then?" Sadly, they never know... until now.

The story starts with a cute young girl coming into bad circumstances that force her to open her own shop to pay off a large debt. Before long the innocent, naive young lady is transformed into a low balling, savvy business woman in charge of the largest shop in town, and the journey to get there is extremely entertaining.

The concept is easy enough, buy low and sell high, but there is much more to making big bucks than a simple mantra. At the beginning of the game, a small fairy appears and offers to help the girl start a business that allows her to slowly pay off her enormous debt. The fairy helps the player through a series of tutorial missions to become familiar with the mechanics of the game. The girl and the fairy slowly form a friendship throughout the story as they meet new people and explore new areas.

The basic mechanics of the game are fairly simple to understand, but provide enough depth to not feel dull. The game's story progresses through days and weeks. Each day is broken up into four periods that are spent by opening the shop, exploring dungeons, or going into town. At the end of each week a payment is due for the debt. The player must balance selling, buying, and adventuring in such a way that they can pay off the debt at the end of each week. The story slowly progresses as the days go by and certain milestones are obtained.

Each item has a base price. The player has to determine, depending on the customer, how much above or below the base price the item is worth when buying or selling. The player gets experience points based on how well they assess this value. As I played the game, I started to get a feel for what customers will buy or sell at. To add some spice to the mix, the bottom can fall out of the market on some items or prices may go way up on certain goods. Being able to exploit these price hikes and drops is key to making big money.

Along with the market aspect of the game, there is also an adventuring portion. The player can hire an adventurer to go into dungeons and collect loot to sell. The player controls the character in the dungeon, and it plays much like a Zelda game. The dungeons are broken into levels with bosses at the end of so many levels. If successful at completing the dungeon, all the loot is brought back to sell in the shop. If the player dies, only one item can be brought back. The dungeons are easy at first, but the difficulty quickly ramps up in latter areas.

As the game progresses, options open up such as expanding the store, decorating, hiring new adventurers, and stocking new items. The player may also combine items and materials found in dungeons into powerful artifacts using the "fusion" process. Some items are extremely valuable, while others are a complete waste. The risk usually pays off.

As someone who became tired of the same-old JRPG games year after year, this comes as a refreshing surprise. This new twist on a long standing genre is a must have for anyone that enjoys JRPGs. I would also highly recommend this game to anyone that is looking for a unique gameplay experience or a fun and light-hearted story. The best part is the budget price, what are you waiting for?!