Weapon Shop Fantasy from Digdog Studio
Have you ever played an RPG and wondered what it would be like to run one of the countless shops seemingly dedicated to keeping your character armed to the teeth with all manner of weaponry? It’s a concept that has been explored before; I first encountered the concept in Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, an anime-style game that plays off of JRPG tropes.
Weapon Shop Fantasy takes a slightly different approach to the concept, but anyone who has played Recettear will have a decent idea of what to expect (that’s if the “does what it says on the tin” title didn’t give it away first).
Life as a Vampire Sucks
Weapon Shop Fantasy puts you in the shoes of a vampire who has been kicked out of her now-wrecked castle by one of those insufferable vampire hunters. You can choose the gender of your vampire, and the character of the opposite gender will serve as a quest giver throughout the game, demanding repayments for their assistance in getting your new weapon shop up and running. With this simple backstory set up during the opening and reasonably concise tutorial, the game lets me begin exploring its shop-managing possibilities.
Things seem pretty barebones in the new weapon shop initially, but this starts to change gradually. The rate at which new possibilities open up is very well paced, and I found it easy to keep track of new systems as they became available. Initially, the game tasked me with simply crafting and then selling various basic items, using my one and only staff member.
Doing this, I slowly gathered new recipes and staff until I had a functioning blacksmith, work bench and enchanter – the basics. The game slowly unravels more and more content as it presents new contracts to be fulfilled; I felt the pacing was ideal to keep things interesting whilst also ensuring things never felt too complex.
Hi-Ho, The Derry-o…
In addition to managing the weapon shop, the game also offers a kind of adventuring minigame. This is relatively simple, but I did find it to be enjoyable. Staff can be equipped and dispatched on missions into various dangerous environments to gather raw materials for crafting. These quests can be aborted at any time to return with all currently held loot, but if the character is defeated in battle, they lose everything they found on that outing.
Missions can be monitored to ensure a safe return of at least some resources, or they can be left to run in the background while more mundane retail tasks are dealt with. I found this to be an effective system, providing the option of micromanagement but offering automation when desired. Hopping between questing and selling creates an engaging loop of quest-sell-upgrade-quest that helps to keep Weapon Shop Fantasy compelling.
Weapon Shop Fantasy features pixel art that conveys the action clearly, if somewhat unremarkably. Sometimes tutorial screens and menus get in the way of dialogue which can be aggravating but otherwise, I found few issues with the interface. The music is more engaging, being very much in sync with the style of the graphics.
Shop Now! Great Selection!
Weapon Shop Fantasy is a solid and addictive take on the RPG item shop sub-genre. Personally, I found it lacked the character of some of its rivals, but ultimately it is a very feature-packed experience being offered for a competitive price.
If you’re looking to set up shop in a fantasy world and enjoy the notion of picking out the best wallpaper to compliment your broadsword selling experience then it could certainly be worth spending some time with Weapon Shop Fantasy.
Weapon Shop Fantasy is available via Steam.
[xrr rating=”4/5″]
Watch the official trailer for Weapon Shop Fantasy below:
