Well, here we are again, at the beginning of the third week. Here’s hoping it goes better than last time – I’m hopeful, given that I’ve been generally able to keep a pretty decent level of capital on this run-through.
So we’re here, on day 16, and we’ve got 80 grand to pay on day 22. I’ve managed to get up to 80 grand a couple of times already in this second loop, but I’m not totally sure exactly what I did right to make that happen.
I think step one is just to sell, since I have a pretty nice inventory of stock at the mo, and my first session begins with a reintroduction to Arma (who is, as we know, cued to appear at the beginning of this week).
Caillou pops in and picks up some bits, as do Charme and some of the other lovely generic townspeople. I’m learning that I can ask for a bit more of a mark-up lately, perhaps because I’ve built up some good will. Either way, my first loop strategy of asking low and hoping it’d give me the best chance of a deal probably wasn’t the best way of making cash.
By the end of day 16, I’m almost up to 80K thanks to a hike in the price of metal items which allows me to sell a 5,000pix ring for 12,000!
I hit level 14, which gives me the option to change the tables, but I think I still like the default one the best. I’ll pop to the market in a bit and see if I can find one that I like, though, in case it improves customer satisfaction.
On day 18, I drop pretty much all my money on making sure that I have a good two or three items in every category, because I missed an order or two in the last couple of days. I’ve got five or six days to make it back, so I’ll be okay! (I hope…)
I’ve got to say, these fluctuations in price actually make a pretty big difference. Low-price items suddenly don’t go for more than about half of the base price, while high-price items are worth twice as much! It’s another reason to make sure I have a wide variety of stuff available at all times, because I don’t want to end up in a situation where I’m selling my high-base-price items for well below what they’re worth.
Because I’m doing reasonably well, enough that I feel confident that I can make the 80K, I decide to head back into the Amber Garden. I’m learning that dungeons are something to do when you’re doing OK for money rather than as a solution for making money; it might even be a bad idea heading down there now, because I could do with getting a bit of a buffer before next week, but I figure there has to be something in it for me. Right?
We meet Alouette down here. Nothing new, of course, since we’ve had this conversation before, but still interesting. Wonder if anything’s going to come of this?
I get this floor’s map before doing any exploring, which is kind of cool but gives me a bit of a dilemma: looks pretty tricky, and the exit’s nearby, so should I risk going through all those red bits for a couple of chests?
I decide to just go straight for the exit rather than risk death.
The next floor rather uncharitably makes me find the exit myself – how dare it? – but I make it through. You can see from the map that this dungeon’s floors are significantly larger than the Jade Way’s, and I can only imagine that dungeon sizes are going to keep increasing as we progress.
Floor 15, usually the boss floor, announces as I arrive that it’s a ‘gauntlet’ with ‘nothing but fiends’. Oh, dear. Are they fiends I can run past like usual, or do I actually have to kill these ones?
They seem to just be regular monsters, rather than a rush of boss-level enemies, so that’s a relief. The problem is there are an awful lot of them!
I investigate the entire floor and realise that there is no exit, so I guess I do actually need to take them all out. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t been around the whole floor already, ‘cos I would have been able to take them on one at a time if I hadn’t got them all following me…
I summon four whole Charme-ghosts, which makes taking out big crowds significantly easier. I still have to watch my health, because although only the real Charme can get hit, the amount of enemies in the area makes it almost impossible to avoid taking damage.
The door appears once I’ve beaten them all. It was a good way of getting EXP, if nothing else!
Back on the selling for the next couple of days, so that I’ll hopefully be able to pay back that 80 grand and have something left over to get me started on the next week.
No major developments, just people being oddly impressed that I have certain stuff and other people selling watermelons for peculiar reasons.
I decide to see if anything’s available for fusion yet and discover that I can create a few new things!
These items look fancy; here’s hoping they’re as valuable as they look!
Okay, so not too bad! These are only rank 1 fusions, so it seems as if I should eventually be able to make some pretty decent stuff.
Something weird happens on the day my payment’s due: women suddenly come in great numbers! (I’m quoting the game on that, by the way. Recettear‘s words, not mine.)
Not totally sure what ‘something valuable’ strictly means, but she’s happy with a treasure or two.
Well, that was a weird boom, but I’m happy about it! I’m now level 15 and with a fairly decent pix buffer for when Tear takes all my money away… Speaking of our fairy friend, she decides it’s time for us to learn about vending machines! Wahoo!
Basically, it sounds as if we put out a vending machine on a counter just like normal, but we then have to keep the machine stocked.
It sells stuff automatically, so they’ll only ever go for base price. I wonder what my strategy should be here: do I put expensive stuff in, losing the high profit possibility as a trade-off for easier selling, or do I just put cheap things I can’t be bothered to haggle with in there?
Okay, Tear suggests cheaper items are probably the sensible choice for vending, and I can see her logic for sure. Maybe if an item’s gone blue (meaning the price is down) I can stick it in the vending machine and it might still sell for base price, whereas people would only pay around 50 – 60% if they were trying to get it from me. Tear also lets us know that nobody wants to buy vending machines, so we can only get rid of one by selling it to the Merchants’ Guild at a loss.
I stick to what I’ve got for now, but I’ll definitely try out my new vending ability next week.
SUCCESS.
Next day, I plonk down my vending machine. Turns out it takes up the whole counter, not just one item’s space, but I’ll give it a go and see what it can do for me.
I have a fair bit of food, and I figure it makes sense for food to be in a vending machine, so let’s go with that.
I also get a nice increase in the price of armour, so I’m able to stock every darn one of my shelves with high-value items. Niiiiice. My payment for this week is going to be 200 grand, so I’ll need all the expensive shit I can get!
After just one day, it seems my vending machine’s already been pretty much cleared out. That’s got to be worth it if I can sell a good five or six more items in a day.
Oh, you can just bugger off. I haven’t seen Euria for a while, but it looks like she’s back to cause me trouble!
Oh, Louie. Never change.
I’ve actually got almost 270,000 pix by day 26, with payment due at the end of day 29, so I’m doing pretty well. I don’t want to stop working, though – I think what I’ll do is spend this whole week just getting as much money behind me as possible, and then perhaps I can go to the dungeon again next week if I’m already pretty much set for the payment.
In the town square, Euria seems a bit down. Tear asks if she’s finally failed so hard that her bosses are threatening to kneecap her.
She’s got a ton of water filters to sell, basically. Who are these bosses?!
Not only are they not particularly desirable, but the town this game’s set in actually already has pure water everywhere. I almost feel sorry for Euria, except I really don’t. She can come work for us if she wants a legit job (I’m not paying her, though). Recette tells Euria that she can’t give up; Recette may not do things the same way Euria does, but she respects her tenacity.
Oh, dear.
Back to the shop, and I’m still doing pretty well. My strategy now is something along the lines of: always have a few of every type of item; put out nothing but high-price stuff if possible; keep the vending machine stocked with low-to-mid-price stuff; sell at reasonable markups that customers should take first time to get the combos and so people will like me more and want to spend more. It seems to be working! We’ll definitely be alright this week, at any rate. Just depends what the payment goes up to next time…
I haven’t seen Alouette in store for a while, though Prime’s been in a bit; some of the news flashes seem to suggest that her store, Big Bash, isn’t doing all that well.
Apparently this guy’s wife has been ‘up in his shorts about getting some clothes’, which is… an interesting sentence.
Okay, it’s payment day and I’ve got about twice as much money as I need, so… I figure I can get away with a little dungeon adventure.
This floor’s all lava-like, and the music sounds like something out of a Mario lava level to boot. It’s all a bit concerning. New enemies include a metallic knight, though the blue one still shows up; I think I must have decent equipment on Charme this time, because even the newer types don’t seem to be doing too much damage.
The flying fish traps are still around, naturally. In better news, I discover that I’ve unlocked Charme’s web ability that she used against me in her fight, which is pretty nice!
I’m a little bit perturbed that there still doesn’t really seem to be anything worthwhile in any of these chests. It’s got to get better, right? The dungeons just don’t seem worth it otherwise, although I still like doing them for the fun and their own little story.
This level’s boss is Volcanicrab, the Explosive Shellfish. He’s enormous, taking up most of the screen, and he has mooks in the form of little bomb dudes. I have a feeling I know what I’m going to have to do here: get the bombs to explode and damage Giant Enemy Crab in his weak point for massive damage.
Yup, looks about right; I can’t do any damage to him normally, so bombs it’ll have to be.
We manage to hit a bomb, causing it to blow up right under him; he flips over and I let Charme and her many ghosts loose on him.
He goes down without too much trouble. Like most of these bosses, he’s not too bad once you figure him out.
We come back alive, thank goodness, and end the day with one more quick round of selling before handing over a stupid amount of money to a debt-collecting fairy.
Okay, that’s 200,000 paid. What’s that in total now, about 350? It’s a lot, at any rate.
I’m pretty much totally unsurprised at this point to see that I’ve got to make 500K by the next payment date. I think it’s doable, because I managed to get to 400 or so this week, but it might be a bit of a push!
It seems I’ve unlocked even more valuable stuff for purchase, so I pick up a few things in the hope that I can sell them all on by the end of the week. If there’s a price hike in my favour, just getting these new items off my hands should be enough to make a good hundred grand or so.
At the beginning of this week, I find myself with no money left whatsoever. Okay, maybe I bought a bit too much. Let’s see how this first day goes…
Couldn’t resist screenshotting this guy for the (presumably accidental) pirate chat.
Thanks to a few orders I had ready for collection, plus a nice price increase for several of the most expensive things I have in stock, the first day of the week sees me all the way back up at 301 grand. I think I might have this. Still need to keep working to make sure I don’t get totally wiped out, though, ‘cos it’s only going to keep increasing…
Within a couple of days, I’ve made the 500. It seems Tear wants to talk to me…
FINAL?
Tear recommends that we check the pause menu to see how much we owe, because she’d rather not tell us herself in case we have a heart attack or something.
Mate, I’m already there!
So… this is the last payment? What happens once I’ve done it? I’m nowhere near finishing up all the dungeons – although, thinking about it, this might be a great time to go and do a bit more down there if I don’t need to worry about having any more cash on top of the 500 grand.
I decide I may as well make my store look as awesome as possible for its final week on duty, and in doing so accidentally take myself down to below 100,000 pix. Okay, I guess I will actually need to work hard after all!
Just for kicks, I up my vending machine to the latest model and discover that I can actually put the old vending machine inside the new one. Wonder if anyone will actually buy it?
Look how damn fancy my store is, though! started with nothin now we here
Alouette even comes back! She must have decided that it at least looks upmarket enough that she could deign to be seen here. I kinda missed her.
Hey, what do ya know? Somebody actually did buy the vending machine out of the.. vending machine. I hope they put it to good use!
Euria’s showing up a lot this week, perhaps because my store’s super fancy and therefore looks a bit like a good target. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered glitzing it up.
I’ve got two days (well, three full days) to make about 300 grand. I reckon that’s doable!
Alouette places an order, which I think falls due on the last day. I’m guessing I won’t be getting any more orders for after that. Sad face!
On the penultimate day, Alouette drops in for a chat.
Indeed she is; she’s off with her father to eat truffles. Recette wonders what a puffle is; Alouette explains in a single sentence: ‘truffles… are mushrooms!’
With that, it’s ‘pardonne moi’ and Alouette’s off.
Recette learned something new today, so that’s always good!
We’ve only got two more days, and thanks to some unwise spending I still have a bit of a way to go… People are still buying pretty nicely, though; Charme picks up a sandwich board which can be used as armour, so I guess next time I take her down to the dungeon she’ll be doubling as a Subway advert.
Well, this is it. Our last day, and a hundred grand still to make. I think we can do it, but… yeesh. I shouldn’t have done all that decorating.
LET’S DO THIS
It feels fitting that it’s this little girl who drives me back up above that all-important 500K. We did it, guys!
I keep selling for the rest of the day anyway, just to see what I can get to.
Our last customer of the day – and, indeed, the game – is Charme. That’s it, y’all. We flipping did it.
I don’t want it to be over! I don’t think Recette does, either. I mean, she now has a very successful business that won’t just be draining money every week, so she’s set for life, but more to the point… this might be farewell between her and Tear.
Well, this really feels like the end. I’ll just let it play out. Usually, I like to upload images at a maximum of two at a time to make it easily readable, but it takes so much time to find each image in my library and upload them separately that I’m just going to put this part as a slideshow here.
Hilariously, Recette sings karaoke over the end credits. You can watch it here – I’m not going to screenshot every line of the song, but it’s very adorable.
After the credits…
Post-game content!
Well, obviously I’m doing Endless Mode! This might be the end of the game proper, but you’d better believe I’m going to complete every darn dungeon this thing has to offer. It’s been a lot of fun playing through the main game, and I imagine I’ll do one or maybe two more posts after this to show the dungeon content. See ya next time!
OverThinker Y 