Before anyone asks, this isn't a political rant. Fred would tear my head off for that -- or worse, send Dom to do it. No, this is about a recent game release. This game plays heavily on themes of commerce and war and advancement over time.

No, I'm not talking about Civilization V. I'm talking about Recettear.

Recettear is a JRPG. Well, sort of. You're a character in a JRPG, at any rate. You're not exactly the sword-swinging monster-killing world-saving hero, though. Instead, you're the NPC item shop owner. You're also a thirteen year old girl, complete with staggering amounts of cuteness and an insane level of enthusiasm. You also inherited a sizable debt from your deadbeat father and have a month to pay off the loan shark. You are Recette. The loan shark is a snarky fairy named Tear. You have to make regular payments of rapidly increasing amounts in order to have her not repossess your house.

As an aside, don't worry about running out of money. You're expected to fail on your first round or two. If you can't make a payment, you're sent back to day two with your inventory, shop, and merchant level intact.

It's not just the standard buy low and sell high, though. As you sell things, you gain experience and your merchant level goes up. You acquire new abilities, like the ability to buy things from customers. Every few levels you gain access to a new tier of items from the shops in town. The best items aren't ones you can buy, though. There's a whole other half to the game.

See, there are adventurers running around town. They're everywhere because the town is surrounded by dungeons. You hire an adventurer and off you go to kill monsters and take their stuff. There's no party system, but it's otherwise not much different from your basic dungeon crawler. You swing a weapon, you cast a spell, you open a treasure chest, you beat a boss, we all know how that goes.

There's a good reason for the dungeon-delving. All the best items are found in dungeons. Moreover, you don't have to pay out for the stuff you find. Your profit margins are much higher. It's about the only way to make enough to keep that loan shark fairy off your back.

Then there's the writing. This game has an awesome sense of humor. One adventurer is thoroughly idiotic. A second repeatedly and drunkenly hits on Recette. A third firmly refuses to believe Recette is the owner of the shop. There's jokes and cultural references (Tear at one point states that she refuses to put a horse head in anyone's bed) and all-around good writing. Somehow, the snippets of Japanese voiceover just add to the charm.

This game is... improbably addicting. Being the NPC shopkeeper should not be this fun. Not even remotely. And yet, it's impossible for me to play only a few minutes. In fact, I'm writing this rant from a machine that doesn't run Recettear so I can avoid launching it to check something and playing for six hours instead. At $20, this game is a steal. Highly recommended.

Now then. I have monsters to kill and items to sell at 130% of base price. So until next time...