Is there a point to boss rush?

Question

I've currently cleared all the dungeons in my reach and the only place left for current "exploration" is the Boss Rush for Jade Way... well, the first three bosses anyway.

However, the first two of three bosses don't seem to drop any loot, and this is otherwise rather poor as experience farming goes.

Is the only point of boss rush setting a time for the bragging rights, or does mad loot reside at the end making it a worthwile way to spend a day?

Answer

Boss rush lets you fight bosses a lot faster than it would if you were to trek the dungeon. This has two general purposes, plus one thing that happens in the post-game.

1. If the first boss has a very nice drop (like Samhain), then it's a lot faster to just boss rush to try for it and confirm success/failure than to beat through the first 5 floors. If you fail, then you don't stand to lose much if you reload.

2. If there are enough bosses with really nice drops, then doing boss rush will let you fight them without the wear of the dungeon levels to fight them all in sequence or the burden of not having room for treasure drops from trekking 50 floors.

It all boils down to "Not spending so much time trekking in dungeons when what you want is held by the boss". All bosses have drops, but they're not guaranteed drops.

In the post-game...

The Crystal Nightmare dungeon's boss rush has unique drops that are only available in the boss rush mode. These comprise primarily of the second-most-powerful pieces of each kind of equipment. So, it's actually a pretty good idea to do this. If you're high enough level, at any rate.

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How can I tell if people are selling stuff to me?

Question

I have a low tolerance for repetitive dialog. This means that when I'm manning the store front, I mash every key that might possibly speed up the text and "get on with it".

This turns out to be bad for business: I don't always notice when someone comes in to sell me something rather than buy it... And let's just say buying something for 100+% of the base price makes for happy customers and a broke store owner.

Is there any way to tell whether someone's selling or buying when we skip directly to talking price?

Answer

Is there any way to tell whether someone's selling or buying when we skip directly to talking price?

From: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/604893-recettear-an-item-shops-tale/answers?qid=229370

The text color. If the text is in yellow, you're buying. If the text is white, you're selling.

I don't always notice when someone comes in to sell me something rather than buy it... And let's just say buying something for 100+% of the base price makes for happy customers and a broke store owner.

With the above text color guideline in mind, just use the guide here for optimal buying and selling prices: http://recettear.wikia.com/wiki/Pin_Bonus_Percentages (Use the data here as a guide, as data in that wiki article is from the demo version of the game and could be incorrect for some characters. It also has missing info.)

A previous, related question of mine about the discrepancies in the above Recettear wiki link: Recettear: Optimal percentages for maximum profit and experience when buying and selling for each customer

If your goal is to gain experience points as fast as possible, always selling at 104% to everyone is optimal for linking chain experience bonuses: How do you gauge the Near Pin % of a transaction?

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Why can't I recover any more health when I try to use a recovery item?

Question

When I'm questing in a dungeon as a character with low HP (Charme) I find myself having to use many recovery items. Unfortunately, after what seems to be a set amount of recovery items used, I'm trying to use a chocolate bar to recover and can't because the game tells me I can't recover anymore. What's going on here? Am I only allowed to use a certain amount of recovery items in a single dungeon run? Why can't I recover?

Answer

"Can't recover any further" is generally a message that shows up when you try to eat foodstuffs but the corresponding gauge is full. I can't say I've seen food stop working, and after feeding Nagi 35 foodstuffs (consisting of 23 Apples and 12 Oranges, I did not run into any issue of eating to the point that recovery items flat out cease to function.

Is it possible you're attempting to eat a sweets item (which heals SP, not HP), and thus confusing the inability to recover from your full SP as an inability to eat anymore food?

If you're ever unsure of what an item heals (say, you don't know that Taiyaki is a sweet pastry), then you can always examine an item with Button 3 (default C) to look at what the item does. It will tell you whether it heals HP or SP or both, as well as how much it will heal.

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What do these weird icons next to my health and magic bars mean?

Question

When grinding away in a dungeon as Louie in Recettear, I noticed that I have these weird icons next to my character picture:

But...I don't really get them. What are they supposed to indicate, and what sort of different icons are there in the game?

Answer

These icons are your special skills. Each adventurer has a selection of special skills they can perform using Button 2 (default X). You can switch through them using Button 3 (default C), the current skill being highlighted. These cost SP to do things more than a normal attack. And, just because, each skill is illustrated with a cute image of some girl that represents the attack.

You can view the skills of any particular adventurer in the pause menu by checking that adventurer's Status, and then hitting Button 1 (default Z). This will give you an overview of all of your adventurer's general capabilities and qualities, as well as their list of special skills in the bottom left. Each skill listed will explain what that skill does, as well as show the corresponding girl icon. The SP cost is not listed, however, so you'll have to figure that one out yourself.

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What is the "Equip items in bag?" pop-up for?

Question

When I enter a dungeon, the game asks me if I want to equip items in the bag. I've answered both "yes" and "no", but I can't see any difference in the fights or characters no matter which response I pick.

What does that pop-up mean? Do I need to actually have equipment with me for that choice to make any difference?

Answer

When you first prepare to go into a dungeon, you may elect to bring items with you. These will take up your 20+ slots, of course. General items to bring would be food (in case you want healing), and equipment that is better than what the adventurer currently has equipped. The prompt you get at the beginning, if you select yes, auto-equips all pieces of equipment that are better than the adventurer's current equipment. Things like rings will have to be manually equipped though, even if the adventurer has an empty slot.

Adventurers will buy equipment from you, and if it's better they will equip it. But sometimes they buy other stuff, or start selling you things, so you've got a nice shiny equipment that'd look great on them just sitting in your inventory. By bringing it into the dungeon, they can use it.

Keep in mind, though, that such items are thus part of your items carried. If your adventurer falls, you can only take 1-3 items back with you, and such equipment counts. As such, either only bring one piece of good equipment, or have plenty of spares. At the end of the dungeon run, you'll get it back into your inventory as normal for any other item in your bag.

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What's the deal with these mysterious Ingredient items?

Question

When I'm grinding away in dungeons, I sometimes pick up these items shaped like mushrooms, labeled with a giant question mark and the name "Ingredient". These end up taking up a lot of space in my preciously small loot bag, and as far as I can tell I don't end up actually taking them back with me when the dungeon ends. My best guess is that these are items that I can't identify until either my Merchant or Adventurer level is high enough. Am I correct? Was this something explained in the tutorial that I kind of glossed over...? :(

What are these Ingredient items?

Answer

You're right, it's tied to your merchant level, so you can't tell what they are until it gets higher.

HOWEVER, when you leave the dungeon they automatically get identified, so you can look later and see what you found. The only real downside is that you can't know if it's good or worthless while you're deciding what to keep in the dungeon.

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How do I chain together kills and why should I care?

Question

In Recettear, I'm slightly confused about how building up a "chain" of monster kills works. At first I thought it was determined by the amount of time I take in between each kill, but this doesn't seem to actually matter. It doesn't seem to be based on whether or not I take damage, either. How do I increase my kill chain? Are there even any rewards for increasing it or is this mechanic just for aesthetics?

Answer

Chains occur by killing monsters of the same type. This causes you to get more experience with every such kill. The same type means the same color and kind - blue Slimes are different from green Slimes, but both kinds of red Mushrooms will chain, for example.

For example, suppose you run into a room and there are four blue Slimes and three blue Eyebats. You could kill them in any order, but if you kill all of the Slimes first then all of the Eyebats (or vice versa), you'll get more experience due to chaining. Chaining does not time out, but it will reset whenever you kill a new kind of creature.

In general, unless you've got adjacent rooms with the same creature type, you mostly want to ensure chaining within each room segment and not go out of your way to chain. You'll get more than enough experience in this fashion.

There are some exceptions to enemy chaining.

• The trap that generates a ring of 8 blue Slimes does not chain. It will ruin any active chain but they do not chain with each other, or any other blue Slimes. The trap that does spawn 4 normal blue Slimes does count as normal blue Slimes.
• Starting in later dungeons, you may run into rock-throwing Gnolls assembled in a line of four that stand still. Only one of them counts as a Gnoll, but they do not cancel a Gnoll chain.
• Starting in later dungeons, certain kinds of Ropers will summon a Roper to appear in the room behind you. These summoned Ropers do not count for Chaining but they will not mess up your Roper chain.

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How can I use vending machines effectively?

Question

When they're first introduced, vending machines are pretty expensive compared to my cash on hand. Since these things can only sell items for their base cost, I'm not entirely sure how to use them to turn any significant profit.

What advantages do I get out of having a vending machine? How do I use them to make more money?

Answer

Since vending machines don't barter with your customers, chances to sell things via vending machines happens independently of customer / Recette interaction. (You can hear a 'kaching' sound whenever a customer makes a purchase, and this can happen in the same instant that another customer walks up to be helped; alternatively, it can trigger when a customer fails the roll to buy an item, in which case you hear the 'kaching' sound but no customer approaches Recette.)

In practice, you will sell more items with one display case converted to a vending machine than you would with just Recette at the counter alone. The principle here is you can sell more items, or you can make more profit per item. Individual preference for these may vary.

This means, among other things, that items with low prices (e.g."Price of Food has fallen") will be bought for their normal base price, selling the item despite the economic downturn for whatever category it's in.

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What does a New Game+ give me?

Question

I hear Recettear has a "New Game +" mode that becomes available after you beat the game. What are the differences between this mode and a first-time playthrough?

Answer

A New Game+ allows you to restart the game from the beginning, except that you keep many of the things you've already earned / unlocked. You get to keep:

• Inventory
• Reputations
• Merchant level
• Adventurer equipment
• Unlocked dungeons
• Adventurers (if you have their true cards). Adventurers will retain levels and equipment.

You do not get to keep pictures, adventurers (unless you have their true cards), or shop expansions.

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Where are Caillou's items?

Question

Caillou is looking for Charred Lizard, Bat Wings, and Slime Liver. I've never seen any of these items for sale or dropped by monsters. Where do I get them?

Answer

They can all be found in the Green Way.

Kobolds (the furry brown things who throw nuts at you) and Reginald Drisby (Rat Boss) drop the Charred Lizard, The Crowned Slime drops the Slime Liver, and the Bat Wings are from the floating eye things (Eyebats).

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Is it bad to keep Caillou waiting?

Question

Caillou put in his order for Charred Lizard, Bat Wings and Slime Liver. My Advance Order Summary shows no deadline for this order, so I assumed I had as much time as I needed to find this stuff. Then he came into the store and complained that I hadn't gotten the items yet.

Does it hurt me in any way to postpone this order? Does he eventually run out of patience?

Answer

It does not hurt you whatsoever. Calliou may come in to complain, but he will pay up, just the same, when you finally get them in stock.

Conversely, if you have all three items when he first makes his appearance, he will be utterly flabbergasted, and purchase them on the spot for double his initial price.

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Do I pay my debt payment at the beginning or ending of the due date?

Question

I'm currently on the seventh day of gameplay in Recettear and the eighth day, the first day of payment, fast approaches. However, in planning out my next two days, I've bumped into a situation where my plan of action depends on whether or not the debt payment is payed at the beginning or ending of the day. If it's paid at the beginning, I'm going to head back to the shop and spend the seventh day selling enough expensive weapons and armor to blow past the required amount of money. If it's paid at the end, I'm going to go adventuring and spend the eighth day selling.

Do I pay the debt payment at the beginning or ending of the day?

Answer

On the 8th day (or whichever day your next payment is due), you will have the entire day to use the time to do whatever you need to in order to make the payment. At the end of the day is when Tear will ask you to pay up, and you'll either successfully make the payment and continue through the game, or end up living in a cardboard box.

I'm not joking. Most guilt-inducing Game Over screen ever.

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How to avoid failure and bring back more items home?

Question

It seems to me that it's highly inefficient to spent two parts of the day on retrieving one item.

How do I bring back more items home?

Answer

There are two ways to bring back more items home.

• Stop dying! If you make it to the end of a sequence (which will have a nice big red door), then you can return home with all of the items in your bag. Unless you found something really nice in a particular run that you must keep that one item, it is basically preferable to just reload your game and retry the dungeon so that you can clear it and return home.

  If you're having trouble, then what you should do is start bringing items with you. Bring equipment to better suit your adventurer, especially armor. And bring ample amounts of food. You'll get food along the way, but starting with food ensures that you'll have enough. Yes, bringing items along (especially equipment) will reduce the number of items you can carry. But in the end, returning home with only 16 items is much better than returning home with only 1.

• Get a better Merchant Level. As you progress in Merchant Levels, it is possible to increase the number of items you can bring home on failure to 2 and even 3. It's still preferable to make it to the end, but this can still make things more manageable, especially when you are in dungeons where death is a lot harder to avoid.

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How do I recruit Nagi?

Question

In Recettear, I figure my main interest is in the recruitment of Nagi to my side as soon as I can. I like spears, ain't more to it. I've run into her in a dungeon in the first week or so, which gives me hopes that she isn't some manner of late-game arrival into my party (and thus the character list on the site isn't in order of people joining).

And so it brings the question, how do I recruit Nagi? Ideally, by the earliest time possible, as well as any tricks that would help in the process.

Answer

You need to bump into her four separate times (I think). All you need to do is talk to her, and after the fourth time (when she finally tells the two her name) she will start to come by the shop.

When she enters your shop for the second time, she will give you her card.

Additionally, she will never be wandering the dungeons before Day 9.

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Why am I getting slapped around by giant fish?

Question

I'm playing Recccetear, and in the "Jade Way" dungeon, I appear to randomly be assaulted by screen-wide giant fish.

They're not particularly hard to dodge (once you stop being surprised by them) and don't deal much damage, but I'd like to know what's causing it in the first place. Is it a special attack of one of the enemies?

Answer

It's not a special attack done by any of the enemies. It's one of the random trap-type occurrences that can happen in a square, like the rocks falling. There's really no way to predict it happening at all. You just have to dodge carefully.

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