Potionomics has to be the most original and interesting game I played all year. The DNA of Potionomics blends different gameplay genres and aspects together. It's a deckbuilder, visual novel, alchemy/potion creator, lite-RPG, shopkeeping simulator hybrid. Not every aspect is super deep, but everything that is present feels fleshed out and works very well.
Gameplay loop has you play as potion-maker Sylvia, who runs a shop specializing in selling potions. Potion selling is played out like a deck-building game, where cards are played to haggle the price of your potions to earn more gold. Instead of dying and getting a game over, customers have patience which counts down and if it reaches zero before closing the deal, they walk away without you making the potion sale. Time limits are present like the earlier Atelier games, where going to shops, visiting friends and brewing potions takes up parts of the day. As the days progress, the game introduces you to new friends providing various services such as ingredients, the ability to increase potion prices, better equipment for brewing and selling potions, etc. Some companions can even be sent out to locations, which will result in more and sometimes rarer ingredients, depending on how far they go in their expeditions with whatever potions you equip them with. You can even hang out with friends, give them gifts, and level them up, which will provide you with more cards to strategize your deck along with discounts when buying items.
Every 10 in-game days, a competition takes place and on the first calendar day, you are given 3 potions to create for the competition. Competitions play out in the same fashion as the potion selling deck-building battles, except the difficulty is increased. Played out in a “Best 2 out of 3 Rounds” format, if your potion is of higher quality and value than the opponent, you win that round automatically. If it is not, you will enter a deck-building battle and have to haggle the price up in order to win the competition.
As far as negatives go, this is not an easy game. Completion took 13 hours and 45 minutes according to my in-game save file, but my Steam profile has an 18 hour and 50 minute playtime due to me having to restart the game after a pre-update, difficult first competition boss battle. It may seem more chill with the colorful, cutesy graphics and orchestral musical score, but the time limit aspect along with the high difficulty at the start of the game means a lot of planning, time management, and attention to detail is needed when playing Potionomics. Stress is also a factor that comes into play during battles, where some customers and even competition bosses will debuff Sylvia and decrease her chances of raising interest when selling potions. Things do get much more manageable after the first two competitions as some updates have ironed out a few issues, but the management aspect still requires attention. Potionomics looks gorgeous visually and even runs perfectly fine, though some of the animations could have been smoother. Dialogue is great as are the Disney-looking cutscenes, but with everything being through text, I kept wishing there were actual voices like most modern-day visual novels. Once you complete the game, there is no New Game+ or option to continue playing. The only option is to start a new game or load a previous save. Fortunately, the game autosaves after every day, making it easy to jump back in at any point in game time. That last point could change in a future patch or update, but this still stands.
Potionomics is a great, unique hybrid of games that is worth playing for anyone wanting a different spin on visual novels, deckbuilding and potion/alchemy brewing.
Gameplay loop has you play as potion-maker Sylvia, who runs a shop specializing in selling potions. Potion selling is played out like a deck-building game, where cards are played to haggle the price of your potions to earn more gold. Instead of dying and getting a game over, customers have patience which counts down and if it reaches zero before closing the deal, they walk away without you making the potion sale. Time limits are present like the earlier Atelier games, where going to shops, visiting friends and brewing potions takes up parts of the day. As the days progress, the game introduces you to new friends providing various services such as ingredients, the ability to increase potion prices, better equipment for brewing and selling potions, etc. Some companions can even be sent out to locations, which will result in more and sometimes rarer ingredients, depending on how far they go in their expeditions with whatever potions you equip them with. You can even hang out with friends, give them gifts, and level them up, which will provide you with more cards to strategize your deck along with discounts when buying items.
Every 10 in-game days, a competition takes place and on the first calendar day, you are given 3 potions to create for the competition. Competitions play out in the same fashion as the potion selling deck-building battles, except the difficulty is increased. Played out in a “Best 2 out of 3 Rounds” format, if your potion is of higher quality and value than the opponent, you win that round automatically. If it is not, you will enter a deck-building battle and have to haggle the price up in order to win the competition.
As far as negatives go, this is not an easy game. Completion took 13 hours and 45 minutes according to my in-game save file, but my Steam profile has an 18 hour and 50 minute playtime due to me having to restart the game after a pre-update, difficult first competition boss battle. It may seem more chill with the colorful, cutesy graphics and orchestral musical score, but the time limit aspect along with the high difficulty at the start of the game means a lot of planning, time management, and attention to detail is needed when playing Potionomics. Stress is also a factor that comes into play during battles, where some customers and even competition bosses will debuff Sylvia and decrease her chances of raising interest when selling potions. Things do get much more manageable after the first two competitions as some updates have ironed out a few issues, but the management aspect still requires attention. Potionomics looks gorgeous visually and even runs perfectly fine, though some of the animations could have been smoother. Dialogue is great as are the Disney-looking cutscenes, but with everything being through text, I kept wishing there were actual voices like most modern-day visual novels. Once you complete the game, there is no New Game+ or option to continue playing. The only option is to start a new game or load a previous save. Fortunately, the game autosaves after every day, making it easy to jump back in at any point in game time. That last point could change in a future patch or update, but this still stands.
Potionomics is a great, unique hybrid of games that is worth playing for anyone wanting a different spin on visual novels, deckbuilding and potion/alchemy brewing.