It’s that time of year again. Steam is here to wipe out the wallets of PC gamers. From March 16th–23rd, the yearly Steam Spring Sale is on once again. It’s easy to get lost in the choices, so I wanted to touch on some of my personal favorites. These will all be from developers in Japan. So with that said, bust open that wallet, and let’s dive in.
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale — Price: $3.99
The first Steam Spring Sale pick is a bit of a curveball. Surely, you’ve played enough JRPGs to be intimately familiar with item shops. You walk in, buy what you need and walk out without a second thought. But have you ever wanted to be the merchant behind the counter? Well, now you can! Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is one of my favorites here and it offers a deceptively simple premise: you have a debt to pay, stock up, sell out, and keep chasing those profits. How you do this is pretty much up to you. Want to explore dungeons and get good loot drops from the monsters to sell? Go for it. Would you rather source your stock from the local guilds? Also viable. Don’t let the cute art fool you though, as the game works on a timer. Making sure you can pay the debts on time can get stressful. A very unique concept that can run on pretty much any PC these days.
YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story — Steam Spring Sale Price: $14.99
Our next Steam Spring Sale title is one brought to the west by our sister company, JAST USA. Talking too much about this game is a potential minefield of spoilers for what makes it so great, so I’ll just give you a brief synopsis.
What begins as a simple love triangle between you the player and the two beautiful heroines will end with you almost definitely rethinking your choices in the next dating sim you play. I cannot stress this enough: go in completely blind. The incredible art and groundbreaking story must be experienced firsthand for full effect. If you end up liking the game, may I recommend this rather “peachy” tapestry in our store?
Little Noah: Scion of Paradise — Price: $9.74
Our final Steam Spring Sale pick is a cute, short, 2D rogue-lite starring Noah and the mysterious cat Zipper as they untangle a mystery. This is a revival of the Little Noah IP that was used in Cygames’ now-defunct mobile game of the same name, also known as Battle Champs in the west. You’ll explore randomly generated dungeons and seek out upgrades and allies to add to your attack combos. Controls are snappy, the art style is adorable and the player has complete customization of their attack combo tree by recruiting the game’s 40 allies. I really enjoyed my short time with this one. The creator, Hiroki Matsuura, was largely inspired by the western game Dead Cells and the game wears that inspiration on its sleeve with pride. The game is compatible with Steam Deck but is also available on the Switch and PS4.
Those are my picks for the Steam Spring Sale. Do you have any suggestions? Be sure to leave them in the comments!
