Image via Marvelous
The Masterwork Edition of Potionomics adds voice acting to really underscore the original story. Players get to know Sylvia and her friends in a whole new way, while enjoying the potion brewing and competition goodness.
In Potionomics, players step into the role of a potions maker as Sylvia inherits her late uncle’s shop. The place is a little worse for wear, and she soon learns she’s inherited Oswald’s debt as well as his former home. Thankfully, a wise owl is here to help, along with a few new friends and brave adventurers.
Brewing up potions is just part of the gameplay loop, as players also build relationships and source new, quality ingredients for their wares. You’ll also haggle your way to higher prices for your goods using a deckbuilding system that provides endless strategic opportunities.
Key Details
- Developer: Voracious Games
- Publisher: Marvelous
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S (Standard edition on PC)
- Price: $29.99
- Review Code Provided: Yes
Humor That Will Steal Your Heart
I will fully admit I didn’t expect to fall in love with this game so instantly, but Sylvia’s sarcastic sense of humor won me over. She and every character she meets have their own distinct personality that comes to life even more thanks to the voice acting added in the Masterwork Edition.
Sylvia is young, scrappy, and a little bit anxious – the perfect heroine for a gamer like me. She is determined to make her uncle’s potions shop a success, but has inherited quite a difficult situation. I loved seeing her navigate the stressors while bonding with her new friend, Owl.
The romance and friendship interactions are equally unserious, with hilariously bold attempts at flirting that had me grinning. While some players looking for more serious romance might be disappointed, I felt that the cute, funny flirtation added to the overall cozy feel of the game and really enjoyed watching Sylvia make characters blush with her bold pickup lines.
This is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, leaning into opportunities to make jokes and over-the-top characters shine. The humor helps take the edge off that ticking time clock that counts down to your next big competition battle.
Challenging Competitions – Sometimes Too Much
As Sylvia, players battle against the clock to prepare their competition potions in time for the next big gig. If you don’t have the right brews in time, you automatically forfeit and reach the dreaded Game Over screen.
I have to admit, I found this time limit a little stressful, as it made me feel like I couldn’t use my time during the day to enjoy the romance and relationship-building elements. It was a race to craft high-quality potions to ensure victory in the next competition – something that would likely be less pressing if I had played in Cozy Mode, a new option offered in the Masterwork Edition.
For the most part, the competitions themselves felt well-balanced, offering a challenge but not an insurmountable one. I say for the most part because the jump in difficulty with the final boss absolutely floored me and left me so frustrated I wanted to set the game aside altogether. The prior competitions didn’t really prepare me for just how tough our surprise final boss would be, and I felt a little taken aback at just how much tougher they were compared with the others.
Haggling Mechanics Hampered By Glitches
Haggling with customers and in competitions is one of the key elements that make Potionomics stand out from other potion-brewing cozies. The game uses a deck-building mechanic where you can play different strategy cards to increase the worth of your potions both during regular sales and contests.
As you build up friendships (or romances) with the different characters, you unlock new cards that let you refine your haggling strategy. This gives an incentive for building up friendships even if you’ve chosen the One Love romance option and have your eyes on a single love interest.
The card-based haggling mechanic could have been one of my favorite parts of the game… if I had been able to reliably swap out cards to build the deck of my dreams. Unfortunately, on Nintendo Switch I encountered a game freezing glitch that made it almost impossible to truly stack my deck. Whenever I’d try to swap out cards, the game would totally freeze up, forcing me to reboot and lose any unsaved progress.
I’m hopeful this glitch can be resolved with future updates, but as it stands, it really hampered my enjoyment of the haggling and deckbuilding features since it could take several tries to switch up my strategy and add new cards to my deck.
Final Score – 7.5/10
The art style, humor, and overall gameplay of this game are charming and delightful, a true gem in the shopkeeping genre. However, the issues with boss battle difficulty and massive deckbuilding game glitch hampered my ability to fully sink in and enjoy the game.
Even with the crashes and my inability to beat [final boss name redacted], I think Potionomics will remain one of my favorite games of 2024 for the charm of its story and characters. It is well worth playing, and Cozy Mode makes sure even cozy gamers will be able to enjoy it.
**A Nintendo Switch code of Potionomics was provided to Bonus Action for the purpose of this review**
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