Shop Titans is a free-to-play game that is on Steam as well as being available for mobile devices. Anytime I hear “free to play” and “mobile game” alarm bells start ringing. However, the premise of this sounded pretty cool and as I never had to drop any money, I thought I might as well give it the old college try.
How to Download Shop Titans
To download the game on the device of your choice, click on the Download button located below this review. Check out also our review of Shoppe Keep 2, that has a similar premise.
The Game Review
The idea of the game is that you are playing the role of a shop keeper in a fantasy land. You know in an RPG how there is always the blacksmith or store where you get weapons? Well, that is the role you will be playing in this game. You will be making sure the heroes of this place are fully equipped for their quests.
As I said the idea is very interesting and I cannot think of another game with a premise like this. The game starts by having you create your shop keeper and then you start a brief tutorial. Here you learn how to design your shop. You can put shelves up, order stock, and of course sell stuff to people going on quests.
The progression in Shop Titans is painfully slow as you would expect from a free-to-play mobile inspired game. You need to research new items and you do this by selling a certain amount of one item. From here you can then craft an upgraded version of that item or a brand new one.
While you need to get the resources for crafting, you do not actually do any of the crafting yourself. Instead, you pay other shops to do it for you. The more RPG part of the game sees you hiring your own band of heroes who you send out on missions to get you some high-grade gear. This is an aspect of the game that you simply must do.
The main “enemy” at play in this game is time. Like most other freemium games, Shop Titans makes you wait for stuff. Waiting is a massive part of this game, but of course, you can spend some real-world money to make it all go away! I hate this I really do! It feels like such a cash grab and this game is very guilty of having its hand out after about the 10-minute mark.
I really do feel that the idea of the game is great and I get that the devs need to make money. However, why not just charge five to ten bucks for the game and do away with all this nickel and diming? I know that for a game like this I would happily pay that price. You can play the game without spending a penny.
However, the two forms of currency gold and these gems come at a rather slow rate. It is not just that they come at a slow rate, but the prices of stuff is very expensive. This is a massive turn off for me. While I love the art style, the story and the idea, in general, I must say that as soon as I got to a point where I had to wait a long time for something to craft or when the game got very heavy-handed with the trying to persuade me to spend money I was done.
