Anime Shop Simulator ✨

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this game, despite my attempts to give it a chance. It feels like an Early Access game with far too many game-breaking bugs. * Employees are useless - The stocker just sit in the back alley all day and doesn't move, regardless if there are boxes on the shelves. Cashiers are slow and as soon as closing hits, regardless if there are customers, they leave the cash register and sit in the back alley. They are practically useless, save for keeping the shop clean. * Solo vs Multiplayer is unbalanced - While cleaning up trash, restocking shelves, chasing down thieves, checking on customers with a red exclamation mark and checking out customers provides something for everyone to do while in multiplayer, having to do all of this in a single shift by yourself is a nightmare. The frequency at which these events occur definitely needs to be toned down, or at least have an option in settings to change it. * Events happen before tool is unlocked - Went through a shift with a glaring stain on the floor and couldn't do anything about it because the mop hadn't been unlocked. Likewise, customers will steal from you before the bat is unlocked and there's nothing you can do about it. * Lack of tutorials - While you do get short quests to unlock the tools, there's very little explanation. While some of it can be considered self-explanatory, there is not even a tutorial or any sort of explanation for the card battle system. You pretty much have to figure it out yourself. * Lack of stock storage - Even after the storage room is unlocked, there's very little usable space. The shelves take up too much required space, enough that you could fit a small car between each shelf facing each other, and you can barely fit anything in, even with upgrades. The allocated space for these could definitely be shrunk down to fit more. What's more, you cannot stack boxes whatsoever, so you are left with tossing boxes into a mess in the back alley if the shelves are full. * Minor annoyances - Not sure why I need to run down the street and paint a guy's car to unlock the ability to paint my walls and floor, or why I need to run into a different building just to open my character customization options (And not all options are available, such as changing eye color). * Undisclosed AI art usage - While I do not have concrete proof of these claims, the key chain art definitely has the telltale signs of AI usage in terms of mauled fingers and other signs.

TLDR: Don't buy, at least not in this state. Game absolutely has potential but feels like basic mechanics weren't tested, especially the employee function (completely broken) and customer shopping habits. Wait until it is fully fixed or extremely cheap and on sale. The card game is fun and so is opening packs. This game is just not there yet. The employees are completely broken which is a problem because if you want to stand any chance of keeping up with the customer demand you need a stocker. The amount of customers, even from day 1, is a little ridiculous. This is compounded by the fact that your stockers will just stop working or the game will crash (although the crashing may be fixed now). The products are too expensive and one customer can wipe out half the figures or the manga leaving you scrambling to order, fill shelves, manage storage, and fill courier orders to the point where it just becomes frustrating. One customer buying 6 of the same manga or figure with the amount of customers is very annoying. Progressing feels tedious and frustrating. The pillow racks are also pathetic, holding only two large or 4 small, and again, one customer can take the whole rack. You almost need a full time pillow stocker alone until you can buy the bigger racks. Honestly, I could do without having to check customers for stolen goods and chasing thieves. I understand why some people might like that so maybe a toggle setting for that stuff. Overall, very disappointed with this. After loving TCG Card Shop Sim I was really looking forward to this game. It feels like the devs should play that game and learn how to make store expansion and progression feel fun and rewarding with an initial slow trickle of customers and affordable product.

English isn't my first language, so there are likely some errors. I’ll structure this review into 3 topics to keep it quick: 1. Important note 2. Quick review 3. Who I think this game is for 1. Important note I’ve been playing this game since the demo earlier this year, so I’ve already seen a little more of its progression than I was able to see this time around. My game "stuck" on Day 3; after opening and closing it, I literally can't finish the day no customers show up, time doesn't pass, nothing happens. This happened after only 1 hour of gameplay. Imagine losing a save in a similar game after 200+ days. That said, I’m not going to judge the entire game based on this alone. But I think it’s important to report this game-breaking bug on Day 3. (I already reported it in game, so let’s hope they fix it.) 2. Quick review Graphics: Objectively, the game doesn’t do anything graphically better than other games in the genre. unlike Retro Rewind, which is reference for graphics for these kinds of games. Manga references: The references to manga, anime, and other famous animerelated things are extremely cool. NPCs: Pretty standard for this type of game. Nothing special. The only thing I found strange is that apparently there is no staff system. There doesn’t seem to be a minimum level to unlock it or anything like that. It just says “Locked.” I really hope there is actually a staff system later on, because if there isn’t, this game goes from mediocre/bad to something worse. Card system: I’ll go into a bit more detail here. Visually, the cards are pretty bad, but the rarities are also poorly designed. I’ll go a little deeper into the TCG side of things for people who understand card games: The actual card game is playable, and it’s about as simple as it can possibly be, but it works well. The collecting aspect, however, is terrible. Really, really bad. The cards do have different rarities, but the differences between them are extremely small and feel completely bland. The cards also don’t have sets or archetypes like Yu-Gi-Oh!, colors like Magic, different systems like Pokémon, or even categories such as “Princesses” and “Princes” like Lorcana. Instead, they feel like a bunch of completely unrelated monsters from Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh!: random "abilities", no interaction between them, and no real reason to care about getting a new card. For example, you get “Bernardo” and “Bia.”(random names) They don’t have unique abilities, they don’t interact with each other, they don’t evolve, and they aren’t part of a set or archetype. They’re basically just random cards. standalone "monsters" It doesn’t really feel like a card game or a card game collection. 3. Who I think this game is for Honestly, I think if you really, Really want to sell manga and anime referenced stuff, this game is for you. If you want to play this kind of game with friends, this game is also probably for you. But if neither of those things applies to you, I honestly can’t imagine a reason to play this game instead of the many other games already available in the genre, with TCG Card Shop Simulator being the most obvious example. I hope my opinion was helpful.

The game is in a really bad state. It’s clearly still Early Access, and it’s honestly embarrassing that it’s being sold as a 1.0 release. The settings barely work, and there aren’t even that many of them to begin with. The gameplay loop becomes a complete nightmare because you constantly have to restock an absurd amount of items. Customers are also constantly trashing the store and throwing things around for absolutely no reason. The fact that there are no workers is honestly criminal for this type of game. It’s missing basic features that other shop simulators have had for years. But hey, character customization and other pointless stuff that adds absolutely nothing to the actual gameplay? Apparently that was a priority. The art style is really good, and honestly that’s about the only thing I can praise right now. In its current state, the game is a mess. I was genuinely really excited for it, which makes the whole thing even more disappointing. Releasing this as a 1.0 game is ridiculous.

As someone with almost 20 hours on this game already, I can say a lot of the negative reviews complain about such small things that are completely irrelevant or have already been fixed. Don't forget the game released 2 days ago and they've already released 3 hotfix updates. My only real complaint so far is that as a solo player, a lot of my time is spent restocking pillows. With these last 3 updates I'd give this game a solid 8.8/10. Can't wait for more content!

This game has a lot of potential, but in my opinion it seriously misses the mark right now. First, there are quite a few bugs, and some of them come pretty close to being game-breaking. Second, there is WAY too much asset reuse. When I have five customers standing in my store wearing basically the exact same outfit, come on. It immediately makes the game feel cheap and unfinished. Third — and this is a big one — the employees are terrible. They have incredibly generic names like "Cashier." Seriously? Even worse, when their shift ends, they quit working INSTANTLY. It doesn't matter if they're literally in the middle of ringing up a customer. Shift over? They stop, run outside, and stand there staring at the sky like their programming just ended. The stocking employee appears to be even worse. From what I've experienced, they don't function properly and can actually cause the game to crash. There is also a huge amount of missing QoL. The labels on boxes are so small they're difficult to read. You can't grab an empty box and use it to remove merchandise from a shelf so you can reorganize things. Little systems like this matter A LOT in a shop simulator. For comparison, Teddy's Haven is probably the best shop simulator I've played when it comes to QoL. Everything feels intuitive and thought-out. Anime Shop Simulator could learn a LOT from that game. Another major problem is the complete lack of life or "soul" in the city and its NPCs. Customers basically stream into your store like robots. Where are the normal people walking down the sidewalk? Where are the cars? Bikes? People hanging around? Anything? The street feels dead. The developer's other game, Tavern Manager Simulator, had some of this same problem with the world feeling flimsy and lifeless. I had really hoped they would learn from that and improve it here. Overall, this feels VERY much like an Early Access game being sold as a 1.0 release. This does not feel like a finished product, and labeling it that way doesn't sit right with me. I'm currently hovering over the refund button. I'm willing to give the developers a week or two to see what they do, but I'm intentionally staying around the two-hour playtime mark so I don't lose my refund option. I even edited my save file to advance much further into the game so I could test later systems without burning through my refund window. Unfortunately, the further I advanced, the more bugs and unfinished systems I found. There IS a good shop simulator buried in here somewhere. The concept is fun, and I want to like it. But right now? This needed more time in the oven. Step it up, devs.

I havent played it much. Barely 40 minutes. But honestly, I actually kinda enjoy it. Its not bad in general. Gameplay feels fine and the TCG action is also kinda fun. But the breaker for this comment is the AI art. I know its difficult and I am not trying to say the game sucks. Its actually is quite fun. But Im gonna use the only voice I have for Steam and also for the creator to say: "Please replace the AI assets" This game is gonna be a hit, but this is a hard break for me. Artists should help artists in my opinion.

Undisclosed AI >:( The keychains are so clearly AI, it's disapointing to see especially with Kotamon being so anti AI. I was enjoying the game but the undiscussed AI slop just ruined it. There were also some body pillows that were just glitching out. Unfortunate, greedy developers ruin everything with laziness once again.