DISCLOSURE: This game was reviewed on the following platform: PC – Check out our Review Policy page for more information.

The inheritance of your uncle’s potion store comes with a significant financial burden. Better begin brewing! In this story-driven, deck-building shop simulator, you may personalize your shop, employ heroes to collect materials, make friends with (or even fall in love with) other vendors to learn new haggling methods, and compete head-to-head against other merchants.

In this review, we will be going over the good things and the bad things about this game. Let’s see if it is worth your time.

6 YEARS in the Making! – Is It Any Good?! – Potionomics Review

If you didn’t know already, Potionomics is actually 6 years in the making. This makes it a really big target for negative comments and reviews. But surprisingly the launch turned out great. Although people are saying good things about it, in this review we will list the pros and the cons too.

Pros

We will start off with the good side of Potionomics.

Gameplay

Potionomics finds a good balance between self-aware stories and easy-to-play games with a nice, fun rhythm. Every part feels like it was chosen to make you laugh, whether it’s a line of dialogue or a joke about games. If you liked the way Battle Chef Brigade mixed cooking, platforming, and match-3 gameplay, you’ll probably like this.

The deck–building and card–battling gameplay is easy and fun. You don’t have to be smart to get something out of it, but smart moves can give you resources that are useful in other parts of the game.

Making potions is more about managing your resources and getting the most out of them. Even though it’s not too hard, it’s not “dumbed down” either.

The music is beautiful, lively, and full of energy. Not too little, not too much. Just the right amount to give you a nice relaxing feeling when playing this game. Well, that is you’re not thinking about the timer.

Visuals

The artists and animators worked so hard on everything in this game that it took 6 years to make. Each character has a unique personality and looks that make them stand out. You will never feel as though you see the same type of characters or model used at all.

Other than the characters, the overall feel and vibe you get from your surroundings are simply amazing and a joy to look at. When you aren’t looking at your characters you will be able to look at your shop from above.

These visuals from above are the best thing ever about this game. They are so well made that you will most likely just be looking around and inspecting all the same details that clearly went into the work for making this possible.

Depth & Story

The writing and story in Potionomics might be the most surprising thing about the game as a whole. It’s cute and funny without it being irritating or cringeworthy, and each major NPC feels like a separate person.

You might not get along with everyone, but there are several vendors you will always want to stop by just to see them. Even the lines that are said off the cuff during haggling have a lot of personalities. You will even get some evil characters that add so much to the overall story.

Characters & Relationship Building

In Potionomics, building relationships feels much more natural than in most games. You don’t feel like you’re just buying NPCs’ love. The way to friendship (and maybe more) with NPCs is to choose a conversation that proves you comprehend one another, even if that means disagreeing with something they’ve said.

If you’re looking for romance instead of friendship, you’ll want to choose flirty conversation options over further neutral ones, and I’m happy to say there’s some great flirting to be had. We can only speak for Mint, but there are enough “accidental” hand touches and longing looks on the way to dating her to make you gasp as much as the characters do.

Cons

After all of this, how can there be bad things?! Well, there are some things and they are actually pretty big too.

Stressful & Time Rush

The game is a lot of work and can feel stressful. You don’t have much time in a day. There aren’t many days left until the next game. You always feel as though you do not have enough money or other resources.

Not enough for the time–limited agreements, not enough to upgrade your equipment or shop, insufficient to take care of your hero, and not enough for the weekly potions. I can say that because I haven’t failed yet.

It is a beautiful and very fun game to play but we can see it as all of the pros of this game are in between two walls. And gradually these walls are coming down on you. That is how the timer feels when you’re playing Potionomics.

It Is Very Short

Later on, you might get used over the time and when you find a good balance between brewing and selling, you begin to feel a little lighter. You will feel like you have time to move around and establish relationships or learn about the other ways the game works.

The game is finished when day 50 comes. After that, you can’t play for free. There’s no “sandbox” mode, no “new game plus,” and it looks like there’s no “ending” with your loving relationship. All that momentum and accumulation for a conclusion that, in the end, was just “meh.”

It can be upgraded in the future with any of these things that we have included and probably will make for a much better overall game.

Not Possible To Experience Everything & RNG Element

I’ll save you all from the math and numbers, but mathematically, you can’t play this game just once and see everything it has to offer. And the gameplay isn’t interesting enough to make multiple RNG grinds worth it.

So even if you want to make and discover everything in your first playthrough, after all that momentum and excitement that you have built up in you, will result in you not be able to experience everything because of how the game is made with the time rush.

If your RNG is bad, you can’t really win or actually even join the first competition at all. And the game is set up so that you have to do the first competition 5 times. Between each competition, you have to do more things, which cuts into the time you have to grind for RNG.

Overall & Rating

Potionomics does get a lot of things correct and very good. You will be having a ton of fun with this game. The overall progression of it just feels so smooth and you’ll end up liking the characters so much too.