Recent reviews by ✪ Skirbie

This game is criminally underrated, even with all its flaws

At its core, its a pretty simple gameplay loop; Each cycle, you have 10 days to brew 3 specific potions for a contest
To create the required quality or even surpass it, you'll have to upgrade your shops and cauldron so it'll hold more ingredients, produce more potions and allows you to make more money per haggling session

Along the way you will discovers additional game mechanics and build relationships to upgrade your deck, which will be used to maximize profits during haggling.

Sadly, the game lacks that final few polish/QoL features that would've made the experience a lot less frustrating at times.
It also misses the mark a bit in terms of being a chill management game and being a race against time to only make the 3 contest potions.

1. Fun gameplay loop; you meticulously calculate and brew your potions, then haggle it off for maximum profits based on the quality and available day buffs.
   
2. Fun management game; you manage your shop, upgrades it, customize it, then go off the shop to build up relationships, buy ingredients, send your companions on adventures, and a few more minor game mechanics
   
3. A pretty chill game if your only objective is to win the game whilst enjoying what you can of the other game mechanics. It can be a bit more stressful and time constraining if you're trying to be super effecient and max everything in the game. Something easily solved with an endless mode post-game.
   
4. Great characters and companions. It has a somewhat mini VN-like experience with the chatting sessions. All the characters are great and makes you want to spend your time with them, not just purely for the cards.
   
5. Performance is very stable, ui is slick, controls are tight, there were zero clunkiness in my playthrough. There is a few exceptions like the money counter bugging out if you reach over 1 mil coins
   
6. Gorgeous artstyle.

1. No controller support. As someone whos suffering with rsi, extended use of mouse for gaming is really taxing on my wrist, but I pushed on due to how much I enjoy this game.
   
2. Poorly balanced content and difficulty; there is a spike at week 2 and a sharp dropoff at week 3. week 5 is mainly trying to max everything before the game shuts you down. Custom order also needs a serious buff.
   
3. Zero clue on potential cards; It'd be nice if we could just see what all the potential cards are so we can plan our playstyle from early on and balance which relationship to max due to how much we like the characters vs how much we want the cards.
   
4. Lack of customization. Even right at the end, I was never satisfied with how my shop looked or arranged.
   
5. Lacking a few QoL features. Off the top of my head, these are the few issues that I came across below

• not showing the next day marketing buff after returning home
  
• no favorite/bookmark ingredients; maybe we can use it to just fully buy out the ingredients with 1 click.
  
• no saving custom recipe; this one hurts a lot, I love taking the time to do the math and combine the specific ingredients to create the perfect balance, so let me save it to rebrew and rebuy the ingredients easily. This would even encourage you to keep trying out new recipes.
  
• no time saving features such as refeed slimes with the same ingredients, or rebrew the same potion with the same ingredients.
  
• bad and inconsistent inventory management; whilst there is a filter, its still lacking a tons of filter/sorting options like sorting by only single/double/triple color ingredients (without any specific color), showing only the ingredients with positive traits, sorting the potions by type, and hell even sorting the potions by price in the brewing window even though its possible in the arrange potions window.
  
• not being able to see what you're brewing whilst traveling outside.
  
• no retrieve all button. its crazy how you have to receive all 10 cauldrons and barrels 1 by 1 towards the end every time your cycle finishes.

I love this game so much, and was pretty sad to discover that you're on an actual time limit to explore and engage with all its fun mechanics

I had to reload the final week when I realised I didn't have enough time to max all the relationships and got unlucky with upgrade materials rng
It would've been very nice if the game just allows you to keep on playing post-game to maximize your shop upgrades, collects all the ingredients/shop decorations, and maximize all the relationship without the time constraint.

Regardless, I was very happy with the time spent and looks forward to potionomics 2 with all its potential improvements!
If you're on the fence and you love formulating, cards or management games, just give it a try!

11/10 best action game ever made

its mindblowing the amount of love put into this in regards to martial arts, tons of reference to every imaginable action flick that you're a fan of

Bought the original version 2 days before the release of enhanced edition. Within the first few minutes, I already noticed major improvement in the controls, UI and texts.

I can't tell you how impressed I am at the dev for giving us such major overhaul (fully voice acted, more responsive and tighter control) for FREE!