Potion Permit
Where NPCs are rude to you and they don't really want you around very much.
Potion Permit
Moonbury's quite unfriendly residents need healing, and you're the best chemist around, so that task falls to you. With your trusty tools, a brewing cauldron, and a canine companion at your side, you'll need to diagnose symptoms, gather ingredients, brew potions, and cure ailments in this open-ended sim RPG.
Introduction
Potion Permit offers a refreshing take on the “cosy farming sim” vibe most of its contemporaries have. It’s not all “yay new person comes into town, we’re nice and welcoming and here are some free seeds and a tractor”. You actually feel unwelcome and the villagers are wary of you. The hostility is palpable, and you have to really work for their approval.
This game brings new mechanics and a different way of thinking about gathering resoruces and crafting things, all while still doing the the JRPG genre justice.
Storyline
Without spoiling too much of this admittedly good story, you’re an aspiring chemist on your way to Moonbury, a town that is wary of the outside world. They are initially mistrusting and downright rude to you - which I loved, I always found it weird that you’d arrive in, say, Pelican Town, and everyone immediately loves and trusts you.
They traditionally rely on their local witch doctor to do their healing, but when the mayor’s daughter falls ill with a disease the quack (and as a meanwhile mandated potion master, I can comfortly say he’s a quack) can’t cure, they are forced to trust an outsider with their medical needs - you.
As you continue to care for the girl, you learn more potion recipes and learn more about the town and its secrets. I haven’t seen the entire story myself yet, so I can’t comment on whether or not it was a good ending, though I love what I’ve seen so far. You know what, go see for yourself!
Gameplay
First of all, some honesty: the controls take some getting used to - having K and J be the most commonly used buttons and not A and E is weird, to say the least - but once you get past that and get used to it, it’s smooth sailing.
I’m not used to playing games solely with a keyboard and not touch my mouse, but at the same time it takes me back to the very beginning of my career as a gamer, the super retro keyboard only DOS games, and honestly I’m here for it.
The potion crafting mini-game is innovative as well.
Instead of just “here are some ingredients, click the cooking pot, done”, you have to combine ingredients, which each have their distinctive Tetris-like shape, to fill out the required shape for the recipe.
Can’t fill it out? Can’t brew the potion, go find some more ingredients! A refreshing way of going about it, with a mini-game and an incentive to go look for more ingredients, while also not being too punishing and giving you the option to replace one ingredient with another (albeit it for a less potent potion, as each recipe has its preferred aspect of ingredients).
Here’s another something I love: my house!
You get a run-down, dusty house for your temporary stay in Moonbury, which you can decorate with… more run-down, dusty furniture.
Oh, and a plant.
Seeing the way your house improves as your reputation does, and unlocking more, prettier furniture as you go along is so satisfying. Decorating your house in sims like this is what I live for, honestly.
Atmosphere
Everything is visually very pleasing, pixel graphics done right. The little animations and the attention to detail give you a lot to look at and enjoy.
The background music is super relaxing and the little sound effects are on point.
Tutorial
Nothing much to say about the tutorial. It instructs as it should, and even more importantly, you can revisit all the information at will - which I always appreciate and wish more game devs would implement.
Alongside your quest log, ingredients information and relationship panel, there is a ‘tutorial’-tab that let’s just reread the tooltips you’ve previously received (and potentially just skipped through because you weren’t interested at the time. Guilty as charged.)
Modding
I haven’t personally played Potion Permit with mods, so I can’t recommend any or vouch for their quality. However, though there’s no Steam Workshop support, both NexusMods and WeMods have mods available.
TL;DR
If JRPG is your thing, I think this is one of the better ones.
Even though I’m not usually a JRPG type of gal, I thoroughly enjoyed playing this one for at least a couple of hours straight. It’s one of those games I will sporadically revisit and advance over probably half a decade before I finish it, but I could equally see myself hyperfixating and binging it for 35 hours in one sitting, too. Very versatile game that, thanks to its retro-esque design, is essentially timeless.
Questions or comments? Let me know on Steam or on Twitter!