My fathers a butcher in a small town. Times are rough in the current economy and due to the small nature of the town every business takes a hit; its only really at the weekend when things get busy and the shop sees a slight burst in customers. The rest of the time its quiet or as he says boring beyond belief. “But your payed to effectively not work hard” I used to say “It can’t be that bad” I respond to his response of “You have no idea what its like to watch a clock slowly tick all day”. In my later years I began to understand how he must feel to be bored every day of the week and I can think of no better comparison to his job than Weapon Shop de Omasse.
Its not that the premise or the actual gameplay is flawed as both are great. Rather than take the role of heroic adventurer once more, players take upon the job of an apprentice blacksmith who serves the variety of heroes of the land who come in need of weaponry. The actual act of forging the weapons is a fun little mini-game and other such tasks like ordering stock or polishing weapons take up your day to day work. Unfortunately thats it in terms of gameplay, as you sit around performing mundane tasks to pass time occasionally an interesting phrase is thrown out by the grind-stone (Twitter for heroes on quest) as you await the next customer to arrive. The customers themselves are all pretty great and unique, bringing banter and tales, but alas the tedious nature of sitting around watching the clock is just too much.
Video games are an escapism for a lot of people from their everyday life and work. This game is a metaphor for my fathers daily life. Sure its ok some of the time but the majority of the time is a clock watch, counting the minutes down until the next tea break, lunch break or the glorious moment when he can hang up his apron and leave for the day. The last thing on earth he would want to do is play a virtual recreation of his day. All work and no play make Joe a dull, dull boy.