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Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!?! review - A premium midcore strategy game with an awful lot to offer

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Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!?! review - A premium midcore strategy game with an awful lot to offer

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!?! is a game about supplying heroes with the weapons they need to get out there and perform all those heroic deeds they're famous for.

And for some reason all of the characters in it are potatoes. There's even a potato dog. But don't let that put you off too much, because there's a great strategy game underneath the starch.

There are some problems here though that mean the game isn't quite perfect for mobile play. But if you're willing to look past them you'll find a game that's surprisingly deep and surprisingly fun.

You say potato

Essentially the game is a sim that sees you running a weapon shop. You need to buy materials, make bows, blades, and axes, then sell them on for a tasty profit.

You also need to unlock new areas to sell your goods, find secret objects, and make sure all of your smiths get paid at the end of the month.

There's more to it than that though. You need to know your market, making sure you're selling the right weapons to the right kind of adventurer.

And you need to ensure you're using your employees to the utmost of their abilities as well. There are different coloured slots in your shop, and making sure they're inhabited by the correctly hued worker will get you bonuses.

The better the weapons you build, the more renown you'll receive from returning heroes. You can use this renown to spread your operations to new locations.

Build, grow, feed your dog, give your unscrupulous business partner his share of the profits. It's a simple loop, but it's one that's going to tangle itself around you nice and tight.

And you're going to let it. But there are a few niggles here, mainly with the way the game saves. If you go out of the app, it'll revert your progress to the last auto-save.

This means you can't set the game down while your smiths are off smithing, selling, or scouting for new goods. And that's a bit rubbish for a game on mobile.

I say also say potato, because that's how it's pronounced

The UI is a little bit cluttered as well, especially on smaller screened devices. But these are problems you can look past if you're willing.

And in all honesty you should be willing. This is a premium midcore game that crackles with the sort of interesting energy that's getting rarer on the App Store these days.

It looks lovely, it's smart, and it's pretty original. It's just a shame that it isn't quite as suited to the platform it finds itself on as it could be.

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!?! review - A premium midcore strategy game with an awful lot to offer

A slick production with a few niggles that keep it away from the greatness it probably deserves
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.