Weapon Shop de Omasse

Although it was initially not planned for Western release, it was released on the eShop on February 20, 2014 in North America. Critical reception on the game was heavily divided; while its story was praised, its blacksmithing gameplay was not as well received by some reviewers, who called it tedious, while others found it a unique twist on the JRPG.

• Writer — Yoshiyuki Hirai • Publisher — Level-5 • Modes — Single-player • Genre — Role-playing video game, Rhythm game • Platforms — Nintendo 3DS • Released — November 21, 2012 (JP) February 20, 2014 (NA) • Developer — Nex Entertainment • Series — Guild

• Illustration — The player smiths a weapon by hitting the molten metal (lower screen) while the Grindcast is visible on the upper screen. The player takes the role of Yuhan, an apprentice blacksmith who has set out to revitalize his master's failing business. The player must craft and rent out weapons to heroes to assist them on dungeon crawls, ultimately attempting to defeat the Evil Lord who threatens the world. Weapons are created in part by using a rhythm minigame set to a musical beat; how well players can follow the beat determines the overall quality of the weapon forged. Other aspects include speaking to customers to determine the right weapon for the task. As the game is set only in the weapon shop itself, the story outside the shop is shown only via the Grind cast, a Twitter-like magical apparatus that gives the player a real-time feed of their dialog and quests, sometimes interspersed with images, as the player crafts weapons.

Originally, this was the only title not to be announced for Western release, with the publisher citing the high degree of translation required and debatable audience size for the game for a localization to be produced. In January 2014, a classification of the game was posted by the Australian Classification Board under the title, Weapon Shop de Omasse, suggesting that the game would receive a localization. The game was released on February 20, 2014 after the announcement during a Nintendo Direct on February 13, 2014.